Crete

[porshiepoo]

Hi all!
Just arrived back from 2 very sunny weeks in Crete, what a great time we all had. Have to say it's nice to be home and back to more 'normal' temperatures though.
Would recommend Crete to anyone - well at least the particular part we stayed in, the rest we saw looked a bit naff actually - apartments were great, beaches great, town great, in fact everything was great except for one particular area of the holiday - yep - german holiday makers.
It was bad enough that they refused to acknowledge a queue in the supermarkets or the restaraunts, it's even kinda expected that you'll witness the daily 'laying on' of beach towels on a multitude of sunbeds that they may decide to make use of at some point in the day, but I draw the line at water parks.
Picture the scene - the old mercury is registering 104 - 106, the ground is literally melting in places and the sprinklers the water park have laid on intending to cool passing bare feet are basically evaporating within seconds.
All other nations appear to be queueing, albeit grudgingly, for even the naffest of bumpy slide rides and along comes the german posse on their 3rd time down the slide (in the time we've been queueing), and appear to fail to notice the line receding down the path or even the multitude of people patiently (?!) waiting their turn whilst hopping from foot to foot in an attempt to lessen the 3rd degree burns on the soles of our flip flopless feet (either too excited or too stupid to think we may need them and leave them safely locked away at the lockers) and proceed to quite shamelessly make their way to the front of queue. Seriously, where are their manners?!
It's pointless trying to give them an evil glare (we tried) because they just shrug their shoulders and make out that they suddenly can't speak a damn word of English even though they spoke it fluently the night before at the restaraunt when they'd pushed to the front of the queue and wanted a seat.
Yes, it would definately seem that they may have lost 2 world wars but they certainly seem to knock up the holiday battle points, and lets be honest here, that is exactly what it turns into.
They go home with their fond memories of lounging lazily by the pool on the comfortable loungers - all of em!, refreshing night time sleep cos they've managed to get back to the hotel at a decent time cos they pushed to the front of the supermarket or restaraunt queue and what a whale of a time they had at the theme parks / water parks - they managed to have numerous goes on each ride cos their selective blindness / deafness meant there didn't appear to be any queues.
Whilst us Brits go home with a teriffic back ache from laying on the concrete by the pool or if we're reaaaaaly lucky - the prickly, dry grass, lack of sleep cos we don't make it out that diner before midnight and not so fond memories of 3rd degree burns to our feet now gone septic caused by queueing for ages to get 1 go on a 3 second ride compared to the 5 goes the german posse got!
And they even get away with it cos all we ever say is 'They're German what do you expect? They don't queue for anyone'.

[footie chick]

Had exactly the same experience with them in Turkey last year after two days we decided if you cant beat the join them kids had great fun barging in front of them {you learn to spot them a mile off} white socks and sandals are a dead give away . Still trying to get them to stop barging in front of people now! wasn't such a good idea

[nicnak]

Hi Porshipoo glad you had a lovely break, we have now devised the best way to deal with germans on holiday- you play them at their own game that is if they have wandered off and left the towel on the sunbed all you do is take it off fold it up and take it to the lifeguard or put it on the floor near someone elses sun bed, as with the jumping the queues simple walk in front of them and speak complete gibberish ! they soon give up, oh by the way if they are hogging extra sunbeds with no-one on them simply lie down on it! you should see their faces its brill because no one ever challenges them! Unfortunately being mostly a polite unconfrontational type of people the british rarely stick up for themselves, its about time we did!

[katarina]

is it only the germans? when we were in holland, we found no one queued for anything! bus, food, whatever. It was like Gibby's sweetie van out side the school (for those of my generation)
The most annoying bit was when we waited twenty minutes for our turn to get on the mini bus to take us to our hotel, and while we were putting our luggage in the back, the mini bus filled up. I shouted, 'hey, excuse me, but that's our seats!' i was totally ignored. When I complained to the driver, he just shrugged his shoulders. (there were five of us) No room left for us, so the bus took off with our luggage, but without us. Total bad manners I would say!

[las123]

when we were away on honeymoon a couple of months ago, we had a problem with the germans, they thought they ruled the roost. they were yapping and laughing really loudly at nearly 2am one morning under our balcony, i asked them nicely to keep it down, just got abuse back so gave it ten minutes and then threw a cup of water over them. it shut them up and didnt do it the rest of the holiday!!!

[Murchiemannie]

got to say it wasn't the Germans we had to worry about on our holiday ...it was the Spanish!!
We were in Benidorm for two weeks and the Spanish are now coming to the "Costas" in their droves for their summer hols.
What's wrong with that you may say.. after all it is their country.
I'm all for it, but they tend to come from the north of Spain three generations in one group and boy! do they get pushy!!!!!! Just like the early days of holidaying abroad when the Germans hugged the sunbeds and slammed the lift doors in front of you....now it's the Spanish.
In our hotel the lifeguard went round every day when the "families" went for their seista and folded all the towels and put them on one sunbed.Oh! what fun when they came back....they were not amused .shouting and screaming at the poor lifeguard who shrugged and walked away.We Brits had a good giggle.

[mccaugm]

Anyone have a good experience on their holidays?
My family went to the west coast of Scotland and it was fab (bar the midges). Weather amazing, locals were lovely and visitor attractions were great.

We stayed in Glencoe village...which was surprisingly tiny. Highly recommend.

[porshiepoo]

Hmmmmm lets see - Went to Lesvos and there was an earthquake (albeit a small one, still scary), went to Africa and there was a political demonstration and we couldn't go far without an armed guard, went to Cuba and was told the hotel was overbooked when we got there so were sent elsewhere (eventually), went to Cyprus and my sister had to be stretchered off the plane holding it up (sister ok now and passengers very nice about it), went to Cyprus and sisters kid ended up in hospital and we had to run the sewerage gauntlet to get to our apartment, went to Tunisia and it was a building site, went to Cyprus amid 9/11 (very scary).
Still there have been some good places - Turkey was probably the cleanest and nicest but despite everything Cyprus was still the best to me.

[WeeBurd]

The one and only time Mr WeeBurd left it up to me to book our hols, I managed to inadvertantly land us smack bang in the centre of Malia - Crete's answer to Ayia Napa. Not that we're too old for that, far from it, but it's more of a singles thing, no? Anyway, it turned out to be one of our best hols ever, the Greeks were wonderfully friendly and very welcoming, the food was delicious, the local brew was highly potent (ouch, sore heads!), the island was gorgeous and there were plenty of activites to get involved in and sites to see. Even the mad thunderstorm and torrential right in the middle of our time there, didn't put us off!

[katarina]

I'm going to rhodes in october, any info of that island? Have been to crete and loved it.

[Ricco]

I'm going to rhodes in october, any info of that island? Have been to crete and loved it.

Hi, Katarina. Rhodes is a lovely place to go on holiday. Whereabouts will you be staying? My wife and I went there about three years ago and loved it. There is loads to see and do. You must visit Acropolis and the Island of Simi. Rhodos old town is also a must - set a day aside. Remember to haggle a bit. Very few Germans when we were there, so none of their rudeness. I can PM you with lots more info if you want.

[katarina]

I don't know where we'll be staying as we will be allocated on arrival, but it will be 4 star so it should be okay. I'll be there with my daughter, son-in-law and my grandson so I'm sure i won't get bored!

[porshiepoo]

Been to Rhodes too Katarina. Yes, was a lovely place and v hot when we went. The only mistake I made was going to Faliraki, it appeared to be club central. Visited Lindos which was really cool but I felt really sorry for the donkeys that take people to the top. I didn't mind kids as such going on them but lazy, huge adults was going a might too far in my opinion.

Weeburd we went through Malia on the way to the water park and have to say we were mortified by it. We only went through the main strip but compared to where we were staying near Elounda it looked dirty, crowded and a bitt too much. However, we had kids. to youngsters looking for the clubs etc it was probably fantastic and I dare say there were nice villages surrounding it?
The other place that suprised us (not in a nice way) was Hersonnissos.

For people who prefer the quieter places, we stayed at a place just outside Elounda (talking crete now) and despite this being peak season it was v v quiet. The beach over the road was lovely (Not Havania it's naff) and clean, the hotel (Mirabello) had fantastic pools etc that we could use even though we weren't staying there, it was a 20 minute walk to Aghios Nikolaos which we found to be suprisingly beautiful and there were many restaraunts withing a few minutes walk. We'd definately go back.
Driving on the other side of the road took some getting used to but hubby managed it champion.

[peter macdonald]

Had a great time 35deg tops- no rain at all- very beautiful scenery- Cultural bits excellent -Brilliant locals- Magic food and hotels -and some really nice german folks to enjoy a beer or two with - What more could you ask for The only rude /unpleasant people we came across were some drunk football supporters slagging off their teams manager and other sundry "Johnny Foreigners" on the ferry
Where were we??? surprisingly enough (or not!!) Finland and Sweden !!