Ikaros Beach Resort & Spa

Beach right by the hotel. Come out of the hotel and there's shopping and tavernas about 100 metres away. The bus to Heraklion leaves every half hour and costs €3.40 per person each way.
Don't bother making the trip to Santorini.

Waiters in the restaurant are very nice and friendly. They all speak good English.
Service at reception leaves a little to be desired. People complained daily about the rooms and guests really wanted to move. The two women there ceased to be friendly.

Good food. Very varied. There were a lot of themed evenings. For half-board guests who had booked with Thomas Cook there was a free bottle of still water every evening. No-one notified us of this, however. We only found out after a few days.
A standard bottle of sparkling water costs €3.40!!! Multiply that by fourteen and it's quite a lot. Two cooks always did Show Cooking. In the morning and in the evening. That was really great.

Now we come to the crux of the whole thing.
When we arrived on the first night at 20h we were very tired but after being allocated room 303 we were suddenly wide awake again. I have never seen anything like it.
In the travel brochure from Thomas Cook it said that the guests would be able to stay in the room of their choice. This room was a converted balcony. In this hotel there are only single beds, which are built into the wall. They can't, therefore, be put together. The room wasn't bigger than 8m².
We couldn't store our luggage anywhere because there was no room. The inside of the mobile air-conditioning unit was very dirty. The fridge made so much noise that we had to switch it off. Our first night ended with a trip to reception at seven o'clock in the morning. During the course of the day- and with the help of the tour operator- we were allocated a new room. That was more or less OK. People complained about the rooms everyday. Some didn't even have windows!!! It's almost like staying in a cave.
The bit in the catalogue that says that Thomas Cook guests will be given the room of their choice should be removed. It's just not true.

The hotel was only this year taken over by the chain Iberostar. They''ll have to change a few things if they don't want their name to be discredited.
The beach was extremely dirty. We always had to go over to the neighbouring hotel. The picture in the brochure has without doubt been digitally altered!!