Villa Amnalys: Sea View Resort w/ staff by etouri

Exceptional accommodations, and lovely grounds in a serene setting. Tonin and Val are so attentive! Eleni is very welcoming! Many great locations within an easy drive, from Rethymno to Ligres Beach, Heraklion to Chania. It's our second stay (3 weeks this time) and we are returning next year. K. Salzwedel, Seattle

Amnalys is a work of art. As a villa it accommodates 16-18 guests in cleverly assembled bungalows that make occupants feel connected to the villa and secluded at the same time. Furnishings are top notch as are the villa decorations. The kitchen would please a 3 star chef. Combined with the Crete countryside and a stay becomes an unbelievable vacation. High praise for caretakers Tonin and Valbonis, welcoming and incredible attentive, and to Eleni the property manager who is a remarkable masseuse. We're returning next year for three weeks. Thank you J-J.

The property is spectacular and even more impressive in person!. Each room is perfect. There are multiple spaces throughout the property to gather for meals, all of which face the sea. And everyone has their own private rooms to retreat to when needed. It really does feel like a private resort. The big surprise was the beautiful landscaping. Gorgeous flowers everywhere. Etouri helped us with a chef - his name was Gilbert, and he was wonderful. We've never tasted food so fresh. It elevated an already exceptional experience. I highly, highly recommend this beautiful home. We all already want to come back!

Eirini and Antonis made our stay so comfortable and amazing! They were so freindly and openhearted, the welcome was late but they were still there and took their time to show us everything and answering all our questions. Every day Antonis and Mary were there and take care of us and the house. They cleaned up everything, prepared the table for breakfast (with such a lovely charme) and were staying in the villa also until night, when we were outside for dinner and clubbing. It was a pleasure to meet such great people - we want to thank them for everything! If we will stay again on Creta we will definately come back!

What a great week - a truly luxurious place for 20 close friends and family to stay. Wonderful communal sitting and eating, and the centre of the action - the lovely pool and beds. There was also ample space to take a little private stroll if it was all becoming a little too noisy! The staff - Andonis and Valbona - were briliant - layout of breakfast, washing up and generally making life a doddle. Sure, they don't speak the best English - but we are in GREECE!!! Learn a little of the local language, and have google translate handy, and it's surely part of the fun of going abroad. The quality of the whole villa was fantastic - really amazing outside showers with some of the bedrooms. Maybe a few pointers - recycling in Greece is a little behind the times - would be good to have seperate bins if these end up being recycled properly. Also, one of the local restaurants, Taverna Kapilio, that was in the recommended list by the team, was not up to the lovely standard that we enjoyed elsewhere - keep an eye on the up to date reviews as of course, things change. We thoroughly enjoyed other meals out - 7 Thalasses/ 7 Seas in Rethymno was truly lovely. Basically - one of the best places we have all every stayed in.

We were 10 adults, two babysitters and 8 kids between 2 and 6. Had a great stay, Antonis and his wife who manage day to day activities like grocery shopping, bbq and and cleaning helped a lot. The villa was in great shape, very clean and had a nice interior design. The owners are renting it out with a lot of their stuff and design and decorations are thought through. The five families ended up staying in single rooms with an extra bed and we actually had two rooms that we didn’t use in the end. Some rooms are nicer than others mostly due to view and separate individual patio spaces that are larger for some rooms but overall all are very good with separate bathrooms and spaces. Both Antonis and hosts were very responsive to all our asks, pool and common areas were great. The location is a little bit off with ~10 min to a store and maybe 15-20 to the town but quite manageable, in particular since grocery shopping was offered daily. Maybe the only thing we missed was an Apple TV (seems to have been lost?) for the TV system so that the kids could have watched something else than the German cable. Thanks for a great week in Crete!

We just returned from our stay at Villa Amnalys what I rented for my birthday last week. Our stay could not have been any better and we had a trip what we will remember for a long time. Without a doubt the villa is one of the best Crete has to offer. The villa offers plenty of space even for larger groups. The whole interior, the furniture, the layout of the rooms and pool house etc. is very well done, very high quality and well thought through. I liked especially how the house but also the 8 bedrooms are located. Several rooms of the house have fantastic views with huge outside spaces / seating areas overlooking Crete's north shore. Especially the master bedroom has a large outside area with an outdoor bed, outdoor shower and an additional sunbed. In every bedroom my guests were self-contained in their own beautiful suite. The beds are extremely comfortable and every room has glass sliding doors that open up to the outside what provides a lot of light. Even that we travelled at the end of November / beginning of December we were lucky with the weather. Although there have been showers we had sun every single day and we were able to use the pool with pleasant temperatures between 17 C and 21 C. To have breakfast outside, to relax in the sun and even to use the pool at that time of the year was very special. Around the house there are plenty of options for activities, restaurants and sport. For the birthday we received a catered local Mediterranean and Cretan meal organized by Ms. Eleni and her wonderful team. We played tennis at the local club in Rethmyno. They have very good and brand new hard courts about 20 min drive from the house. And we even used the large grill in the pool house for a barbecue on the last evening of our stay. We can also recommend to drive to the south what is a beautiful road with local villages and outstanding beaches in the area between Agios Pavlos and Matala. I also want to take the chance to thank especially Mr. Anton who took care of everything in the house and made sure that we had such a nice and smooth stay. The service has been exceptional and we hope to be back soon in this beautiful location.

The challenges of the house were : 1) We were overrun by 3 inch Millipedes for 4 nights. They crept under the doors and at one point we killed 40-50 inside the house. This was apparently the first time this has occurred ? some nights they made there way onto clothing and curtains. A very unsettling feeling for many of our guests. 2) The staff is kind and helpful but luckily we had a Greek speaker and a French speaker within our group as neither of the staff members spoke English. 3) The Private Chef we booked upon recommendation of the Management company did not originally show. He sent a staff and only upon chasing him down did he arrive. Apparently he had a headache. The rack of lamb dinner turned out to be roast lamb served with attitude. All in a huge failure for such expensive pricing. The management company should delete this Chef from their list of recommended providers. 4) The timing of our stay ( shoulder season second week of Oct) led to much of the lawn and patio furniture being wrapped in plastic and unusable. A rat living under the plastic was unfortunate but captured and dealt with by Antonius. 5) Kostas and his team were most helpful on various matters.

We had a special and relaxing holiday. This was a result of the good organisation/communication with Kostas before and during our stay in the Villa Amnalys. Thank you very much!

The villa is a short drive from a small village and a car is necessary. The accommodation is extensive with excellent facilities supplemented by very willing support from Adonis and Dora one of whom lives on site. Terraces are wide and spacious and there is an excellent pool with stunning views towards the sea. Washing up and help with meals, shopping etc was done daily. There is an excellent Cretan restaurant in the next village providing very good food, Cretan dancing and music, .There were 17 of us with varying ages and we had a wonderful stay. We can thoroughly recommend Villa Amnalys.