JW Marriott, Chania Greece

Lobby at JW Marriott

I love me some and every chance I get when I travel to a different country I will try and stay at or a JW. If you stay four nights you get the fifth night free on points. We were travelling to anyway, I thought it was a good opportunity to stay in a and enjoy the experience. We arrived late on a Saturday night and we could not see the surrounding area as it was dark. When I woke up in the morning and I opened up the curtains, it was quite breathtaking.

View from our room.

We were surrounded by blue waters and herbs and plants of the Mediterranean. Not to mention the cliffs and the mountains all surrounding this area with some great views of , where we flew into which is a quick 15 minute drive to. We were staying in room 5013 and our friends were in 6010.

We were upgraded to a one-bedroom suite with a pool. When you walk in you step down to your living room with two couches, a chair and a coffee table. This opens up to a huge floor to ceiling 9 ft sliding glass door out to the patio which has a couch, two chairs, two Lounge chairs, and a full dining table, as well as a step down into our own little private pool. Not to mention the views from the pool of the Mediterranean and the surrounding rocks.

Our living room

Our couch that was missing two cushions.

If you walk down the hallway there is a coffee bar area

Our coffee bar

and two large closets and a doorway into the bathroom with one (not two) nice modern marble sink and a toilet and a shower bathtub room combined which is this is the first time I've stayed in this type of setup. I love having a bath so I had one that night right away. There was a sample of bath salts on the counter.

Combined shower and bathing room

Our hallway had two closets and two sliding doors into our bedroom.

The bedroom has sliding glass doors out to the pool and the bed was very comfortable. The bedroom had its own TV along with the king size bed. The bedroom had these really unique. little side reading lights that I've never seen before. They open up and pull out of the wall and they bend up or down or twist around. The living room had another TV as well.

Cool side reading light

The bedroom and living room were separated by a mesh and wood sliding door, which really was more of a design feature than for privacy or quiet. It didn't keep the sound of the TV out of the bedroom. That was a bad choice, function should have countered design.

This is a brand new resort. It is not even 4 months old yet so we were excited to get here and I could share the resort with my friends who were also staying there on points in a different room.

We woke up and went for breakfast which is served from 7:00 to 11:00 and it is a full buffet and we all received the complimentary breakfast because of our . The setting was and view was truly amazing. It was more or less ocean front. The buffet was amazing with a capital A. I have never seen such a large buffet with so much choice. They tried to cater to everyone's taste. There was traditional food, American, and European. You could choose anything from salmon to eel to bacon to turkey with walnuts in it. There was so many foods I can't even go into explaining it. There was Greek yogurt but you had a choice between cow or sheep's milk yogurt. The choices were endless. I tried my first which is similar to . Not as quite as thick or as robust, but very good with the grounds at the bottom because it's brewed with an extremely fine coffee. The orange juice was so delicious because they grow oranges in Crete and it was freshly squeezed. I tried my first . I'd only had dried figs in my life and you actually eat the whole thing the outside and the inside. I always was looking forward to the next morning of buffet breakfast.

Breakfast at the Buffett.

While walking around this resort you definitely get your exercise. It's up and down and down and up and it is very spread out because each unit almost has their own building and all of the private pools are connected by the infinity edge styling which links down the line. It is very unique architecture at the JW Crete. They tried to use a lot of natural woods. The outdoor furniture is made of .

Outside at night on our patio.

Our shade over our patio is and my friends had the morning sun and we had the evening sun. Both of our rooms have full water. The JW is out on this little peninsula and this provides ample Sea views for everyone. It's very pretty and serene and quiet and heavenly and I'm glad we came here.

In the room there is an electronic system which controls everything from the room lights to night lights to air conditioning, curtains and the do not disturb sign. I thought that was quite unique.

Some of the things I would like to comment on which are not up to the standards of JW is, when we checked in I expect everything to be organized and consistent. We did have our welcome and grapes. Those sort of things you expect from JW but we only had one bottle of water and usually they're trying to give you more water so that hasn't happened. Two cushions were missing off the back of one of the couches. Things like that are not normal for a JW Marriott, it's just seems to be not well managed yet or the staff are not quite up to par. However, when I called to say that I was missing two cushions on my couch within about 4 minutes, they were knocking on my door giving me the two cushions that were missing.

I did notice last night when we checked in that it seems that the resort was perhaps built too quickly. Or perhaps an unscrupulous construction company got the contract and skimped on the craftsmanship and finishing details, but things like the door to our bathroom could not open fully because it's kept sticking on the tile floor. The door was not hung properly or the tile was not level on the floor. The marble tile floor was not laid very well, there was a lip higher than it should be or the grouting was already coming off and this was literally laid 4 months ago. The bathroom door handle came off in my hand. The door frame was being lifted up by a piece of blue plastic instead of it actually being done properly the first time or fixed. They seemed to be band-aiding the problem areas.

The door handle that came off in my hand.

The blue plastic piece lifting the door frame up

Chipped marble meeting up with the back of the wood base to the couch. Some wood trim may have looked better.

No baseboards and improperly cut tile.

Bashed up walls

Tile in the bathtub area was laid badly on the wall. Near the ceiling the tile was cut too short and there was a large gap.

There are only two hooks for towels in the bathroom and there are no other hooks for the bathrobes. The missing hooks were hung up for hand towels instead and they did not suffice. It would also be a good idea to have some hooks when you walk in the door for coats which they don't have. These are just things that you do not expect from a JW Marriott and especially one that is 4 months old. The paint on the wall behind the toilet was not done a second or third coat so the actual writing from the gyp rock was clearly showing through.

Words on the gyp rock showing through the one coat of primer or paint.

By the toilet is where there was not enough paint on the wall.

The paint all the way around the front door is painted over some sort of caulking or weather stripping and it is already peeling and chipping and coming away from the wall and looks like it is 10 years old, whatever product they used was not the correct one.

At the front entrance, poor caulking was used and then painted over and it was bubbling and chipping already.

I would have to say that the finishing and detail in our room was lacking. For example, there's were no baseboards anywhere in the room. I'm not sure if that is part of the design but it wasn't a good choice because the tile doesn't meet up with the walls properly and then they've filled it with this caulking which is already starting to chip away. A lot of the tile is already chipped on the edges and I don't know if it was even cut properly to begin with or it's an inferior marble but it just does not give a luxurious feel. The walls were already quite bashed up for a 4 month old property. Our friend staying in the other room is a retired Industrial Arts teacher and takes contracts now on inspection of the trades in the Mines and he was also talking about the rush job that he felt was done in their room and the lack of skill that the tile layer had. All of these above mentioned problems do not scream JW Marriott.

However even though the problems mentioned were disappointing we still had a nice stay. They issues do need to be rectified soon and in the downtime when the resort is closed I hope attention is paid to these issues for future guests.