Xenia Hotel - Νότια

Loved it , great room , great view , stayed for a night in early July , best location in Hora Skafion , friendly discreet staff , parking, highly recommend as a base for exploring the south coast or just a night or two. and there is parking if you can find it .

Great location with pet friendly facilities, very clean rooms and a wonderful restaurant with high quality food open all day long! Highly recommended when in south Crete for relaxing holidays!

We have been staying here usually twice a year since the early 1990s. We have seen it change ownership, have various accretions added but throughout it has had the one great point - the same excellent manager. It has the best rooms and the best location in Chora Sfakion. We like the area...so we come back and back and back!

Very tasty, very nice people. We could take a look into the cooking pots and had some questions answered before we chose. That was awesome! ?

Nice place next to the sea !! Friendly, helpful and polite staff. Very tasty homemade food. Must GO!!

Review for the restaurant part only: Great food and service! Meat was very tender and seasoned to perfection. Appetizers were also very nice. The view from the terrace is excellent and the toilets were very clean.

It would have been a lovely stay, except when things go wrong, the management is ill-prepared to handle it. The room was very bare-bones basic, but we didn't care as we were on our anniversary trip and spent most of the time exploring the area anyway. The shower is tiny and devout of a curtain, and the room was cave-like long and dark. Wifi was very temperamental and didn't work about half of the time. Again, none of it mattered as long as we had a safe and semi-comfy place to sleep. But on our last night, as we got back to the room with the wine we picked up from the downstairs restaurant with an intention of enjoying our last holiday evening, the AC wouldn't start as we got back after dinner. The room was excruciatingly hot and stuffy from the August heat, and after struggling with restarting the system, etc ourselves for about 20 minutes, we went downstairs to ask for help. For the next 30 minutes while I was about to faint from the stuffy heat, and manager explained that AC blocked/failed, things like this happen, and there is nothing he can do. He had a very nonchalant attitude about it, and just shrugged his shoulders when I said I could not sleep in that room and I was feeling physically unwell. I insisted he gets us another room for the night. Finally at ~1am and utterly worn out, we were informed to go to another hotel down the street. The room was much smaller than what we had before with 2 tiny beds and rock-hard mattresses & pillows. It had a view of a brightly-lit alleyway, but at least had working AC. Not exactly the romantic last night of a special holiday trip we had hoped for, but at least we could sleep. The next day before leaving, we still came to Xenia and had lunch there (we gave all of our meal spend to Xenia, because I recognise meal revenue as important to a small hotel; and food was genuinely good). We just asked all charges to be put on the room and never insisted on seeing a single bill (which were never offered). So as we were told the total for the stay upon checkout, I asked the manager about the "adventure" night. He looked at me with a big question on his face, and said that he had paid for the second room, and we didn't need to pay for it. I explained that from our standpoint, we paid for an experience which we did not get, and the experience of having to pack up in the middle of the night in a suffocating room before moving to an inferior space with 2 tiny uncomfortable beds was not what we had signed up for. He insisted that we had 2 rooms and I should be happy with that. He refused any kind of discount, and didn't even offer to comp lunch. Or the wine which we bought from him the night before and left untouched on the table due to spending 2 hours sorting out the room livability situation instead of enjoying our last night. I didn't want to ruin my holiday memories any more than they already were spoiled, and we just paid the whole bill. All in all, the village was lovely and full of friendly wonderful people. It could have been a wonderful holiday. I understand that things break down, and hotel can be full. But what is not acceptable is the management handling it in such a poor matter. "You had 2 rooms, and I am not asking you to pay for the second one" is one of the most absurd things I have heard, even as someone who travels 70% of the time for work in developing markets. Having surpassed 100-country mark, unfortunately I will have this experience as a large stain on otherwise lovely holiday.

Thank you so much for accommodating us at the last minute. Beautiful location, great hotel and staff - had a fantastic night. Loved the steps down into the sea and the sun terrace. Great view from our balcony over the gorgeous harbour. Wish we could have stayed longer.