Mitsis Rinela

I have never left a reviews like this, but I genuinely feel future guests should know what to expect before spending their money here. This hotel is nowhere near a 5-star standard. At best, I would rate it 3 stars, and even that feels generous based on our experience.

The food was absolutely terrible and one of the biggest disappointments of our stay. The main buffet restaurant resembles a school or hospital canteen rather than a restaurant in a supposed 5-star resort. The food is repetitive, regularly lukewarm and the rice was consistently undercooked. Even more concerning, we saw flies on the food.

Unfortunately, the à la carte restaurants were no better. On one occasion, there was even a dog wandering around the restaurant, sitting alongside diners and begging for food at their tables. How is this considered acceptable in a reputable 5-star resort?

The restaurant service was equally appalling. We finished our starters and the dirty plates remained on our table for over half an hour. When our main courses eventually arrived, the staff simply placed them on the table alongside our finished starter plates rather than clearing the table first. Basic restaurant service appears to be completely lacking.

The attitude of many of the staff throughout the hotel was another major issue. We found numerous members of staff to be rude, dismissive and completely lacking the level of hospitality you would expect from a hotel advertising itself as 5-star.

The pool area is another frustration. Unless you are up before approximately 7:30am, getting a sunbed is virtually impossible. The hotel supposedly has a policy that towels and belongings will be removed from loungers if they are left unused for more than an hour. During our stay, I did not see this policy enforced once. There were plenty of loungers reserved for hours without anyone using them, while other guests were unable to find somewhere to sit. To make matters worse, many of the sunbed cushions are dirty, worn and ripped.

There are various individual food stations dotted around the resort, but you can expect to wait 30–45 minutes just to be served at some of them.

It is clear that money has been spent renovating the rooms and grounds, and admittedly these areas photograph well. Unfortunately, I feel these glossy photographs give a completely misleading impression of the overall standard of the resort. A hotel is far more than renovated rooms and attractive grounds. Food quality, cleanliness, service, facilities and hospitality are what make a genuine 5-star experience, and this hotel fell considerably short in all of these areas.

Please do not allow the beautiful promotional photographs to fool you into believing you are booking a luxury 5-star experience. The reality, in our experience, was very different.

AVOID. Spend your money elsewhere. There are far better hotels offering far better standards and value for money.

Excellent holiday great service, food location and accommodation !!

We stayed at Mitsis Selection Rinela in Kokkini Hani, Crete for two weeks, from 11th–25th August 2026, travelling as a family of four with our two boys, aged 14 and 11.

We booked a two-bedroom family swim-up room, which is set over two floors. This actually works really well with older children because it almost feels like having two separate rooms.

Upstairs there is a bedroom with a large TV, its own balcony, bathroom with walk-in shower, sliding wardrobe and minibar. Downstairs is another sleeping/living area — if you weren’t travelling with children I believe this would normally be set up more as a lounge — again with a large TV and another bathroom. There is also a minibar, kettle, Nespresso machine, ironing board and iron, and there are hairdryers in both bathrooms.

Outside the downstairs room you have your own terrace with seating and a coffee table, leading straight out to the heated shared swim-up pool. There are also clothes-hanging rails outside on both levels, which are really handy for wet swimwear.

The hotel itself is very clean, modern and aesthetically lovely. The rooms are on the small side considering the price and five-star rating, but realistically you don’t spend all day in your room, so it hasn’t been a major issue for us.

Cleaning & minibar

The cleaning staff have been lovely and do a really good job. Our main disappointment with the room service has been the minibar. We were told it would be replenished daily, but this hasn’t really happened consistently. We’ve often ended up asking for drinks when we’ve seen the minibar staff doing other rooms along the corridor.

Swim-up pool & sunbeds

The swim-up pool itself is lovely and being able to walk straight out of your room and into the pool is definitely one of the nicest parts of this room type.

However, there simply aren’t enough sunbeds for the number of rooms sharing the pool. Pool towels are refreshed daily by the cleaners, they bring them to you when they clean your rooms.

Looking out towards the pool, there are around three loungers to the left, two double loungers directly outside some of the rooms and approximately eight more to the right. There are also four plastic-style beds actually in the water.

For around eight rooms sharing this area, I don’t think this is enough.

The hotel states that you shouldn’t leave belongings on a sunbed unattended for more than 20 minutes, but in reality, if you don’t secure a lounger, you risk not having anywhere to sit while your family is swimming. It makes the whole sunbed situation a little frustrating when you’ve specifically paid extra for a swim-up room.

There is a lady who comes around taking drinks orders at the swim-up pool, but we have found this service quite sparse. You tend to have to catch her and ask rather than being regularly offered drinks. That said, there is somewhere nearby where you can go and get drinks yourself.

Main pools & children’s areas

The main pool is large and deep with a beautiful view straight out towards the sea.

Our boys also discovered the crêpe, waffle and ice cream bar there, which also serves toasties and I believe pizza.

Around the corner, near the other pool and yellow waterslide, near the sea there is another snack bar serving things such as burgers, chips, kebabs and pita breads. There is also a children’s pool/waterslide area with its own snack bar serving alcoholic & soft drinks, hot dogs etc up near reception where the big water slides are.

A lot of the rooms on this side of the hotel have beautiful sea views. Unfortunately, our particular room faces a large green tree rather than the sea!

We also noticed that some of the rooms facing the waterslides & kids areas to the right hand side of the hotel reception, have double sun loungers on their own terraces. We’d previously been told that the swim-up rooms didn’t have loungers on the terraces, so I’m not entirely sure how the different room allocations work.

Bars & drinks

The main bar area is nice, although we have found the table service quite slow. It’s generally much quicker to go to the bar yourself and collect your drinks.

We’ve also noticed different coloured wristbands being worn by guests. We were initially told these related to different loyalty levels, repeat customers or different all-inclusive packages. However, when I asked at reception I was told that this hotel operates All Inclusive Plus throughout, so we’re still not completely sure what all the different bands actually represent.

Food & speciality restaurants

The main buffet restaurant is fine. There is plenty of choice and, unless you’re particularly fussy, you should always find something to eat.

There is lots of choice of food, grilled meats, fish, pork, chicken, duck, vegetables and the usual all-inclusive options. They also change things around with different dishes such as Chinese-style food and steak.

I wouldn’t personally say the buffet food is anything to write home about, but it’s perfectly edible and there is a good amount of choice.

The hotel also has speciality restaurants including a steakhouse, Pan-Asian, Italian and Mexican.

These can be booked through the hotel app, but we really struggled with availability. Reception put us on waiting lists and we received emails when reservations became available. However, we couldn’t get into any of them during our first week, which is disappointing when you’re staying for two weeks and paying this sort of money.

We eventually managed to get bookings for the second week of our holiday.

Outside the hotel

We found a really nice Chinese restaurant down the road, (Pan Asia) around €12 each way in a taxi. You could walk it, but we chose not to. We’ve enjoyed it enough that we’ve already eaten there twice during our stay.

There is also a lovely bakery/ice cream shop nearby selling waffles, croissants, ice creams and other treats.

There isn’t a huge amount of nightlife immediately outside the hotel, although there is some entertainment within the resort itself.

There is a bus stop directly outside the hotel which takes you towards the main town/Heraklion area & Malia where there is much more going on. By taxi it’s roughly 25 minutes and around €30, depending on traffic. We’ve also been told there is a McDonald’s there if you’re desperate for something familiar from home!

The hotel is conveniently located only around 15 minutes from Heraklion Airport, which is a big plus, especially when travelling with children.

Teenagers & entertainment

For older children there is a gaming area, which I believe is called Hub17, with arcade games, pool and air hockey. There is also a Kids Club and Teens Club, so there are options for different ages.

Our boys are 11 and 14 and there has been enough around the hotel to keep them occupied, particularly with the pools, waterslide and gaming area.

Weather

We’ve had around three cloudy/windy days during our stay, but generally there is a steady breeze which is actually quite welcome in the heat. The weather has become hotter and clearer as our holiday has gone on and we’re expecting sunshine and clear skies for the remainder of our stay until we return to the UK on Tuesday.

WiFi is around all of the hotel

Overall

Overall, Mitsis Selection Rinela is a nice hotel. It is very clean, attractive, in a good location and there are plenty of facilities for families. The swim-up concept is lovely and the two-storey family room works particularly well when travelling with older children because you get some separation and privacy.

However, there are a few areas that let it down for us — particularly the lack of sunbeds around the swim-up pool, inconsistent minibar replenishment, slow drinks service and the difficulty getting reservations in the speciality restaurants.

For a standard-priced family holiday I would probably view some of these things differently. However, we paid around £18,000 for two weeks, and at that price my expectations of a five-star hotel are naturally much higher.

We’ve had a nice holiday and there is plenty we like about the hotel, but based on our experience so far, I personally don’t feel it quite delivers the level of service or overall experience I would expect from a true five-star hotel costing £18,000 for a two-week family holiday.

It’s a lovely-looking hotel and we’ve enjoyed our stay, but for us, the overall experience doesn’t quite match the premium price tag.