Stella Island Luxury Resort & Spa

“Stella Island is a beautiful, exceptionally clean resort, and we had an amazing stay. Our room was perfect—spacious, comfortable, and always cleaned to a very high standard. The food throughout the resort was excellent and consistently top-notch. A special thank-you to Anastasia at the concierge, who was incredibly helpful, friendly, and attentive. She arranged all of our dinner reservations and excursions, answered every question we had, and truly helped make our trip special. We also loved seeing Anastasia the waitress at the buffet each morning. She always made sure we were comfortable, that our coffees were ready, and that we had everything we needed to start the day. The spa was another highlight. We both had massages, and they were excellent—we highly recommend booking one during your stay. We also had a wonderful experience at Umami, where Chef Mark went above and beyond by preparing a special roll for us that wasn’t even on the menu. Overall, Stella Island exceeded our expectations. It is a beautiful resort with excellent food, outstanding service, and staff who genuinely care about their guests. We would highly recommend it and would gladly return.”

“Started our honeymoon journey through Crete here and no regrets. This resort is truly impressive. The pools are great, service was excellent, food was great. Not a good beach location on this side of the island but good for views. There is a good shop behind the resort off the beach road that we could spend all day in. Pillows could be better. Drinks were surprisingly good.”

“We had an incredible stay at Stella Island. The hotel is the definition of luxury, with beautiful surroundings, amazing food, and exceptional service throughout. Everything exceeded our expectations. A special mention to Kleidi at the Cabana Bar, who truly stood out. His professionalism, attention to detail, and friendly service made our stay even more enjoyable. He is a real asset to the hotel and thoroughly deserves to be recognised.”

“A very disappointing experience considering the €772 per night rate and the standard the hotel claims to offer. We politely asked whether we could have just one or two extra hours after the standard 11:00 AM check-out. The next guest’s official check-in time is 3:00 PM, so there is normally a four-hour window between check-out and check-in. Despite this, the hotel’s first response was particularly cold and immediately focused on an additional €70 charge, with very little sense of hospitality or commercial consideration. After asking whether a complimentary extension could be considered, we were told that this was not possible because the next guest was supposedly arriving as early as 9:00 AM. I fully understand that late check-out is “subject to availability”, and I expect this will probably be the hotel’s standard response to this review as well. However, in our specific case, that explanation simply does not match what we personally observed. We stayed by the pool after checking out, with a direct view of our room. At 3:40 PM — more than four and a half hours after we had been required to leave the room, and already 40 minutes after the hotel’s official check-in time — the room was still not occupied by the supposedly 9:00 AM arriving guest. We could also observe that a number of other rooms appeared to be available. So this was not simply a case of asking for a late check-out in a visibly full hotel and being told there was genuinely no capacity. From what we could directly observe, refusing us just one or two additional hours — while knowing that we were celebrating a very special occasion — felt unnecessarily rigid and completely lacking in goodwill. What was particularly disappointing was the message this sent: the hotel appeared more concerned with supposedly prioritising a future guest by allowing them to arrive six hours before the official 3:00 PM check-in time than with granting a small courtesy to the departing guests already staying at the property. And ultimately, even that justification did not correspond with what actually happened. The fact that we were immediately offered the same extension for an additional €70 only reinforced the impression that this was less about genuine availability and more about monetising a very small amount of additional time. Another major downside is the constant air traffic above the hotel. Planes fly directly over the property roughly every five minutes, including during the evening. This repeatedly breaks the peace and quiet and significantly affects the relaxing holiday atmosphere one would expect from a hotel in this price range. The food offering was also rather limited in terms of variety compared with other hotels we have stayed at in a similar category. The quality was acceptable, but the selection felt repetitive and not particularly extensive for a property positioned at this level. We were also asked to follow a smart dress code for one of the hotel’s restaurants. We dressed accordingly, including wearing leather shoes, only to discover that there was a show during dinner where guests were sprayed with water at the end. This may be entertaining for some, but when guests are specifically asked to dress well, the very least the hotel could do is warn them in advance. We ended up completely soaked at around 11:00 PM, our leather shoes were damaged, and I felt unwell afterwards. This was not a minor inconvenience and could easily have been avoided with a simple warning beforehand. To be fair, the spa experience was excellent. The massage was one of the strongest aspects of our stay and the spa team provided a genuinely high-quality and relaxing experience. At this price point, we obviously do not expect every request to be automatically granted. However, we do expect transparency, a reasonable level of flexibility, proper communication and, above all, service and an overall experience that match the hotel’s positioning.”

“The Resort is extremely beautiful. You can enjoy privacy in your room, especially the overwater nests and bungalows are sweet and quiet! The staff is friendly overall! The Operations Manager Ladislav Bartakovic is exceptionally kind, open and diligent. He personally took care to get a problem with our front door fixed as quickly as possible and his main focus was on us enjoying our holiday experience to the max! The breakfast is good, nothing that we missed. The dinner restaurants are ok, however nothing super special. We decided to go downtown for local authentic food every night - it's way less pricy and we found it more delicious. Overall a great and enjoyable stay, holiday time well spent for sure!”