Crete - Sentido Aegean Pearl Hotel Review
Flight to Somewhere rating:
Sentido Aegean Pearl entrance and building
Sentido Aegean Pearl is a 5-star hotel in the town of Rethymnon. It's a seafront hotel, and there is a sandy beach across the street.
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I stayed here for a week on a package holiday with half board and enjoyed the stay very much. I loved the activities - you can greet the day with tai chi on the beach and they also arrange group walks of the area. The food was great - it was buffet, but they tried to add local flavours, which was a good idea.
When you arrive after a long bus transfer, they greet you with a welcome drink and some moist towels - such an amazing sensation to just chill. You check in at small tables rather than having to stand by the reception desk. When you go to the room, the decor is great, very modern and white - loved it!
There is a sister hotel called Pearl Beach in the same complex as the Aegean Pearl, but it has less stars and less perks - if you stay at the Aegean Pearl, you get free sun loungers at the beach, whereas I believe you have to pay to use them if you are in Pearl Beach. The beach is great, really loved being in a beachfront hotel!
You can walk along the sea into the centre of Rethymnon, which is probably a 30 minute walk. If you're not that keen on walking, it's easy to grab a taxi.
So why would I not just rate it 5 stars? There was a multitude of light switches in our room, with half of them not appearing to work properly. It was always a pain trying to switch the lights on in the evening - sometimes we had to press the switch 10 times or more for the lights to switch on. And as you only really need the lights in the evening, we always forgot to ask someone to fix them when we left the room in the morning.
Apart from that, everything was great!