Fereniki Hotel

1 reader found this review helpful

This would have been the perfect holiday (crystal blue sea, good food, relaxed nightlife, lovely town, lots of activities) if it wasn’t for Fereniki Hotel.
Georgioupolis is a friendly, relaxed town in a fantastic location on the North coast of Crete. It is a comfortable 30 minute bus journey from Rethymnon, which makes it an ideal location to go on day trips. There is plenty to do in Georgioupolis itself with lovely beachside bars, fantastic food (definitely eat at Georgia’s and Mythos), a variety of gift shops selling traditional Cretan produce and an atmosphere which you’ll want to soak up while sipping on your delicious (and very strong) Greek cocktail.
So far so good....... Unfortunately me and my partner were so disappointed with Fereniki complex that I have to mention it in order to warn those going to Georgioupolis. Basically, don’t stay at the Fereniki.
The reception staff and manageress were among the most unhelpful and frankly rudest people i have encountered. The manageress, whom we insisted on talking to after seeing the state of our allocated room, was not only unwilling to help, but ignored us and left us waiting for an hour in the lobby along with five other unsatisfied and disappointed couples/families. After an hour we realised that she was doing nothing to sort out new rooms and we were left with no idea of what was happening.
We were eventually allocated a new room, which was better than the original, but was by no means a 3* room as advertised. The sheets and towels were not changed once during our one week stay and the room could definitely not be described as clean, even after the cleaner had just been in - I don’t think a single detergent or cleaning product was used to "clean" the room.
I really would recommend Georgioupolis to anyone - it's a brilliant destination for couples and families, but I would urge you not to stay at the Fereniki Complex because you are bound to be disappointed. No one wants to stay at a dirty hotel with rude staff and have their perfect holiday tainted.
Georgioupolis = 10/10
Fereniki Complex = 1/10

1 reader found this review helpful

First thing to mention is that Georgioupolis is a lovely little village and I would thoroughly recommend anyone looking for a peaceful and relaxing holiday to check it out - the Tavernas and restaurants are excellent with a wide range of excellent Greek food - and the beach, river, people, and location of the village all contribute to making it a great destination.
Just don’t stay at the Fereniki complex.
We were allocated an extremely substandard room on arrival - complete with broken toilets, doors, and lights. The room was also not even prepared for our arrival at around 6 in the evening (check out time is midday).
After complaining with 5 similarly unhappy groups and couples we were finally allocated marginally better rooms - however this took a long time and a lot of jostling with the extremely rude and unhelpful reception staff.
The rooms are cleaned once a day but are basically swilled with water by the maid who seems to have the whole place (180 rooms) to do by herself! Anyone sensitive about hygiene would certainly be advised to look elsewhere.
My advice would be to check out some of the smaller apartment blocks along the beachfront and to go self-catering as the food really is excellent - check out Georgia’s restaurant, Mythos restaurant, and the Samaria Cafe for cocktails! The road train to Lake Kournas is a great little trip and you can even grab the bus to any of the other larger resorts from the bus stop on the main highway about 2 minutes walk from the square.
Lovely place. Lovely holiday. Rubbish hotel!

We arrived at this hotel to find we had been allocated massively inferior accommodation to that we had booked. The hotel was dirty, the self catering facilities were shaking and inadequate for our booking. On complaining to the management they told us to wait until the end of the week, much better accommodation would be available.
We finally got moved to something not much better, but decided to cut our losses and make the best of our holiday.
Our pool smelled and the kids refused to swim in it.
Many other people were in the same situation, and the management and attitude of the staff was not based around customers i feel. This made the atmosphere in the hotel terrible.
I would not recommend this hotel to anyone.
The town, and resort were great.