The Syntopia Hotel - Adults Only

This is a brilliant hotel, we visited in mid-October and had a great experience. We had a lovely room off the quiet side of the hotel, our room was compact, but if you fully unpack cases and push them to one side there is more than enough space. The showers are huge and excellent. Room service every day. Lots of mirrors and space to get ready, but it is dim lighting (if that’s important for you for applying makeup). The main pool is great, very clean, not heated so a bit cold in October but didn’t stop us on the hot days. The sun only hits one side of the pool so there is a scramble for the best day beds, I imagine in height of summer there is less of this. A second pool at the back of the hotel, again with its own bar and plenty of sunbeds. The rooftop pool and bar are lovely also. The best all-inclusive food that we have experienced, huge variety and all high quality. Lovely calm dining area with excellent drinks service. Full bar menu available during dining. Lots of options available at the three sittings. I’ve seen reviews of people complaining about the drinks availability, but I wouldn’t let this put you off. Wine, beer, Prosecco and 4 lovely frozen/iced cocktails are available from 10:30am. The staff can’t do enough for you, they walk around the pool during the day and bring drinks over, the bar is well staffed and they knock out the list of cocktails extremely quickly. The reception staff are so helpful, they arranged car hire for us and walked us through a map of Chania and Rethymno to provide recommendations and how-tos. Entertainment/ facilities: There is music of some kind on most evenings (band / violin or cello player / DJ etc). Not that varied but all very good. We visited the spa, which is exceptionally good, go above and beyond any spa I’ve visited in the UK with very knowledgable and skilled therapists. It’s easy to get the bus into the nearby city of Rethymno which is well worth doing. Also Padel and Tennis courts at adjacent hotel, also a will kitted out gym within The Syntopia itself. The decor and general vibe of the hotel is gorgeous and you will feel extremely calm and at home. Lots of different places to go within the hotel, different bars, lots of lovely indoor space. We would definitely return and hopefully will next year!

Brilliant hotel, very tranquil and just the right amount of elegant/posh without being too uptight or over the top. Beautiful crystal clear pools, with comfortable padded sunbeds all around. Food was exceptional and the bar service/waiters taking drinks orders from your sunbeds means you never have to lift a finger! Katarina treated us fantastically well in the hotel spa and got us some great deals on a couple of different treatments. A fantastic spa experience all around, left feeling very relaxed and much looser than when we walked in!

We’ve just come back from our honeymoon at the Syntopia hotel and wow. Everything was perfect, amazing food, amazing atmosphere, friendly staff and drinks all day long! Lovely room with views of the main pool & great music! Couldn’t be happier here it was truly beautiful!

We have stayed in a few all inclusive resorts, the last one being the Excellence Resort in Punta Cana - which has now set the bar for an inclusive. So the Syntopia had a lot to live up to. Check in - We arrived at about 11pm at night and check in was quick and easy. We were given cute wristbands which make a nice keepsake, the WiFi code and a QR code which takes you to the app. When we went to the room we had some snacks waiting as we arrived so late. This was cheese, hams, breadsticks, olives etc - which was a nice touch. App - The app is easy to use and all information is on there. You use this to book your time slot for the evening meals. Room - We paid a little extra for a pool view room. I think we got the short straw with this as it was above the bar, so the view was 25% pool view, 75% view of a roof. The room is the smallest we have ever stayed in when on holiday. In fact it is smaller than our bedroom at home. We arrived with one suitcase between us and had to move things around to fit it on the floor, so I am not sure how you would manage with two suitcases. Bedroom was comfy and the decor was nice. However everything is very dark. Toilet was really dark, where you do your makeup was also dark so hard to see what you are doing. The room looks nice with the mood lighting, but it is not really functional. I saw a few reviews on here complaining about the noise from the road, but we did not find this to be an issue. There was noise from the bar below until about 1am but I didn’t have an issue getting to sleep. There is a mini bar in the fridge which had a bottle of water daily. Everywhere else we have stayed usually includes soft drinks, crisps, snacks, nuts and sometimes spirits. We also had to pay to use the safe here, which we have never had to do on holiday. These two points is the reason I have given my review a 4 instead of a 5. Food - As mentioned earlier, we stayed at the Excellence so evening meals was a choice of A La Carte restaurants, in which we had a different restaurant every night. When I booked this hotel, I felt like having the same buffet restaurant for breakfast, lunch and dinner was a bit of a downgrade to what we were used to - how wrong I was. The food here is so good. Every single meal has been really fresh and tasty. Evening meals have a different theme each night. The food for me was one of the highlights of this holiday. Drinks - During the day you have a choice of 4 slushy style cocktails from 10:30 a 17:30, then after 17:30 a wider cocktail menu is available. All drinks were tasty and not watered down. There is waiter/waitress service around the pool for drinks which I could not fault. Service at mealtimes and the evening I also could not fault. Sunbed’s - This is the first holiday we have ever been on where we had to be up at 6:30 in the morning to get one of the day beds in the sun. We were down there before sunrise and quite a few of the day beds were taken - but we always managed to get a day bed

We stayed at the Syntopia for a week and what a great experience it was! Very relaxed atmosphere, staff, especially the roof top bar staff were very friendly and approachable. The food was amazing as were the staff and chefs in the restaurant area. No hassle, just a really chilled out vibe. Most of the beds on podiums over the pool were taken pretty early, but that didn't bother us as there was always plenty of beds left to use. The room we had which had an inland view was comfortable and spacious, although the shower did not have a fixture for the shower head so we needed to hold it every time we had a shower. Not a biggie but something worth mentioning. Shout out to Katarina at the Spa also for organising our treatments and being very accommodating. All in all a great stay and this hotel will always be special to us as it's where my partner and I got engaged.

From the moment you walk in the door, this hotel has a calm and relaxing welcome to offer. We usually arrive very late in the evening due to flight times, check in is simple and easy, we have only stayed in a superior room so once upstairs there is a fridge with an array of drinks for you to choose from, along with a simple charcuterie if you are hungry. This was our 3rd visit to this hotel, 3 years in a row, so it’s like coming home now. The staff are friendly and look after us very well. We go on an all inclusive basis, and the variety of dishes to choose from is superb in the dining room. They give a lot of attention to their diners in a non-intrusive way, it is highly commendable. Throughout the day there is a food bar for snacks, which again has a good menu. From 10.30am in the main pool area, the bar opens and stays open till late, with servers constantly back and forth all day. There are another 2 bars on site but this is the one we prefer to be around, where we do the majority of our sunbathing (there are another 2 pools on site). They have an eclectic mix of entertainment, which reflects the feel of the hotel itself and you can really find yourself sometimes, depending on you of course, but for all these reasons we will keep coming back to this fabulous hotel.