Although the villa had many good points, as per previous reviews, there were a number of negatives which need highlighting. We were a group of four adults (me, my husband and my husband’s daughter and her husband), and before hiring the villa I emailed Marianna to enquire whether there were two double beds, as this was an important requirement for us. She assured me that the twin beds could be converted to proper double beds and wouldn’t be a problem. Just before our holiday I emailed her again to remind her that we required two double beds. I also asked for a fan in the bedrooms due to the lack of AC and hot weather. She also assured me that she would be at the villa to meet us and asked what time we expected to arrive. I estimated it would be around 3pm, and we actually arrived at 3.10pm. Upon arrival there was nobody at the villa. We buzzed the intercom a number of times and shouted over the wall but the place was deserted. I then tried phoning Marianna from my mobile 3 or 4 times, but there was no answer. This was obviously not the best start to the holiday, as it was 38 degrees outside and we’d had a long drive from Heraklion in a car with broken AC. We decided to try and locate her tavern in the village (luckily I’d heard about this on tripadvisor reviews), which we eventually did. Fortunately, she was there and seemed surprise to see us, saying she’d been waiting for my phone call (even though she never told me I had to phone her). I pointed out I’d called a few times with no answer, and her reply was, “Ok, I’ll be there in a few minutes.” No apology or anything. She arrived at the villa to show us around; everything downstairs all looked clean and in order. However, when we got to the bedrooms we discovered..... ONLY ONE DOUBLE BED. I reminded her that we needed two double beds, her response to which was to just push two of the single beds together??! I asked if she could at least put a double sheet on the beds to try and disguise the crack somewhat. She seemed quite put out by this, but agreed to do it. I also reminded her that we asked for fans in the bedroom, she said she only had one fan and would bring it later. This was quite a concern, as the bedrooms were like saunas due to the heat-wave Crete was experiencing, but there wasn’t much we could do about it because it was a Sunday and the shops were closed. Suffice to say; none of us got hardly any sleep that night as the rooms were unbearably hot (even with a fan), and because we had to have to windows open there was the constant noise of dogs barking and cockerels crowing all night – it was a fairly miserable start to our holiday. We had also planned on doing a lot of cooking on the BBQ whilst there, but we discovered the villa didn’t even have a BBQ?! So, the following day was spent driving around trying to find somewhere to buy a fan and a BBQ, at our own expense (hopefully future guests will benefit from these items).
The main lesson I learned from our trip was that I will NEVER stay somewhere that doesn’t have air-conditioning during the summer months ever again. It is untrue that the villa is designed in a way to negate the need for AC – none of us slept well for the duration of our holiday, as the bedrooms were like saunas, despite keeping the shutters closed all day as instructed by Marianna. It’s a good job there was a swimming pool at the villa, as it was the only possible way to cool down, and it’s where we spent most of our time.