Samaria by the Sea ★★★

Fata Morgana Studios & Apartments ★★★

"We stayed here for two weeks. The location is excellent, right above Orthi Ammos beach and in the centre of an olive grove. Our reception was warm and friendly and we had no issues whatever during our stay. The apartment was very clean and everything worked properly including the air conditioning, ceiling fan, Wi-Fi and TV. There was plenty of hot water and the shower pressure was good. The large bed was comfortable and sleep quality was high; we slept with the patio doors open every night. There are good fly screens on every window: we had no issues with mosquitos. There was adequate tableware and enough kitchen equipment to prepare simple meals - we made breakfast and lunch ourselves and had dinner out most days. Basically, an excellent self-catering apartment. There is a useful supermarket about 1 km away which, though tiny, carries all the stock we could possibly have needed. Fata Morgana loans sun umbrellas and beach towels which was very helpful. Take some string to tie the umbrellas to stones if the wind is strong. Our apartment was on the ground floor and had a small balcony with table and chairs. It felt very private. The rooms have all been recently refurbished and upgraded; the design of our room was very good, with lots of matching curtains and sunblinds. A car is essential here. The route through the mountains from Chania is not as difficult as it would appear from a map. The beach is sandy and shelves very gently so swimming, or playing in the water, felt very safe. Access is via a sand dune that becomes really hot, so bring suitable footwear. However, when the strong meltemi or etesian wind blows the beach can be uncomfortable - as with all Greek islands in the Aegean. We definitely recommend Fata Morgana. "

Gigilos ★★★

"Really good service and a really nice room. Gift of local honey on departure was a touching surprise. Meals were good. Location was good. I’d recommend this hotel for all. It’s a starting point for one of the hikes on this part of Crete, we it’s a path leading to Marmara."

Livikon by the Sea ★★★

"One of the better places to stay in Hora Sfakia if you are looking for touches of luxury. The rooms are well furnished, with that unusual feature in Crete villages - a shower cubicle! Our room was actually disappointing because it looked as if it had the smallest balcony in the hotel (room 11). Hospitality was good."

VENTUS Luxury Suites ★★★

"Perfect location in this corner of heaven. From check in to check out the service was amazing. The room was lovely, comfy bed, kitchen and awesome shower. Don’t use the hot tub but with a beach on the doorstep why would you!"

Sfakian Horizon ★★

"Horizons is a series of rooms and two roomed apartments at the very back of Chora Sfakion: excellent for view but a hard walk down to the main village. We had a two roomed apartment. Ghastly bathroom: small shower area - hand-held shower- stickty shower curtain. One doublebed bedroom with TV, very poor lighting but with access to private balcony: another room with a poorly fitted (cheap?) kitchen area, some ill-made upright chairs ( the backs were not fitted correctly), one day bed and a TV. Breakfast was a buffet with coffee /tera. orange juice (good), four sorts of bread (fresh) cereals, fresh melon, yoghurt, honey and orange jam, spanokopita or tiropita, cucumberm olives, tomato, little apple turnovers, rizogala, and hard boiled eggs, hot scrambled eggs and hot bacon. Well presented. We paid 90 euros cash per night for the two of us to use an apartment and have breakfast. not bad value for money. The snag for us was that to get to a room you needed to walk down stairs. These are Cretan stairs: no handrail and there was no overwhelming willingness to help with our bags. (I am elderly and find stairs very difficult). However while there was no offer to help us load our car when we left, no praise could be too hogh for the ladies who cleaned our apartment daily. Excellent service"

Sweet Corner Masxali ★★★

"The main problem with this hotel is that they don't refund canceled reservations. They're willing to ruin their professional reputation and lose customers, but if you've already paid them, they don't want to give you your money back. I'd sue them, but I live in Europe. For Russian tourists, this is an insurmountable problem. So avoid this hotel with its supposedly cheap prices. They're simply reselling rooms for the same dates to different customers."

Koutelo by the sea

Daskalogiannis Hotel ★★

"We stayed there for 3 nights in June of 2025 . We loved the room, great AC, view was spectacular and the breakfast was maid to order. The location and customer service were excellent. Luturo was the perfect getaway and I hope to come back to this idilic hotel again in the future!"