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Post by kevb on Apr 17, 2019 11:03:55 GMT
Hope you're having a great time, still another 7 weeks or so before I get a sneaky trip away.
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Post by yorkshiremouth on Apr 24, 2019 16:25:41 GMT
Okay, here's a quick comparison of my all-inclusive holiday in Crete with my previous holidays in Skiathos (variously self-catering, half board and full board).
All-inclusive was nice. Not having to think about the pennies if the kids wanted another coke, or I wanted another beer. The beer was Alpha - pretty good, and I was more than happy with it. The hotel was immaculate, as good as any I've stayed in, as regards the standard of the rooms, etc., and I'm comparing that to some posh 'proper' 5 star hotels in the UK which cost an arm and a leg to stop for the night.
The downside was that, unless we wanted to pay extra (effectively paying twice), we were stuck with the hotel food, which was quite poor. The main restaurant, for 'buffet' read 'canteen'. How bad was the food? Right, in Morrison's you can get a posh, barrel-aged feta, a standard Morrison's feta, or a basics 'Greek-style salad cheese' faux-fetta. The latter is better quality than the feta in the hotel. Seriously. One night I got a piece of chicken in lime, curried pork, and beef goulash, and it's tough to imagine how 3 such different recipes, with different meats, could taste so similar. Breakfasts were pretty good, though. But not as good as at the Skiathos Palace.
The other restaurants, the Greek taverna style was just about okay. The Thai was okay. The hot stones (for which you had to pay extra) was nothing special. Surprisingly, the best was the Tex-Mex. I wasn't expecting that. The food there was fairly decent!
The wine was an utter disaster. They had 3 wines in with the AI deal, the white was reasonably quaffable, if basic. The red was just (imagine me holding my thumb and index finger an imperceptibly small distance apart) drinkable, whilst the rose was something I'd clean my drains with. They had a long list of other wines available for 20 Euros+. We had two whilst there, and both were fine, but I resent paying extra, for what should have been the norm. Bottom line: there was a chasm between the high standards of the hotel in general and the food & drink. By the way, we ate out at 4 different tavernas (3 for lunches whilst on excursions, and one on a night), and all had local Cretan wines which were very good. And very cheap, too. We paid far less than the 20 euros for the 'extra' wines in the hotel - this is the standard I expected from the AI.
Crete vs Skiathos. Crete has far, far more history. We went on excursions to the Minoan Palace at Knossos (a 'bucket list' thing for me), the leper colony ay Spinalonga (no lepers left there, though I tried not to let that spoil the fun), and a 4x4 jeep trip up into the mountains. All were spectacular. The jeep trip took us to a little village, and it was about as authentic as you'll get, I don't think it looked different to how it was in 1920. In short, there's 'completely unspoilt Greece' here if you want it.
But here's the thing. Whilst I wouldn't mind visiting these places again, I feel no massive need to do so, and if you told me now that I never would, it wouldn't bother me. Been there, done that, very nice.
If my lottery numbers come up tonight, it's still Skiathos where I'll be looking to buy a holiday home. I think as I've said before, it's just the right size; not so big that you'd not feel you'd really got to know it, but not so small that you've seen it all in a few days. Moving to Crete would be like...moving to Wales, or Belgium. You could live there the rest of your life and never get to see the most of it. Skiathos, in comparison, is 'one place' you can get to know, and feel at home.
By the way, the taverna we went to on an evening was called Zorbas, and the only one in the village open (though there were a couple of others due to open over the coming week). The host was a lovely lady called Emily, or 'mama' to pretty much everyone. She was fantastic, her food was gorgeous, and the taverna was smashing. First night, we had a Greek salad starter, a bit of bread and oil, some lovely beef (a bit like a stifado, but without the onions), the kids had chicken nuggets. We also had a half litre of retsina with the salad, and 2 x half litres of red with the meal, + some raki (local rocket fuel) afterwards. Total price 53 euros!
Anyway, that's me thunks. Any questions, please ask.
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Post by cariad23 on Apr 24, 2019 18:00:52 GMT
i had one holiday in crete a few years ago all inclusive in Rethymenon which we hated, didn't like the place too big, too noisy. Luckily we had most of the cost covered by Tesco holiday vouchers and we had already been to Thassos that year or i would have been dissapointed.. The food was disgusting with the exception of breakfast. The drinks except for beer un recognisable, the brandy tasted like cough medicine. We ate out mostly and found some excellent tavernas very reasonable. I had been to crete a few years earier to Elounda which i liked especially the visit to spinalonga but i have no wish to return. I have first went to skiathos about 18 years ago and have returned several times and am still looking forward to coming back this year. As you say theres a unique atmosphere
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Post by kevb on Apr 26, 2019 10:22:10 GMT
I think most AI places make their savings on the catering. I've only ever done it once (Cyprus) when I was seeing someone with 2 teenage kids and we couldn't afford to eat out every night. Even then the buffet became so predictable that we ended up eating out twice over the week we were there. Finding new places to eat is part of my holiday when in Greece and I'm making an effort this year in Skiathos to try to avoid anywhere I've eaten before (apart from beach cafes) even if they have been good just to foirce me into some new places, there are plenty of them still after only 5 visits. I enjoyed my 2 visits to Crete (6 years apart), wouldnt rule out going back some time. A (Greek by birth) bloke I used to work for still takes his family to Chania area nearly every year.
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Post by yorkshiremouth on Apr 27, 2019 10:56:54 GMT
Anyway, the last bit of 'news' from the holiday, a woman died on the plane on the flight home...or possibly even before.
We were sat on the tarmac waiting to take off, but something was clearly wrong. We were told that an elderly passenger, who was sat a dozen or so rows in front of us, had become quite ill, and required treatment.
We ended up with a doctor and two paramedics attending to her. They couldn’t get the first paramedic they sent for to the plane as they hadn’t cleared security properly.
When I say this lady is ‘ill’, that may be a euphemism the pilot was using for ‘dead’; when I saw her earlier in the airport I was amazed she’d made it through passport control. We'd seen a 92 year old bloke in a taverna the night before, and he looked in better shape. When I saw her she was as white as a ghost, and looked all of 120 years old, and not in good shape. When Julie saw her in the waiting lounge she was slumped over, we presumed at the time she was either resting or had feinted.
They ended up carrying her off the plane strapped to a wheelchair, along with her husband (who was still walking). After this the pilot said she had been 'unresponsive', which is about as clear as you can get for dead. The pilot was clearly shaken, and addressed us from a standing position at the front, rather than from the cockpit. I was a tad worried he was in a fit state to fly the plane! A couple of the cabin crew had clearly been in tears, but they all remained very professional. Altogether we were delayed by about an hour.
After we'd arrived back in Manchester, Julie got talking to a passenger who'd been sat next to the husband (we'd got to know this lady a little on the holiday as we had kids the same age). So this passenger had looked after the husband while this was all going on, and got quite a story from him.
Apparently the lady had Parkinson’s and Motor Neurone disease. She and her husband had had a lovely 6 days of him pushing her around in a wheelchair She’d had a night in hospital the day before flying and discharged fit to fly, with the instruction to get her straight to hospital as soon as we landed in the UK. We believe she may have been dead before getting on the plane, and was carried on (though I didn't see this), and I think they presumed she'd just past out. The passenger said the lady looked either extremely ill or dead as she was being brought on - certainly not conscious.
Very sad in a way, but you know what, what a way to go. Better a week in Greece than sat in a home somewhere. The bottom line is, she was never going to last a lot longer, and it appears she had a lovely last week of her life, in a lovely place, with her husband.
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Post by bvrc on Apr 27, 2019 11:16:41 GMT
What a story! And I guess them even being there, at such a time in her life where her health could have dictated travel plans, means Crete was their ‘happy place’ - her last few days were perfect in her eyes. Sad but lovely... Thank you for your Crete holiday update also.
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Post by katet on Apr 30, 2019 20:03:49 GMT
Wow YM - what an ending to your holiday! Poor husband - he'll now have all the kerfuffle of getting her back home and funeral arrangements.
Thanks for letting us nosey lot know about your Cretan experience - just confirms though what I've been thinking during our recent AI hols: nice hotels but poor food and drink. Most of the restaurants are like canteens - good description - and the drinks are poor. An exception was our last stay at a Riu - apart from Mexico, the best AI we've stayed in.
The trips you did sound lovely. After reading The Island I would have loved to see Spinalonga. We're a bit limited in what we do when away, since Paul's illness, but used to love exploring.
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Post by yorkshiremouth on May 1, 2019 6:29:28 GMT
I’ll try to post a few pics.
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Post by Tre on May 2, 2019 21:02:25 GMT
Thanks Yorkshiremouth, Just catching up! And wow! What an end to your holiday. Crete has always been on our to do list, so Maybe.... alas still thinking back to Cyprus in October
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