Village Panorama Hotel

Booked two weeks as our kids first holiday abroard. They are fussy eaters and as with other reviews we found the food was a bit hit and miss but there was enough choice to try something different if you didn't like what you had first picked up. Our room was large one of the older ones i believe as it was part of the hotel and not the apartment blocks which were being extended, (this work did not interfear with anyones stay). The room was clean and well presented had been recently decorated and had a good view of the bay. We were to left of and under the level of the bar (about 20 yards away) and a similar distance from the road down to the bay, (which runs behind the hotel), dispite often being in bed before the entertainment had finished the noise from the bar and the road did not interfear with our sleep, the room was that well insulated from the noise. The staff were friendly, polite and helpful. Peter who did all the entertainment from aerobics to bingo and the competitions around the bar at night was brilliant. The competitions were mainly centered on brits versus Pols as they were the 2 largest groups with other nationalities joining one or the other side they were great fun. All in all this was a very enjoyable holiday.

I have booked a family holiday for two weeks at this hotel and only found this website after it had been booked. I am aprehensive about the comments I have read and belive a holiday is what you make it, but there are things that make a holiday better like, helpful staff and clean ammenities.
For the money we paid we are prepared to be buying food and have already warned our 17 and 13 year old not to eat any meat cooked at the hotel regardless of what it is.
I am however concerned about some of the recent comments added as I am allergic to wasp and bees and go into anaphylactic shock if stung.
I know that wasps are going to be there and that I can not always avoid them but I am concerned that we will be put in a room with foliage across the balcony or terrace and they will be heaving with the things, and a resonable room change will not be accomadated without pay.
Im also concerned as we have paid 4 adult prices and have been told we are all in one room and a previous review stated the room they were given for 4 was not big enough.
As the children are both teenagers and a boy and girl I would be interested to hear from anyone who has been there with the same set up as to how they accomadate the children for sleeping, all the pictures show 2 double beds!!!.
we really are looking forward to this holiday and the kids cant wait to go, but as a parent I am worried about what may await us on arrival, if anyone is heading out between now and september please leave feedback that might be relevant
we go in four weeks and are trying to work out how much extra we need to take with us to compensate for the potential fees we will incure at the hotel, also does anyone have any idea how much the taxi transfer is from heraklion to hotel?
Ps
we are giving the holiday are potential 10/10 as we want it to be a great family holiday a more realistic rating will be added on our return.

1 reader found this review helpful

This hotel was awful i dont know what else to say.
It was the worst holiday i had ever been on!!
we paid £400.00 for 2 weeks all inclusive so we knew we was gunna get what we paid for but we didnt expect that!!
the food is awful and i am by no means a fussy eater we spent a fortune eating out day and nite, but to get to anywhere which sold food we had a 25min treck down the mountain and a 40 min hike back up.
The hotel staff are very rude and agressive!!
the rooms are awful there dark and dingy our balcony look out onto a wall which was holding the road up, the wall was about 2 feet away from out balcony and was about 15 feet high so it constantly smelt and we saw sunlight so non of our towels or costumes dried.
Please if you are reading this and have not booked yet dont!! it is a truely discusting hotel!!
the actuall place of agia pelagia is lovely and would defenatly recommed staying there but not in this hotel.
the locals call this hotel hell on the hill!!!
i would not go back if somone paid me.
i was so desperate to get out the hotel i tried to book an apartement down in the town but lots of people from the hotel had the same idea and as it is a busy time of year everywhere was booked up, Guess what thou our hotel had lots of vacancies.

Myself and my partner and 2 children had a 2 week holiday at this hotel in July 2008. We were under the impression being all inclusive there would be a snack bar, as there had been with all our other all inclusive holidays we have had, and were very dissapointed to discover there was not. The choice of food was disgraceful, as was the quality 90% of the time. I tried to speak to my rep, the hotel manager and the head chef, all of whom were not interested in listening to my issue's and just fobbed me off. My children hardly ate at the hotel, and we found ourselves buying food outside of the complex just to ensure the children ate. I dropped a dress size, and had to buy a new bikini while there as a result of not eating (which is great if you want to loose weight)! Occaisionally the choice was ok, but one particular night the food was ok, I had a kebab that was cooked on the grill, only to bite into it and notice it was raw in the middle! Once again, I spoke to the manager about this who told me they liked their meat rare, but as I tried to explain this was pork, and could make people very ill.
The room we initially had was very small, but we did ask for an upgrade and was given a lovely room with a wonderful sea view for an extra 10 euro's per night. No complaints on that part at all, and the room was always kept very clean by the cleaners.
The pool area was ok, but we were always chased by wasp's as there is only 2 bin's so empty cups blowing about all day, and none of the staff came to collect them. Entertainment wise, there is not an awful lot for kid's to do throughout the day, but there is a mini disco every evening, which is done by Sandra who is very nice. Peter is the animation guy there, and he is brilliant, always getting people involved in the various activitie's throughout the day and evening. The only problem there is he has 1 day a week off, and no one covers on his day off, so your left to your own devices that day.
Getting a drink at the bar in the evening is mission impossible, as the queue is ridiculious, and when you do finally reach the bar your only allowed one drink per person. This is always served in a plastic cup, as they do not have the staff to collect the empty glasses.
On the day we were due to fly home, we were told that guest's at the Panorama Village are able to use the pool and snack bar at Apartments opposite the hotel, which really did our head in as we had suffered 2 weeks of awful food. Of all the times I had complained, not once did our rep or the hotel manager tell us we could use these facilities!! All in all this was the worst holiday I have ever had, and all of us (children included) could not wait to get home.
Good Luck to anyone travelling there... your going to need it!

The hotel itself was very basic but fine for what we needed it for – however the staff were just plain rude and unhelpful – when we arrived we were told we did not have a room even though we had a booking ref. and after talking about an hour to sort this our we were just left to find our rooms ourselves after being told that we would have to pay for aircon – even though on the website it states that this will be free during the in season time!
The room was not very clean either - our beds were full of sand and other peoples hair! And the shower room was a joke – there was a shower head but nothing to attach it to the wall so we had to shower with it in our hand and the water would go all over due to there being no shower curtain!

The food was ok – nothing to rave about, although the times that we were given for breakfast, lunch and dinner meant that we had to order a packed lunch and after doing this for one day we opted to just buy lunch ourselves when we were away from the hotel! The packed lunch was a dry stale bread roll with cheese and some kind of meat that looked like ham – but most def did not taste like it!
The bar was another story – the all inclusive drinks were so small that after three sips you were finished and each time you wanted a drink you had to queue for about 20 min as there was only 1 bar tender to about 400 guests. The hotel entertainment was ok for the first night but they did the same thing every night, song for song and word for word (may as well have been pre-recorded).
We also made the mistake of hiring a car from the hotel – only to find that they had not provided us with a map??? So we had this extra cost – when the other tour operators by the beach do this all and with a smile for the same price!
Overall I was not impressed at all with this hotel – having travel a lot around Europe I found this to be the rudest most unpleasant place ever! Our all inclusive holiday cost us more than a self-catering one a week before in Spain and in my opinion we really did not get what we paid for!

Well me and my good lady were really worried about what we were going to find after reading the reviews. Once we arrived at the Hotel we were greeted by a very helpful guy called Yiannis. He run down the list of things we should know and never tried to force anything on us at all. As i am an early riser i used to go down and have a chat with him before i got my coffee.
The Hotel is fab and so are the staff, the one drink per person rule is stated everywhere but all the time we stayed there i was going up to get drinks for us both. the bar staff are great too, yes we met the internet famous Arris and he is a very nice guy. Also working the bar was Charlene she is an absolute gem, orignially from the UK so no problems with the language chatting to her.
The room was spacious and extremely clean. The cleaner came in everyday and done an excellent job.
Now onto the food. Granted there was not a lot of choice but what there was, was very edible and tasty. My girlfriend enjoyed all her meals and she is very fussy with her food. Two mornings during the week we tucked into bacon and eggs. there was always plenty of cereals and yoghurts too.
We hired a quad bike and went exploring and that made trips to and from the beaches easier. The walks to the beaches are rather hard due to the hills but hey what a walk with all the fantastic scenery everywhere you look. A bit of advice.......dont go out of the main entrance to go to the beaches there is a pathway down beside the pool as we found out after a couple of times!!!
We both enjoyed our stay at this hotel and will definately be going back there.

well.......for all the bad reviews on this place we were dreading going!!! upon our arrival (2 july-16 july)we were pleasantly suprised, the whole place is gorgeous, newly decorated and very up to date, our room was one of the newer ones which i supose we were lucky, it was spacious, clean and everything we needed for 2 weeks away! there is no shower curtain but there is a drain in the floor......so does it really matter? put a towel down so you dont slip! our young kids managed!
The pool was fine, maybe not enough sunbeds but not really anywhere else to put any more but we still managed to get a spot everyday so it cant be all that bad. The pool was ok, nothing startling but a welcome cool dip out of the heat, same as every pool you get abroad, its cold when you first get in but fine after a min! as for the drop from shallow to deep we didnt find it a problem, our kids are 10 and 6 and we found that the youngest knew by this, how far she could go but by the end of the holiday she had learnt to swim and was jumping in the deep end!!
The food...this was our only complaint but still not bad enough to spoil our holiday, it is a bit repetative and you dont know what most of it is but we didnt starve always finding something, even the kids who are usually picky eaters managed to eat every day. we did go down to Pennystella which is a apartment restaurant on the corner, slightly down the hill, and if you pre book a day in advance they do an amazing BBQ, great for a change! highly recomended!
the drinks situation was not as bad as people make out, the line goes down really quick and you can get a drink for you partner! the bar staff were great considering the hours they all work!
we made loads of friends here and had a fab time, Peter is some guy! and gets all nationalities playing games(there is a mix of german, polish, danish ect..) he is very good at his job, speaking 7 languages, entertaining kids and adults. Sandra is the kids entertainer and does colouring in and games through the day and the kids disco at night. well done both of you, our kids miss you already!
the hill is steep but we coped, there is a bus from the hotel which leaves at 10am, picks up at 3pm but you can go down on the 3pn one and get picked up at 6pm as far as we were aware you didnt have to pre book this.
there is a lift which can get you from reception to the ground floor but the stairs really arnt that bad!! the reception guy at night is very friendly but the women on during the day are a bit off hand, luckily we didnt have to deal with them!
overall we had a brill time...we were sick of hearing people moan about the smallest things...you get what you pay for and this is greece, your living it their style, if you want english food, amenities..ect then stay in england. we didnt like the food but hey its for 2 weeks of our life and it wasnt going to kill us!!
it was a cheap holiday which we really enjoyed as did the kids, its a beautiful area and views are amazing. dont let bad reviews put you off, its what you make it, and remember its a greek 3*
Hi to all..friends,staff and Peter and Sandra....miss you all love
mitch(playboy 08!!!) , anne and the girls xxxx

1 reader found this review helpful

I would even give 0 if it's possible.
My impression of the hotel is terrible. Don't ever go there!!!! The staff and the receptionists are really rude and do not care about your problems. While we weren't in our room, someone get there and took all the money and credit card from our wallets. When we told to the reception guy about it he seemed to be amused and he just said: I don't belive the story!!! How can you prove it? Hmmm... I can't, but I know that it had to be someone, who had the keys, because nothing was broken. I don't want to tell all the story, but before the robbery we have had an unpleasant incident about the money with the house keeper. Coincidence? I don't really think so.
When we have asked the receptionist guy for one euro for the internet (we wanted to block our credit card), he just said he doesn't have the money - he was really helpfull;(
I am still sick when I think about the way they treat their guests.
Avoid the hotel!!

we stayed between 20th June to 5th July and this was our honeymoon.
If you are a fussy eater then i would advise you stay well away from this place as it caters mostly for the eastern europeans, both lunch and dinner always consists of pastas and rice with either boiled meat of some variety or if it was cooked while you wait was mostly fat, and there is not much in the way for children.
The rooms for what you paid were comfy and kept clean on a daily basis. Unfortunatly you had to pay 5 euros a day for the aircon which when we read the web site we were informed that during in season this would be free and you would only have to pay out of season.
The entertainment was out of this world taking into consideration that there was only one person (Peter) who from 09:00 to 23:30 done everything on his own and done his best to involve everyone.
The bar staff were very freindly and always up for a chat and a laugh and always done there best bearing in mind that they are not the ones who made the 1 drink per person rule but had to suffer the arguing and rudness from the people who did not like this rule.
So all in all forget the food and you will have a great holiday, just bear in mind you get what you pay for and at the price this holiday it is not worth to expect the red carpet treatment.
We would go back but have to look else where for food.

brits beware 19june to 3rd july 2008 the name panorama hotel very apt very nice view but food absolute garbage. just few examples rabbit 3meals on the trot/squid/meat balls presumably made from the previos meals meat.grilled pork 80per cent fat.chicken which can best be described as scrag end of the bird veal which was tried one night but after 3 trips to the bathroom and 2 imodiums problem was cleared up.after that gave the meat a very wide berth.as did a lot of other people another down side was the ice cream quite possibly about 80per cent water a little colouring very little cream and then frozen if left to thaw was almost transparent plus side the bread was quite tasty lucklely supplied every meal tjme.the web site that we booked on gave the hotel a 3 star rating supplied by the owner for the meat it needs to be changed to minus 3 so brits beware about booking at the panorama one more plus pete who does the entertainment works very hard and all in all does a great job.bye all petespc