We stayed at Rimondi Grand when it first was new to II- maybe 10 years ago. We have only the vaguest memory of the accommodation. I remember it being “fine”. It wasn’t near anything. I thought it was on the beach when I booked it, but it was not. We ate there once and I can’t remember the meal. It was “fine,” I’m sure.
BUT… the trip overall was very awesome and memorable. We roamed all over Crete in our rental car. There was tons to do. The Greek people were extremely hospitable, which made dining a fun experience. We kind of got turned around in our directions once, drove through this tiny mountain village with streets just wide enough for our economy car and old stone houses whose doors opened directly onto the road. An ancient old lady dressed in a traditional black dress steps out of one house right in front of us. We had to stop to avoid hitting her. She’s holding a giant skeleton key in her hands and trying to foist it upon us. We don’t speak Greek, she doesn’t speak English, we don’t know what’s going on but are really trying to get off that mountain before sunset. We convince her to let us pass and head on. When I looked it up later, I learned there’s a historic old church in that village and I guess she assumed we were there to visit the church. Why else would we be there, lol?! I’m kind of sorry we didn’t see it but not sorry that we weren’t driving that dangerous road in the dark. Plus based on our experience with Greek hospitality by that point, we knew she would have probably fixed us dinner and poured us some wine.
I think we don’t remember the resort much because we were out all day long every day. It was not a relax by the pool vacation for us.
I remember I booked using FF miles. Couldn’t get a direct flight to Athens, so we had a stopover in London for a few days. It was not intentional but we started our trip with viewing Greek antiquities at the British Musuem, then went to Greece to visit a bunch of the actual historical sites. That trip was London- Crete- Santorini- Athens- then back home.
Crete is not the most fabulous of the Greek islands. But it does have the Palace of Knossos, a very ancient Minoan palace.