Bio Suites Hotel & Spa
Bio Suites Hotel and Spa is a 133-room hotel built on the site of a 1920s olive oil factory in Rethymno, and the factory’s 45-metre chimney still stands in the middle of the complex as a protected monument. Bio Suites scores 9.2 on Booking.com across 139 reviews and 4.4 on Tripadvisor across 641, a gap worth understanding before you book: the Booking sample is recent and small, the Tripadvisor sample is long and includes years of buffet complaints. The hotel suits families who want the old town on foot and a shallow beach nearby, and it is a weaker choice in the peak fortnight when the dining room fills.
Crete Locals has no commercial relationship with this hotel. We earn a commission if you book through the availability links on this page, at no cost to you and with no effect on what we write; the ratings above were read from Booking.com and Tripadvisor on the date in the table.
Hotel information
| Hotel | Bio Suites Hotel & Spa |
|---|---|
| Address | 13, Albert Schweitzer Street |
| Type | Air conditioning · Airport shuttle |
| Style | Four-star town hotel in a quiet district of Rethymno, near the beach |
| Signature | The 45-metre chimney of the 1920 olive oil factory, a protected monument, standing inside the complex |
| Keys | 133 rooms: classical rooms, renovated suites, and an accessible apartment |
| Name | BIO, short for viomichaniki periochi, the Greek for industrial zone |
| Dining | Buffet restaurant, pool bar; the old town's tavernas are a 10-minute walk |
| Beach | Shallow and sheltered, a short walk away, with a section shared with the sister hotel |
| Families | Two-bedroom rooms and an accessible apartment for up to 3 guests |
| Airports | Chania (CHQ) about 60 km west, Heraklion (HER) about 80 km east |
| Booking.com rating | 9.2/10 (139 reviews) |
| Tripadvisor rating | 4.4/5 (641 reviews) |
| CreteLocals score | 8.2/10 · read the verdict |
Booking.com and Tripadvisor scores checked on September 25, 2026.
Location
Bio Suites Hotel & Spa is located at 13, Albert Schweitzer Street, in Rethymno Town. The map below shows the exact spot; Google Maps and Waze give turn-by-turn directions.
Who Bio Suites suits, and who should skip it
Bio Suites suits families with young children who want to walk into Rethymno old town and still have a pool and a shallow beach within a few minutes. It suits guests who like a hotel with a story attached to the ground it stands on. Couples after a quiet, design-led stay in August should look at a smaller property, because the buffet at full occupancy is the recurring complaint in the review record.
Advantages
- Walking distance to Rethymno old town and the Venetian harbour, roughly 10 minutes on foot
- Shallow, sheltered beach a short walk away, which guests repeatedly call good for children
- Two-bedroom family rooms that guests describe as unusually large for the price
- Cleanliness praised consistently across both review platforms
- Beach section shared with the sister hotel, with loungers and service
- An accessible apartment for up to 3 guests, designed for reduced mobility
Disadvantages
- Buffet service turns into a scrum when the hotel is full, the single most repeated criticism
- Tripadvisor sits at 4.4 across 641 reviews, well below the recent Booking.com score
- Classical rooms show their age next to the renovated suites
- Housekeeping runs on a 3-day linen cycle, which some guests flag at this price
- Beach is a walk rather than a step, since the hotel sits back from the water
- Evening entertainment is modest, so nightlife means walking into town
The rooms: 133 keys in three clear tiers
Bio Suites holds 133 rooms across three tiers the hotel names plainly: classical rooms, the newer suites, and an accessible apartment. The classical rooms are the older stock and carry the older reviews with them. The renovated suites are where the recent 9.2 on Booking.com comes from, and guests who booked them describe new furniture, good storage and balconies they actually used.
Families should look at the two-bedroom configuration. Reviewers travelling as a family of 4 single out the size, the fridge and a balcony big enough to dry swimwear, which is the practical detail that decides a week with children. The accessible apartment takes a double or two singles plus a third guest and is built for reduced mobility rather than adapted as an afterthought.
The 1920 chimney, and why the hotel is called Bio
The name comes from the ground. One of Rethymno’s largest olive oil extraction factories operated here from 1920 to 1940, in a district locals called BIO, short for the Greek “viomichaniki periochi”, meaning industrial zone. The hotel kept the factory’s chimney: 45 metres tall, about 3 metres across, the only surviving structure of the original plant, declared a monument of early industrial Greece by the Ministry of Culture and stabilised with iron at the hotel’s own expense.
That is a rarer thing than a spa, and it is the reason this hotel reads differently from the resorts along the same coast. The chimney stands in the middle of the complex rather than tucked behind it, so it is part of the view from the pool. The hotel also publishes an environmental policy and a spa, and the quiet residential setting is what guests mean when they say the location is good without being noisy.
How to get there
Fly into Chania airport (CHQ), about 60 km west of Rethymno, or Heraklion airport (HER), about 80 km east. Chania is the easier arrival for Rethymno, and both run along the north coast national road.
Pre-book a transfer if you land in the evening with children and luggage; the operators and fares are in our guide to taxi and transfer services in Crete. Rent a car if Preveli, Kourtaliotiko gorge or the Amari villages are on your list, and check the deposit and insurance terms first using our car hire guide for Crete. Once you are here the old town is a walk, so a car sits parked for most of a beach holiday.
The Crete Locals review
Bio Suites earns 8.2 from us. The score reflects a hotel that does the important things well and one thing badly, and the badly-done thing is the one guests remember: dinner. Reviewers using three languages describe the same scene, a buffet that works when the hotel is half full and becomes a battle at the cold counter when it is not. A German guest called it exactly that. The hotel has not fixed it in the years the reviews span, which is why the Tripadvisor average sits at 4.4 while recent Booking.com guests, who skew towards the renovated suites, give it 9.2.
What the hotel does well is location and space. Rethymno’s old town is one of the two most walkable historic centres in Crete, and Bio Suites is close enough that you can have dinner in a courtyard taverna and walk back, which removes the taxi bill that shapes a stay at the big coastal resorts. The beach nearby is shallow and sheltered, and parents say so specifically rather than in general terms. The two-bedroom family rooms are genuinely large.
The chimney deserves a sentence of its own, because it changes what the hotel is. Most Cretan beach hotels could be anywhere on the Mediterranean. This one is standing on a documented piece of Rethymno’s industrial history, has paid to keep the last of it upright, and has taken its name from it. If you care about staying somewhere with a specific past, that is worth more than another pool bar.
Book Bio Suites if you are a family who wants the old town on foot, and book a renovated suite or the two-bedroom room rather than a classical room. Avoid the first fortnight of August if a calm dinner matters to you, and consider half board elsewhere in town on the busiest nights, since the tavernas are a 10-minute walk away.
