Why go?
Elounda Collection is three hotels strung along the same protected curve of Mirabello Bay in north-east Crete, run as one resort by the Kokotos family and connected by a two-minute speedboat hop and a fleet of waiting golf buggies. Plenty of couples marry here, in the postcard-perfect white-stone chapel on site, and never check out. You can choose by temperament: Elounda Mare for romance and Relais & Châteaux quiet, Porto Elounda for the golf and Europe’s first Six Senses spa, Elounda Peninsula for the newest, all-suite rooms that each come with its own pool – their seafront suites are among the largest of their kind in Greece. Pick a hotel, or hop between all three; either way the pull is the same – a sheltered, sun-trapped pocket of Crete where the swimming is calm, the service is faultless, and the only thing on the agenda is where to go for lunch.
Honeymoon style?
Newly-weds set their own tempo here. A slow day might run from a late breakfast at Calypso, beside a pool that seems to tip over its edge into the sea, to an afternoon on the resort yacht, anchored in the bay for a swim in clear water and champagne on deck. A busier one could start on Crete’s first golf course before a holistic treatment at the collection’s Six Senses spa and dinner at the fine dining restaurant Old Mill, under the shade of a carob tree. Sporting types can book through the resort’s LUX Tennis programme, which brings in visiting champions – Juan Carlos Ferrero among them – or a football residency headlined by the likes of Paul Ince and Martin Keown. For something further afield, a helicopter reaches Santorini in 40 minutes, in time for a vineyard tour and lunch above the caldera. And on the rare grey morning, the Peninsula keeps a private cinema stocked with a library of classics.
Set the scene
The drive from Heraklion runs about an hour through craggy mountains and olive groves before the land drops to the lagoon-like waters of Mirabello Bay, sheltered by the Spinalonga peninsula from the winds that work the rest of the coast. Fuchsia bougainvillea and terracotta roofs climb the hillside; the sea sits flat and certifiably clear below (all three hotels hold Blue Flag beaches).
Elounda Mare is the original – the first hotel the family owned outright, and the only Relais & Châteaux property on Crete – and wears its age well, leaning into Cretan heritage with antiques, tapestries and ceramics across its 81 rooms, bungalows and Minoan-themed villas. It keeps things intimate, rarely more than 150 guests at a time, whose loyalty shows: across peak season, more than 70 per cent are returners.
Porto Elounda is the newest and most contemporary, all suites and villas, recently fitted with discreetly modern touches – smart showers and the like – while keeping faith with the place: the original ceiling survives in the lobby, its wooden panels still studded with the holes once cut for bread-making. Walk through the lobby and you reach Thea, a hillside bar set at the highest point in the collection – the spot for a panoramic afternoon bellini, or for eyeing a free sunbed on the sand far below.
The Peninsula is the all-suite hotel and the most private of the three, set out on its own finger of rock so that nearly every suite and villa has a seawater pool, a terrace and, often, steps cut straight down to the sea – arguably the best swimming in the whole collection. Its 2025 refit kept the look contemporary and naturalistic – pale stone, dark timber, and floor-to-ceiling glass that folds right back to the bay.
Rooms
At Elounda Mare the mood is traditional: garden-fringed bungalows, some split over two floors, and Minoan Royalty villas of up to 150 square metres, the family’s antiques and ceramics carried through. Even the beds earn a mention – the bungalows dressed with Beautyrest mattresses, the main-hotel rooms with eco coco-mat. The Peninsula trades that for contemporary calm: split-level Junior Suites and sea-front Peninsula Collection suites, plus the privately owned Diamond Residences – dressed in B&B Italia and Porada – which stretch from a modest 85 square metres to an outsized 425, sleeping up to 14. Porto Elounda added 74 suites in its 2025 overhaul, designed with inside-outside marble bathrooms and sleek lines throughout, and 14 more designed by Wimberly Interiors coming this year.
Food and Drink
Each hotel has a dedicated breakfast space, but of particular note is the Peninsula’s Calypso, a fourth floor à la carte room with what may be the best pool-to-sea view on site. Lunch is best taken slowly at Elies, Porto Elounda’s beach restaurant under an old olive grove, where much of what reaches the plate – cucumbers, tomatoes, herbs – comes up from the abundant Ierapetra growing region on the island’s south coast. Cut into the rockside, the Yacht Club at Elounda Mare is another fine lunch spot, built around the local catch – grilled, salted, baked or as carpaccio – alongside Cretan and Greek plates: fried courgette with sheep’s yoghurt, chicken souvlaki, pork gyros.
Dinner is spread across all three. Il Borro, the waterside Tuscan kitchen run under the Ferragamo family’s name, turns out a standout bread basket and moreish focaccia, summery panzanella, homemade tagliatelle with duck ragù, and classics like T-bone fiorentina and grilled octopus – made for a candlelit dinner à deux. Across the cove, the Old Mill, Elounda Mare’s fine-dining space built around an ancient millstone, is the one to book for the honeymoon gala dinner – ingredient-led Cretan cooking such as smoked apaki pork, seafood in vine leaves and skioufichta pasta with truffle, against the twinkle of classical piano. Upping the glamour is Sumosan – the award-winning Japanese name’s Greek debut – on a coastal corner of the Peninsula, almost in the lapping sea. All the while, sommeliers will walk you through the Cretan wines, a glass to settle the afternoon sun or set up the evening, and there’s a wine cellar for couples who want to make a night of it.
The Story
The Kokotos family has run this corner of Elounda for decades, and several of their ideas travelled: Elounda Mare was among the first resorts anywhere to put private pools in its bungalows; Porto Elounda laid Crete’s first golf course and opened Europe’s first Six Senses spa. The matriarch still does her rounds, casting an eye over each hotel daily. For all that tenure, the family keeps thinking ahead: a desalination plant turns seawater into the fresh water that keeps the course green, carob and olive trees double as natural barriers between the fairways, and the collection has the certificates to match, among them a top ESG grade from the assessor Synesgy.
Family Friendly?
The Peninsula in particular is built for families, with a kids’ club – the Kid’s Ark – open to babies from four months, and a Valencia-run football camp for older children. The trade-off is easily managed: couples after quiet should book Elounda Mare, the most secluded of the three, where the mood is closer to a private country house.
Spa
The Six Senses spa at Porto Elounda was the first in Europe, and access is shared across all three hotels – you can pick out the dome of its marble hammam from the beach. Inside there’s an infinity pool looking out across the bay, a sauna, steam room and ice bath, and a new 250-square-metre fitness centre with Technogym kit, Pilates reformers, a yoga studio and an outdoor gym. Couples who like a bit of structure can time their stay with Common Bond, the adults-only retreat held here from 13-20 September, capped at 16 guests, with reformer Pilates, boxing and barre worked around a Six Senses massage.
Location
The peninsula is about an hour from Heraklion airport and from Knossos, the Minoan palace that sits atop the mythical labyrinth of the Minotaur and is worth an afternoon. Elounda village is a few minutes by car; stay put and head out only for the odd dinner and a taxi will cover it, while Elounda’s digital concierge, Phoebe, reached by in-room tablet, handles the rest – a last-minute car, a boat across to Spinalonga, a table for two at the Old Mill. For walkers, the island’s deep gorges are within reach for an afternoon’s hiking inland.
