Agios Nikolaos, Mistral Hotel

My husband and I and our 1-year-old daughter have just returned from a week at Mistral Mare. We booked last minute and didn't read any reviews, our mistake!

We wanted a chilled out holiday, which we got, but were expecting some entertainment. There was NONE!!! But most importantly I wanted to make people with children aware this is NOT a child friendly hotel.

The views from the hotel rooms and dining areas are stunning and the hotel rooms are ok and kept clean, although they didn't have a cot available, so my one-year-old daughter slept on a mattress on the floor. The location of the hotel is beautiful; it stands on a mountain overlooking the sea. However, it is very isolated and it's an exhausting 15-minuet trek to the village of Istron (where the hotel is located, not Agios Nikolas as described), which is small with very few places to go and not very pram friendly. Agios Nikolas is only a short bus ride and worth visiting, it's beautiful with lots to do.

However our biggest problem was that there was no daytime/evening entertainment, apart from the swimming pool, the children had nothing at all to do except run around the bar and restaurant areas, which didn't go down too well with the staff or some of the other guests. But you can't keep a young child caged in their pram all day and night.

There are many very steep steps leading to the hotel and even using the steps to the roof top pool area is daunting. It is really not suitable for anyone elderly, infirm or young children- in fact it could be very dangerous. There is a very small lift in the hotel, however, once we got to the 3rd floor we still had to carry the pram, baby and bags down more steps to get to our room, not very practical at all.

There are absolutely no areas for children to play in and I found myself chasing my little girl around, very concerned she might fall down the steps and constantly on edge as I was very aware some couples had booked their holiday believing the hotel to be Adults only, which I strongly believe it should be.

The bar staff were pleasant but the others were rude and abrupt, maybe just there way, but I would also agree with other reviewer who says that the attitude of staff is that we should be grateful for staying here.

The all-inclusive drinks finish at 10:45pm prompt. Anything you brought after was very expensive and of poor quality. Coffee was only at breakfast and then from 4-5pm?? The food in the pool bar was very poor, so we just never bothered. We had to buy towels, as they are not included, never have we had to do that before on an all-inclusive holiday.

The food was fine, not very varied and got a little monotonous and many Greek families staying there informed us that it wasn't very traditional.

The hotel is really nicely presented and modern, the staff were friendly. We have returned last week (June 2008) the temperature was so hot it was difficult to do more than walking down to the beach and the local village. The path down to the beach is very steep and quite long, at temperatures of 34 Deg C, it is a bit of a pain

Please note that this hotel is 70Km from the airport at Heraklion, this means 4 hours on a transfer bus or 80 Euros and 1 hour in a taxi

Not much in the way of Greek culture but overall a good break inthe sun

Am just back from a 2 week stay at the Mistral Mare and having read negative reviews about this hotel on the internet I was dreading going but it looks like someone somewhere has taken note of comments in the past, I had a great stay!!!!! The staff told me that the hotel has been refurbed and is now rated as a 4* which it thoroughly deserves. The food was excellent and there was loads of choice and the hotel offers the most breath taking views. The rooms were really clean and comfortable and had everything you need but I spoke to some other people there who had paid for Superior rooms and they got all sorts of extras in their room. All round after panicking for a good couple of months I had a great stay and it was great value for money.