Malia, Crete > Reviews > Is Malia really the in place

Author's product rating:   

Value for Money
Sightseeing
Shopping
Nightlife
Ease of getting around

Advantages:	Great weather and soon got fit
Disadvantages:	No working safe deposit boxes, poor hygiene in the apartments and the area is quite expensive for food, drink and activities

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Malia, stated as being the in place for 2001 is situated on the North East side of the island of Crete.

I only choose Greece again due to the great time I had in Kos last year, but as I was going with a group of people, I let them deal with the booking this time round. They went down to the Traveltext place in Nottingham and booked through Summer Sun and were flying with Carrier Air 2000 (non of wich I have ever heard of). Summer Sun were not the best of operators but I shall write another article on that over the comming weeks, but I felt better when I found out who Carrier Air were owned by. They are a subsidary of First Choice Holidays.

I went away with three others on the 10th of July for a two week holiday to the Demaglia Studios so I had the hot weather due to being in high season. Between the two weeks of being there, there was little difference with the amount of people, except in the second week, a majority of people were from the midlands area.

As I went in peak season, I thought that there would be plenty to do, and a lot of people around to have fun with. I was wrong. There were people but not of a great standard who wanted to chill. The locals were aggressive and I personally did not like the area.

The accomodation is ideal for those that like to walk. It was a 5 mins walk to our pool, 30 mins to the pubs and shops, 10 mins to the beach, so if you wanted shoping then your arms soon started to ache.

*Night Life*

The night life was ok and would be excellent if you were into garage and hip hop (which as you can tell I am not). I personally like a bit of pop and dance which were about in limited places. The drinks were not very cheap, in fact they were the same price as over here in England or even more expensive. This is from the busiest island which should be able to pass savings on and not being greedy. Therefore, the atmosphere around Malia was not outstanding, and would not go again.

All the pubs, bars, clubs, the beach litteratly everywhere was quite busy, and the sense of excitment and enjoyment could was not felt everywhere. It was more seeing a few fights, being riped off and a lot of drunken people (yes I agree this is a holiday but people were also drinking durring the day).

During the day, there was not much to do. You could dine, sleep, be unactive, or sight seeing. I did a mixture of all these.

If you are a watersports person, you will not enjoy this location even though there is jet skiing, bannana boat, and every other watersport you can think of. You will find for example the jet skiing was £25 for 15 mins which is quite expensive. Due to this all I did was sleep and became very inactive due to the lack of things to due.

As far as the sleep goes, I slept in the appartments which were not the cleanest e.g. being cleaned 3 or 4 time in two weeks and bed lining once.

The beach is ok in places with clean warm waters and pebbly sand. There are parts where the sand is rockey, but mainly pebbly. If you are on a lilow, or any other inflatable, then be carefull as the wind is strong if you go out too far, and of those that ae doing water sports.

There were few day trips that you can do, but these were limited to only boat journeys with Golden Sun Holiday, however we did go to the water park which is ok.

When it comes to dining, try everywhere as all food costs about the same in relation to proporion. Some places were expnsive but had a good portion of food, whilst the cheaper places had little servings. The only difference is the style of cooking and the taste.

There were safe deposit boxes in the appartment that I stayed in which did not work. Even after numerious complaints, we still did not manage to get our box fixed, but got a full refund.

The accomodation is very basic in Malia, and I mean basic. All you have is a bathroom with the usual amenities. The toilet however is very basic. It is the usual basin but no toilet paper can be deposited down them. All used toilet paper must be placed into the bin provided next to the toilet, which got cleaned / emptied every 3 or more days.

The kitchen is basically two rings (one big, one small), and a fridge which just worked, then your sleeping area. It is advisable to take a repellent with you. We did see insects like mosquitoes and some cockroaches.

Overall, this is not a highly recommended place for those that like an active holiday but ideal for a lazy holiday, then it is advisable to go to Malia.

This is an ok choice for anyone that likes a lazy time time and being around constant drunks. (personally, I did want to leave there within the first few days as I was not having a good time.) I overall did not enjoy this island, and would not go again. I am hoping that my next holiday in Corfu is better than this holiday.