Royal Heights Resort

The location was amazing, however the resort itself is being heavily underinvested in.

All the sun loungers were filthy and stained and never washed in the 11 days we were there. Poolside ashtrays were never cleaned, although to be fair they were not that full as majority of cigarettes were only chain smoked by the male pool bar attendant.

The pool toilets had no hand soap after the first few days, toilet paper dispensers were broken and hanging off the walls.

There were barely enough parasols and those that existed where very tricky to use. Although towards the end of the first week they did appear to have a consignment of new ones that they put out.

There were 2 lovely ladies who served breakfast and worked in the poolside bar who were really the only staff any where near 5 *. It’s a shame for them that they are not under proper management as they would be absolutely shining in the right establishment.

Having stayed here, we will now save some money next time and look at 3* resorts as this place helped lower our standards.

I saw another review describe this place as cat- fishing which is absolutely apt.

Despite having a very underwhelming welcome where we were made to feel like they had no booking and a few polite requests (just more than one chair on balcony please and couple more pillows) no one ever checked in on us to ask how we settled in, was everything ok.

I am sorry to write a bad review but people save hard and look forward to these holidays all year and I wouldn’t want any one else duped like we were by the instagram propaganda and the unbelievable good reviews on here too.

Unfortunately, our experience at The Noverian Scenic (previously the Royal Heights Hotel) Crete fell a long way short of what we expected from a hotel advertised as 5 star. The hotels location is isolated and remote (is a 30 min steep walk downhill into the old town) but this was part of the reason we chose it as it had advertised a good gym and lovely views of the Malia coastline.

The problems started as soon as we arrived. We got to the hotel at around 4:30pm, despite checkin being from 2pm, and were initially told they could not find our booking. The receptionist was incredibly rude and we were left waiting for around 20 minutes with no update.

Eventually we were told they had found our booking, but that the room was not ready and we would need to wait another 30 minutes. What made this worse was that nobody then had the courtesy to tell us when it was ready — we had to go back and ask ourselves. The receptionist was blunt and extremely unhelpful.

The accommodation itself was also extremely disappointing. It was described as a “mini villa”, but in reality it was essentially one large room with an attached bathroom. There was a kitchen area with a hob and fridge/freezer, but nowhere to sit and eat or properly self-cater other than sitting on the beds.

We were travelling as a family of four, yet our ground-floor outside area balcony had just one chair. We repeatedly asked reception for another chair and after 3 days of being ignored we took one ourselves from around the pool. There was one double bed, while our two children were expected to sleep on a very small sofa bed with a very thin, heavily stained mattress.

Even the basics didn’t feel remotely 5 star. We were provided with just one pillow each and no spares. Had to wait 2 full days before any extras turned up despite asking numerous times.

We also went to the pool bar for a drink and were told that we had to pay by card immediately — we couldn’t charge drinks to our room, which seemed particularly strange for a supposed 5 star resort having handed over credit card details at the start of the holiday.

Most of the pool furniture is also either broken or in a state of disrepair. The majority of the sun loungers/beds are made with a material cushion and were heavily stained and was not cleaned whilst we were there.

The gym is in need of a lot of attention with majority of the cardio machines not working. It does have a large selection of weight machines and free weights.

Both the gym and the pool are open to the public and the locals (particularly the pool) use this facility and on occasions (particularly weekends) this can make it very crowded. Again not the exclusivity you’d expect of a 5* hotel.

The pool bar staff played the same playlist of 10 songs everyday on repeat for all but one of the 11 days we were there. This became actually quite irritating after a few days.

One of these issues might be relatively minor in isolation, but combined with the poor welcome, lack of communication and the standard of the accommodation and pool furniture, the whole experience was extremely disappointing.

The biggest issue for us is the difference between how this accommodation is marketed and what we actually received (all advertised photos are years old when it was the Royal Heights hotel).

Advertising our accommodation as “mini villa” and presenting the overall experience as 5 star created expectations that simply weren’t met.

Based on our experience, I could not recommend this hotel as anywhere near a 5 star property. It deserves 3 at best. It unfortunately left the impression with us that it was being run down as a business. We also witnessed numerous other couples and families experiencing frustrations with the resort and making complaints.