Located in Analipsi, Crete, is a popular family fun resort called Stella Palace.
But does it live up to the hype?
I visited a couple of weeks ago with my family and wider family members, 10 of us in total, a multigenerational trip with 7 adults and 4 small children aged 3, 4 and 5.
The Pro's of Stella Palace Family Resort - Honest Review
Facilities
The resort is large, with 267 guest rooms and 2 large main swimming pools. It shares some facilities with neighbouring Stella Village - including a small children's pool with slides and a kids playground and an shared amphitheatre for evening entertainment.
The hotel also has its own waterpark attached to it, with lots of fun slides for adults and older children, smaller slides for young ones and a splash pad.
All these facilities of the hotel definitely lured us into booking the resort for our holiday, and they did not disappoint. However, be mindful that a lot of the slides have height restrictions of 1.2m or 1.4m, so although the water park was a massive factor in deciding to choose this resort, we actually only used the water park twice as it was just a bit too geared at older children for our little ones to make more use of it.
Our small children were happiest in the kids pool shared with Stella village where we also felt safer knowing we could see them at all times, as the main waterpark had large slide constructions so you definitely wouldn't let your small children play in there without having an adult next to them the whole time. In the small kids pool you could sit on the side and see them on most of the equipment, so not having to follow their every move.
The main pools were also very good, the kids had lots of fun in those and the depth was never over an adults head even in the deepest part (unless your very short!). The hotel shop also sells lots of inflatables / swimming aids and toys, which you can see all around the pools.
There are also some smaller pools located as "sharing" pools with blocks of rooms leading directly out onto them if you are on the ground floor (thus giving swim up rooms), or your balcony overlooks the pool if your on the top floor.
We had one of the sharing pool rooms but on the top floor and it was a really lovely room with a lovely view over the pool. The small pool was actually our favourite, even though we sadly only used it a few times. They were less crowded and quieter and just generally had a nice feeling about them.
Restaurants
A lot of the resort has been refurbished, providing lovely modern, clean decor. Theres some rooms which are cheaper categories which haven't yet been renovated so be sure to keep an eye out for those when booking, if you prefer modern decor.
The main restaurant is very modern and clean and the service is very good. However, although the food is fresh and good quality, for me it still lacked enough variety. I don't eat all meats, only chicken and vegetarian meals and all I was really eating was some sort of pasta, some salad, and the best thing that was there were the kids chicken nuggets and also the pizza station. But otherwise I struggled to find much variety of foods, however I do feel this is so common when doing all inclusive hotels - so not particular to Stella Palace.
Stella Palace has other restaurants on site, we had 3 booked however only ended up going to one which was the Asian restaurant - Enzo. Being totally honest, the food wasn't great. It has the potential to be better, but sadly wasn't and the service was actually very bad on the night we went.
A tip I found out from someone before we visited, was to eat buffet breakfast and lunch at the Greek restaurant located by the pool as it was less busy, which was a great tip however the variety down there was even less than the main restaurant so we opted for the main restaurant most days still.
Entertainment / Kids Club
The Kids club at Stella Palace has an age limit of 4+, which sadly we didn't research before we went, assuming it would be 3+ like a lot of other places. So we didn't put our kids in as we didn't want to split them up, although our eldest would have happily gone in alone.
The programme was varied and included different things like a cooking class and edible art. They have a morning session and an afternoon session, and a "play and stay" session between 1pm and 3pm where any age can go in supervised by their parents to use the toys and facilities which breaks up the activities in the day, getting out the hot sunshine nicely.
The mini disco at Stella Palace starts at 8:30pm, which may feel a bit late for smaller ones who have a routine, but we travelled from the UK so we kept our children on their UK routine times (which meant it was actually only 6:30pm) so worked well for us. Mini disco lasts half an hour, and then the evening entertainment starts after. We watched a couple of shows, the magic show was pretty good and a massive hit with the kids. But we also watched a pirate show which was a mix of singing and dancing and it was just ok.
Other evening entertainment consisted of singers or musicians around the pool bar, which was a nice relaxed vibe. There is also a night time DJ down in the Stella Village shared area which we only discovered on the last night (not that we would have been able to go, but handy to know for anyone looking for an after party!)
The Con's of Stella Palace Aquapark Resort - Honest Review
Food
The food! Sadly, the food did just make me a bit disappointed. As mentioned earlier, the variety was good, but not good at the same time. Generally it just felt lacking. I wouldn't let this put me off recommending the hotel in the slightest, its just best to keep lower expectations then be pleasantly surprised if you do like it!
After a week, we were well and truly done with the buffet food.
The breakfast buffet time was also disappointing as the restaurant closed at 10am, as we kept our children on UK time for their routine, they were sleeping in until 9.15/9.30am which meant getting to breakfast was a real scramble. The greek restaurant buffet was a later closing time but just didn't have the variety we needed for the kids.
Location
The resort is in a very small town, tucked away with not much around it. Generally, I don't do all inclusive kind of holidays as I do like to have a bit of adventure, so at best I thought that being able to walk to a bustling "tacky" town in the evenings would be what we could do on a holiday to Crete. But sadly any towns were a cab ride away, which for us with little ones just wasn't practical with their bed times and getting them to sleep in the pram. So this meant most evenings we went back to the room by 10pm and just got an early night.
There is a very small town close by with a couple of restaurants, we visited Volkano one evening which is very pretty, the food was ok. Some of our family visited a beach bar a short walk away and enjoyed it but generally the area we were in was just with large resorts next to each other.
Do I recommend a visit to Stella Palace Aquapark Resort?
I would still really recommend visiting Stella Palace for a relaxed week away in the sun with your family. We were never bored we always had something to do with the kids, mainly being in the different pool areas, and the kids club stay and play was a great facility to break up the day too. Along with the mini disco and play park there really wasnt anything lacking for the children.
The only factor which would affect me visiting again is the location being more remote. We don't generally ever visit the same place twice anyway but this is the only consideration I have for anyone thinking of a holiday to Stella Palace, especially if your looking for some lively places outside the hotel on your holiday. Or, if you have older children and getting a short cab journey somewhere doesn't bother you.
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