Elounda Bay Palace

Beautiful resort, but the “sunbed war” completely ruins the beach experience

We are currently staying at Elounda Bay Palace, and while the hotel itself is beautiful and the location is lovely, the situation with the sunbeds is extremely disappointing — especially for a five-star resort.

There is a very clear sign on the beach stating:

“Sunbeds cannot be reserved. If personal items are left unattended for more than 2 hours they will be removed.”

Unfortunately, in practice, this rule is not enforced.

The so-called “sunbed war” starts the night before. Guests leave towels, bags, children’s toys and personal belongings on the sunbeds in the evening to reserve them for the following day. In the morning, the beach can look completely “full” even though the beach itself is practically empty and most of the people who have supposedly reserved the sunbeds are nowhere to be seen.

This morning I woke up at 7:15 am and this was already the situation shown in the photos attached to this review: rows of sunbeds apparently reserved with personal belongings, but very few guests actually using them.

I came back at 9:15 am — two hours later — and the situation was exactly the same. The beach was still largely empty, yet almost all the sunbeds were “reserved”.

What is even more frustrating is that I spoke to the beach attendant, but he explained that there was nothing he could do about the situation. So the hotel has a clear written policy, but the staff apparently cannot enforce it.

This creates an absurd situation where guests who actually want to use the beach are effectively forced to participate in the sunbed war themselves — waking up early and leaving towels on a sunbed simply to have somewhere to sit later.

And this is particularly frustrating for families with children. We should not have to wake up at 6 or 7 am every morning to “claim” a sunbed in a five-star hotel.

I completely understand that guests want to get a good spot on the beach. What I do not understand is how someone can leave their belongings on a sunbed overnight, disappear for several hours, and still consider that sunbed theirs — especially when the hotel explicitly states that sunbeds cannot be reserved.

The problem is therefore not only the behaviour of some guests. The real problem is the lack of enforcement of the hotel's own policy.

The hotel should either enforce its existing two-hour rule or introduce a proper system for allocating sunbeds. Other luxury resorts manage to do this, and guests should not have to fight over sunbeds every morning.

The Elounda Bay Palace has many wonderful qualities, but unfortunately this issue significantly affects the overall experience. A five-star resort should not have a “sunbed war”, particularly when it already has a clear policy designed to prevent exactly this problem.

I sincerely hope management addresses this, because it is completely avoidable.

Stayed here with family for a holiday.

Paid for a partial sea view room which has no sea view and you have to get to the bottom of the garden part to see anything.

Rooms are dated and we had so much problems with the lock since the lock was temperamental but the hotel changed the locks without telling us and then we could not get into the room. So two trips to the reception to get that sorted. The new lock then jammed and we got locked inside the room at 8pm and eventually managed to get it unlocked and so back to reception and told them and they said somebody will be there shortly. Two calls after and after 45 minutes of waiting, they finally came and changed the locks again!! Nobody could care less.

Beach is small but we always managed to find a spot and the water was on the cooler side to swim. There is a small children's pool next to the small beach and then a larger pool but nobody was manning this fully since kids were dive bombing in and splashing everywhere when the signs clearly said not to but nobody actually enforced this.

There are tennis courts which we used a few times. You have to book them and they were free and you get the racquets and balls from reception. The courts are not well maintained. The children's play area next to the tennis courts also look poorly maintained.

The food was ok. Plenty of choice since we were on half board and never got bored after a week. Drinks are on the expensive side and have to pay for water at dinner which is free at breakfast and in the room- this is an annoying feature in most hotels.

Car park is free and worth venturing out since there are some nice bars and restaurants in town which is a few minutes drive and also supermarkets.

Overall quite disappointed and it is supposed to be part of the Leading Hotels of the World but sadly not at that level of service.