El Greco Hotel
El Greco Hotel is a 16-room hotel on Theotokopoulou street in the Chania old town, 0.3 mi from the Venetian harbour, and it carries the widest gap between platforms we have recorded on this site. El Greco scores 9.1 on Booking.com across 1,298 reviews and 3.7 on Tripadvisor across 221, where 64 sit at Excellent and 35 at Poor or Terrible, ranking 76th of 122 hotels in Chania Town. The room category you book explains most of that gap.
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; both ratings were read on the date in the table.
Hotel information
| Hotel | El Greco Hotel |
|---|---|
| Address | 47-49 Theotokopoulou Str |
| Type | Air conditioning · WiFi |
| Style | 16-room hotel on Theotokopoulou street inside the Chania old town |
| Signature | The widest platform gap in this programme: 9.1 on Booking.com against 3.7 on Tripadvisor |
| Keys | 16 rooms; four of the six categories are interior rooms |
| Ranking | 76th of 122 hotels in Chania Town on Tripadvisor |
| Review record | 9.1 from 1,298 Booking.com guests; 64 of 221 Tripadvisor reviews at Excellent, 35 at Poor or Terrible |
| Sub-scores | Cleanliness 9.5, wifi 9.3, staff 9.4 on Booking.com |
| Read before booking | Interior rooms can face a wall; twin beds cannot be joined into a double |
| Access | Lift to the third floor only, then stairs; no parking, guests use the fortress car park |
| Airport | Chania (CHQ) about 15 km northeast, roughly 25 minutes |
| Booking.com rating | 9.1/10 (1,298 reviews) |
| Tripadvisor rating | 3.7/5 (221 reviews) |
| CreteLocals score | 7.6/10 · read the verdict |
Booking.com and Tripadvisor scores checked on September 28, 2026.
Location
El Greco Hotel is located at 47-49 Theotokopoulou Str, in Chania Town. The map below shows the exact spot; Google Maps and Waze give turn-by-turn directions.
Who El Greco suits, and who should skip it
El Greco suits travellers who want a clean, recently renovated room inside the old town at a modest rate, and who are booking the location rather than the room. It suits short stays. Anyone who needs a window with a view, a guaranteed double bed, a lift to the top floor or help with luggage over cobblestones should book elsewhere in Chania.
Advantages
- 9.1 on Booking.com across 1,298 reviews, the second largest sample in this batch
- A position inside the old town, 0.3 mi from the Venetian harbour
- Renovated rooms, described as spotless by guests on both platforms
- Cleanliness scored 9.5, wifi 9.3 and staff 9.4 by Booking.com guests
- A roof terrace where guests watch the sunset
- Breakfast praised repeatedly, including by a guest with coeliac disease
Disadvantages
- 3.7 on Tripadvisor across 221 reviews, with 35 at Poor or Terrible
- 76th of 122 hotels in Chania Town on Tripadvisor
- Most room categories are interior, and ground-floor windows face a wall
- Twin beds cannot be joined into a double, per a guest who requested it
- The lift reaches the third floor, then a curving staircase to the fourth
- No parking nearby; guests use the car park by the fortress
The rooms: 16 keys, and the word interior
El Greco runs 16 rooms and the category names tell you what to expect: Single Room Interior, Double Room Interior, Triple Room Interior, Quadruple Room Interior, Twin Room with Balcony, and Mini-Suite with Balcony. Four of the six categories are interior rooms, which in a building inside the old town means little or no outward view.
Book a balcony category or accept what interior means. One guest describes a ground-floor room whose window is large but faces a wall that rises well above it, so the room is effectively windowless; another, who rated the hotel highly, notes their room looked onto an ancient wall and shrugs it off because they came to sleep. A third requested a double bed, was given two singles and was told they could not be joined.
Why two platforms disagree this much
A 9.1 and a 3.7 on the same hotel look impossible until you read what each set of guests booked. The Booking.com sample is four times larger, skews to short city stays and rates the hotel against its rate and position: clean room, old town address, good breakfast, helpful reception, 9.5 for cleanliness. On that basis the score is deserved.
The Tripadvisor sample judges it as a hotel rather than as a room. The complaints there are consistent: interior rooms that feel like cells, beds that cannot be pushed together, a fourth floor reached by stairs after the lift stops at the third, no help with luggage across 50 metres of cobbles, and an afternoon receptionist several guests found unhelpful. Those are hotel failings rather than location failings, and they are what drags 221 reviews to 3.7 with 35 of them at Poor or Terrible.
Both readings are true at once, so book accordingly. Guests who report renovated rooms, a roof terrace with a sunset and breakfast that accommodated coeliac disease are describing the same property as the guests who found a windowless room and a receptionist who would not recommend a restaurant. The variable is the room category and, on the evidence, which shift is on the desk.
How to get there
Fly into Chania airport (CHQ), about 15 km northeast on the Akrotiri peninsula, roughly 25 minutes by road. The hotel sits on Theotokopoulou street, inside the old town near the Venetian fortress.
Pre-book a transfer, because the old town is pedestrianised and a driver who knows it will drop you as close as the lanes allow; the operators are in our guide to taxi and transfer services in Crete. Skip the hire car unless you are touring, since there is no parking at the hotel and guests use the fortress car park, and read our car hire guide for Crete if you do need one. The harbour, the Archaeological Museum and the Maritime Museum are all within a few minutes on foot.
The Crete Locals review
El Greco earns 7.6 from us, and the score sits low because of the split rather than despite it. When 1,298 Booking.com guests say 9.1 and 221 Tripadvisor travellers say 3.7, the honest reading is not to average them but to work out who is right about what.
The location is genuinely good and the housekeeping is not in dispute: cleanliness is scored 9.5 on the larger platform, the rooms were remade a couple of years ago, and guests on both sites describe them as spotless. Breakfast earns praise from people who are hard to please about it, and the roof terrace is a real asset in a town where most small hotels have none.
The problems are structural and they will not be fixed by a better mood at reception. Four of six room categories are interior, and in this building interior can mean a window against a wall; the beds in the twin rooms cannot be combined; the lift stops a floor short of the top; and there is nowhere to park. A hotel that sells mostly interior rooms in a heritage building should be priced and described as exactly that, and the Tripadvisor tail is what happens when guests discover it on arrival.
Book El Greco for a short stay in the Chania old town in the Mini-Suite with Balcony or the Twin Room with Balcony, and confirm the bed configuration in writing. Book a hotel with outward-facing rooms if a window that looks at something matters to you.
