Good morning everyone, I hope you had a great weekend.  After a short stay in Athens (post 1 and post 2), we had the pleasure of visiting Crete.  It is the largest of Greece’s islands, but doesn’t get as much love (or tourists) as Santorini or Mykonos.  I didn’t know anything about Crete, but I knew I wanted to visit.  I looked up chain hotels on Crete and only found the Radisson Blu Beach Resort in Milatos, Crete.  I booked 3 nights using a bunch of Radisson Rewards Points.  The property is an all-inclusive, but there are different tiers of “all-inclusiveness.”  As a Radisson Rewards Gold Elite Member (thanks to having a few US Bank Radisson Rewards credit cards), we received complimentary breakfast every day.

Even though the beach resort is beautiful, with a nice beach cove and several crystal clear hotel pools, there is a great little fishing village just around the corner.  Laura and I walked over to the fishing village twice during our stay.  There are several restaurants and a small market in town.  We had a delicious lunch, grabbed some snacks at the local market, had a fish dinner (during our second visit) and walked back to our hotel.  In this post, I will show you the beautiful Radisson Blu Beach Resort and share some photos from the small fishing village. In tomorrow’s post, I will share some photos of my amazing ATV tour around Crete… stay tuned!

Upon checking into the hotel, we were given an upgrade to a beautiful room overlooking the ocean.  The room was so new, that they were still working on the rooms a few doors down from us.  After we arrived, I heard a knock at the door.  The staff member gave us a plate full of sweets and a welcome letter.  According to the letter, my girlfriend is now my wife, when did that happen?  On a more serious note, hotels always assume I am on my honeymoon, but I’ll never complain about upgrades or free treats :)

The room was very modern and beautiful.  The bed was incredibly soft and comfortable.  The only negative inside the room was the skylight above the restroom and shower.  During the day, the sun heated up those rooms and made it very warm inside.  We left the restroom door open and that made it much cooler.  We were also give a minibar and had access to everything inside for free.

The walkout balcony and hot tub was a nice treat.  Unfortunately, the hot tub had a normal sink facet attached, so it took a good 40+ minutes to fill it up to the level of the jets.  I really enjoyed the view from the balcony.  The views during sunset were beautiful too.

In the distance is the beach cove and restaurant.  We visited the beach cove twice during our stay, but did not eat at any of the on-property restaurants.  I believe the food down the road at the little fishing village was cheaper and better.

Since our room was located close to the ocean, we were given special access to have breakfast at the restaurant near the pool.  The buffet breakfast spread was huge!

Here is the view of the same pool from above and the view of the sunset.  The photo doesn’t do it justice!

As a mentioned earlier, we made 2 trips down to the little fishing village.  The walk is about 15 minutes on a dirt road, but you walk along the ocean.  For dinner on our second night, we went to a local restaurant.  There, our “Greek grandfather” greeted us, sat us at a nice table, and recommended the fresh fish of the day.  A few minutes later, he brought it out and we ate it right off the plate.  I’ve never had fish so fresh before, it was delicious.

I couldn’t ask for a better meal with my girlfriend and the ocean views during sunset were pretty incredible too.

Cheers to a great meal and a bright sunset!

If you have any questions about the Radisson Blu Beach Resort or the fishing village, please leave a comment below.  Have a great day everyone!

P.S. Stay tuned to tomorrow’s post when I share details of our ATV tour where we went inside a cave and fed monkeys.