Crete was the last stop on our Greek adventure and our package deal included this hotel. I was nervous to stay here because of the reviews, but thought most of the bad ones were quite outdated and would see how it goes. Upon arrival, it is clear to see that the place is very outdated and very basic. The room is good enough though - good size bed (no bugs but ask for an extra pillow), small patio, decent bathroom and very clean. The facilities include a big pool and access to the beach. In general we were comfortable, however there are a few major issues:

- The food is awful. It is usually seeping in oil and tastes terrible. I am a vegetarian and out of the probably 15 salad options, 11 of them had some meat product, and the others were not appetising or satisfactory as a meal.

- The food staff are offensive. - We felt we were being scrutinised during our meals. Based on this, we only had two meals there (four nights we stayed). One of the meals we had, we were confused whether drinks from the orange juice dispenser was included in meals - subsequently they made us pay 3.80 for two small glasses and when we told them we were confused they proceeded to argue with us. This rude and unbending sevice put a bad taste in our mouths. Surely if the customer is confused, you explain in a decent manner and not cause a scene? After this we were not interested in eating there thereafter.

- To compound the above, the resort does not have any other option to eat at - no restaurant or snack bar. If you want to go to town to eat - be prepared for the driveway. It is quite a walk!

As a postive, reception was fantastic and the lady during the day was incredibly helpful and kind.

Ok, previous comments complained, that hotel is no way 4 star. Actually i think it is, because of its service. I don't know any 3* hotel, which offers such services like you can get in doplhin bay - self-control air condition, animation service, sports, pool and environment.

Everything about this hotel would be perfect, instead of how rooms looks like. I've found out several problems, which should not occur in 4 star hotel - facilities - everything together and shower is not separated, water goes under the toilet and remains there even several hours later - no way to go out. When we arrived, water from pipes was orange colour, but just several first uses. washbasin and shower equipment looks too old.

Other things were just fine - nothing special, but if you want to enjoy holiday, nothing what annoys. no bugs in beds, absolutely not. No mosquitos, it was very fine. Air condition necesary, i would not survive without. 3* hotels usualy dont have self controled air condition in price.

Food was fine, enough vegetables, fruit and professional staf. Dont ask them for orange juice, because they will give you lemonade with orange flavour, the same with grapefruit. More safe is beer, vine and coke- kinds.

Location is kind of good in compare to other hotels - apolonia beach is too close to oil power plant and too far from center and other are just in the noise of city center. Dolphin bay is very close to center, but no way you hear noise from that.

Lifeguard on the beach was really annoying, but as i heard, everywhere in ammoudara like this. Sometimes they even dont allow you to go to sea.

If i would have to go there again, i would be not against, but probably in the future i will chose other location, too many nice places to stay always in one place :)

First the Dolphin Bay is NO way a 4 star hotel! The premises are beautiful but the room and hotel itself are gross! Me and my friends rented a bungolow in August. Upon arrival we were tired so we just wanted to sleep, we get into bed only to find bugs in our beds! Not just one but they were everywhere!!!!!! So we went to reception and ask them to change our room, we had to argue with them for over half an hour to get them to change our room. They said there is nothing we can do, the previous people must have been dirty, thats not our fault! Anyway, they showed us another room, guess what?? Yep, it has bugs in it to! So then we requested a room inside the hotel, thinking maybe the bugs are only in the outside rooms. Guess what?? You got it! Another room with bugs! I am not a girly girl who is affraid of bugs, but come on, would you really like to sleep in a bed full of bugs?? If I wanted to go camping I would not have booked a 4* hotel. The place and the staff were just awful. We decided after checking 4 rooms and them all having bugs we were not staying here, we took a walk at 2am and found a hotel a few blocks away, Petousis. They were very nice, and only charged 50E per night per room. The rooms were miniture studio apartments with a kitchenette. This was a high-end economy hotel and guess what.. NO BUGS!!!! It was very simple but very clean. I hope my advice helps =) Oh and by the way, my travel agent had to fight with Dolphin Bay for weeks to get a refund for us. but we got a full refund back! =)

We visited the Dolphin Bay Holiday Resort 10.6.-17.6.2006. The brochure described this hotel as 4*plus and so does the sign infront of the hotel. As soon as we arrived to the hotel's reception we knew this was not 4*plus hotel. Very basic reception hall. Never mind that, but when we got to see our rooms that was a real shock. The rooms had built in beds made of bricks (painted yellow) laid with mattress on top. Very hard to sleep on! The tiles in the bathroom on the wall were falling off. And our promised views on either the sea, the pool or the mature gardens were also far from the truth! Our view consisted of the look on the roof of the canteen and a bit of the entrance hall. Our friend's room had a view of some very dry trees and 5 chimneys from the not far oil factory. We actually changed for this hotel because we didn't want to see these chimneys at all! And instead going to the beautifull Apollonia Hotel next to us (which lived to its 5*), which is near the oil factory we chose the Dolphin Bay, which offers "the view" of the chilmeys anyway. And unfortunatelly our hotel's surroundings didn't make up for the terrible rooms and some of the views! Though I have to say that hotel's staff were cleaning the rooms on daily basis (clean towels, etc).
Entertainment was very poor. Only a bingo and some competitions which weren't funny at all because they were conducted by one qiute irritating man. Entertainment was boring and lasted from 9.45pm to 22.30 or 23.00 with very long breaks in between! So we had an early bed on most of the occasions.
As for the food (all inclusive), it wasn't that bad but it lacked fresh fruit. All we had was watermelon every day and tinned peaches. Few apples, oranges for first 10 people maybe. The man who was giving the water was very tight about it. We were all inclusive in over 30 degrees temperatures and he woudn't gives us enough water to drink with our meals!!! Why saving on water? The 50 litre container cost 3 euros in the shops. So it's not even that expensive. He treated the German guests with more respect and manners than the rest of us.
They had 1 man at the pool bar who didn't know who to serve first (on average 20 people waiting to be served each time).
As we were leaving we couldn't help ourselves and had to speak to the owner. He listened to us for a bit and then in the middle of my "speech" he started talking to another man in greek. So he ignored us pretty much and had very uncomfortable grin on his face! And therefore we won't be coming to this hotel ever again and won't be suggesting it to any of our friends! That's for sure. We would give this hotel rating of 2*plus!