Enorme Santanna Island

We have just returned from a weeks break to the Enorme Santana Island. I’ve rated it 5 star with some honest critisms, it felt wrong giving a 4 as you can see they are trying so hard and it is beautiful! The positives: the views are beautiful, we’d highly recommend a sea view swim up room. The rooms are spotless, water is replenished everyday, towels are changed if needed. The food (im GF so this also comes into my criticisms below) but for an all inclusive all round really good, lots of choice for most, my husband found it really flavoursome and you can literally eat all day as there is always something open. The chefs were constantly cooking fresh meats and replacing the foods. The range of drinks to choose from is great, the enorme cocktail and pink lady are lovely and the Aperol spritz bar is worth a visit. The staff work SO hard, it was the same faces every day 12-14 hours a day, always so pleasant and efficient. Nothing is too much trouble. They seem to have a lot of staff some seem new and some with a language barrier for basic orders. Please take this into consideration when waiting for drinks by the pool or waiting for a crepe at the station. They are trying their best. Be patient. The location of the hotel is close to sisi fishing harbour with a lot of nice restaurants and bars. It’s within walking distance. I used the spa and enjoyed a facial and back massage, it was lovely! Little pricey but I’d recommend a visit, the products are beautiful. The criticisms: There are gluten free options but soooo limited. I had one choice at each restaurant and GF people don’t just eat eggplant for starters. We didn’t visit the Asian restaurant as my only option was veggie sushi. I pretty much had the same everyday, omelettes for breakfast and for lunch and tea; chicken in a sauce, meats, salad and potatoes. The stews had gluten in, obviously pizzas/pastas contained gluten, everything else was battered. I had NO dessert options, Mary (who was lovely and very helpful) did bring me a yoghurt with honey one night but I don’t eat yoghurt. It really isn’t difficult to have a little station dedicated to GF guests, maybe monitored by a member of staff and we get given a red band to show allergies, to stop other people hounding it. Gluten free pastas would have been nice, stews without the flour to bulk it up, GF breads available at all times like everyone else’s, I could ask for it but you feel like an inconvenience when the staff are already so busy. Offer ice cream for desert with tubs or little chocolates again without gluten. It’s not that difficult to offer more. This hotel is NOT for children. We don’t have children but it’s not hard to see it’s more catered to an adults all inclusive. There are no slides or a dedicated kids pool. It’s very luxurious and the entertainment is for adults; a DJ late on, violinist and singers. They need more entertainment, it doesn’t need to be tacky, but maybe an indoor space with a quiz night, karaoke. Guests need something at night, we got a few rainy days and windy evenings so something indoor would make sense. You also need citronella bands or sprays, I got bit a lot! The sunbeds… yep you do need to be up early to reserve a good one. Overall, lovely holiday, just needs a few little things changing.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5 We’ve just returned from a stay at Enorme Santanna Island Resort and overall had a lovely holiday, but there were a few things that stopped it from being a full 5-star experience. Starting with the positives — the staff were absolutely amazing throughout our stay. Every member of staff we encountered was friendly, welcoming and always happy to help. The rooms and hotel grounds were spotless and very well maintained. The complex itself is huge, with plenty of space and beautiful sunset views in the evenings. There are three main pools plus additional private pools for selected rooms, which is a great touch. The food overall was excellent. The buffet had a really good selection and the à la carte restaurants were mostly fantastic. The Greek restaurant was excellent and the Asian restaurant was exceptional — easily the highlight of the dining experience. Unfortunately, the Italian à la carte restaurant was a big disappointment. The food was genuinely poor and tasted like frozen food that had simply been reheated, which felt out of place compared to the quality elsewhere. There were also a couple of service issues. One day housekeeping completely missed our room, so I called reception twice to request fresh towels and for the bed to be made. They did eventually make the bed, but then forgot the towels. Not a huge issue, but something that shouldn’t really happen at this level of hotel. The room amenities were also a little underwhelming. There’s no minibar as such — just a bottle of water each day and a bottle of sparkling wine on arrival. The coffee in the buffet restaurant was another downside. It comes from a push-button machine and was honestly dreadful. Thankfully the bars around the resort serve proper coffee, which was much better. The main reason I’m giving this hotel 4 stars rather than 5 stars though is the almost non-existent evening entertainment. This genuinely let the hotel down and put a dampener on the holiday. Even my elderly parents repeatedly commented on how boring the evenings felt. We arrived on a Wednesday and there was live music in the buffet area — everyone was dancing, enjoying themselves and the atmosphere was fantastic. The energy around the hotel felt completely different. Then for the remaining four evenings… absolutely nothing. You could hear a pin drop. The music in the buffet was so quiet it was barely noticeable, and the à la carte restaurants had no music at all. There is music by the beachfront bar, but there just wasn’t any atmosphere there. It was actually disappointing seeing couples and families making an effort, getting dressed up for dinner, and then having no real evening atmosphere or entertainment afterwards. If the hotel introduced proper nightly entertainment, live acts, or even one dedicated evening venue with a DJ, music and a dance floor, this place could easily be a 5-star experience. Overall, a beautiful hotel with fantastic staff, great food and lovely facilities, but the evenings really need attention. I can understand why British Airways rates this hotel as 4 stars rather than 5.

Just stayed here for a week for a special occasion and wanted to leave an honest review. We stayed in a private pool sea view room. The room itself was lovely and very modern. The bed was a little too soft for our liking, but that’s personal preference. The main downside for us was that the sun didn’t hit the balcony until after 3pm. Having paid extra for the private pool upgrade, we were disappointed not to get more use from it during the day. The rooms are quite high up and the balconies from the rooms above block a lot of the sun, plus they can be very windy. Personally, we would have preferred one of the front swim-up rooms as they seemed to get much better sun exposure and also had pillows on the double loungers. I don’t understand why the private pool rooms — being the more superior room type — only have completely flat loungers. We had to take pillows off the sofa bed. The positioning of some of these rooms just isn’t ideal, although they are definitely better than the ones facing the road at the other side of the complex. I honestly wouldn’t have been happy paying the same amount and receiving one of those rooms. Food was okay overall. The buffet wasn’t what we expected from a 5-star hotel and often felt like a random mix of choices. The salad bar was very good and the desserts were lovely, but we weren’t overly impressed with the main buffet food and ended up eating out most evenings. We did try the Asian restaurant, Umika, and the food there was absolutely beautiful. Again with the à la carte restaurant reservations we did manage to get booked in but agree with other reviews that even when they show fully booked the restaurants are strangely empty. No clue what’s going on there. Drinks were good with plenty of cocktails to choose from and premium brands although the taste did vary depending on who made them. Plenty of bottled water available and the sparkling wine was lovely. The sangria - not sangria. Nice but nothing like the real deal. The staff were all genuinely lovely. Every member of staff we encountered was professional, friendly and helpful. Unfortunately, I did have one incident where a male worker entered our room during the day while I was in the toilet. He left immediately, but it took management some time to establish who it was and why he had entered. We were later told it was maintenance due to a faulty toilet, although we hadn’t reported any issue so I do find that hard to believe. They did apologise and gave us a bottle of wine. Aside from this incident, I really couldn’t fault the staff. One thing we really didn’t agree with was having our all-inclusive bands removed on the final day and being given only a lunch token instead. We’ve stayed in many 5-star hotels around the world and have never experienced this before. Our arrival and departure flights were both very late, meaning we effectively lost almost two full days of all-inclusive that we had paid for. Late check-out wasn’t available, so we had to wait around from 11am until our 7pm pickup. There is a luggage room, but for a hotel of this size the shower and changing facilities should definitely be better given late check outs aren’t really available. Overall, the hotel itself is absolutely beautiful and there are a lot of positives, but there are also a few things that let it down and prevent it being “luxury”. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend paying extra for the private pool upgrade. The best pool in the hotel was actually the smaller one as it was sheltered from the wind and a real sun trap. Only issue is it’s further from the bar. Waiter service at the pool would have made a big difference here. Sissi itself is a beautiful little resort, the Cretan people are lovely, and Crete is absolutely stunning. We would happily return to Sissi, but probably not to this hotel.

Spa experience was just great, franchesca did exactly what i needed. she gave me the feeling of relaxtion which i craved since a long time. 10/10 The steambath was also very refreshing and the staff of spa reception very friendly.

Beautiful resort with amazing food and staff.Shoutout to our new Greek best friend Kleio for making our stay there much much better.We couldn’t thank her enough,love you girl