Mitsis Laguna Resort & Spa
Mitsis Selection Laguna, the resort long known as Mitsis Laguna Resort & Spa, is a 351-room ultra all-inclusive directly on the Blue Flag beach at Anissaras, between Heraklion airport and Hersonissos. Mitsis renamed the resort under its Selection tier in the group’s 2023 rebrand, runs the all-inclusive 24 hours a day, and guests score it 9.0 out of 10 on Booking.com and 4.6 out of 5 on Tripadvisor across 5,395 reviews. Our verdict lands at 8.4 out of 10: one of the deepest all-inclusive programmes on the island, with the isolated strip and the a la carte booking system the honest caveats.
Hotel information
| Hotel | Mitsis Laguna Resort & Spa |
|---|---|
| Address | Anissaras |
| Type | Air conditioning · Babysitting/child services |
| Style | Ultra all-inclusive family resort, 24-hour concept |
| Signature | Venice-style pool landscape; blue-domed architecture |
| Keys | 351 rooms, suites, and family bungalows |
| Dining | 5 themed a la carte restaurants, 3 food outlets, 7 bars |
| History | Opened May 2011; renamed from Mitsis Laguna Resort & Spa in the 2023 Mitsis rebrand |
| Nearest airport | Heraklion (HER), about 17 km |
| Booking.com rating | 9.0/10 (665 reviews) |
| Tripadvisor rating | 4.6/5 (5,395 reviews) |
| CreteLocals score | 8.4/10 · read the verdict |
Booking.com and Tripadvisor scores checked on September 19, 2026.
Location
Mitsis Laguna Resort & Spa is located at Anissaras, in Hersonissos. The map below shows the exact spot; Google Maps and Waze give turn-by-turn directions.
Who Mitsis Selection Laguna suits, and who should skip it
Mitsis Selection Laguna suits families who plan to stay inside the resort and want the all-inclusive to actually include things, and it suits them because the 24-hour concept covers 5 themed restaurants, the crepe and ice-cream counters children remember, and 7 bars up to the champagne bar. The lists below come from recurring themes in the resort’s 5,395 Tripadvisor reviews and 665 Booking.com reviews.
Advantages
- Ultra all-inclusive running 24 hours, unusual even among big Cretan resorts
- Dining depth of 5 themed a la carte restaurants plus 3 outlets, with sushi and the Cretan table named often
- Venice-style pool landscape with heated outdoor pools at the season’s edges
- Blue Flag beachfront with a private beach area
- Housekeeping scored 4.7 out of 5 for cleanliness
- Airport transfer of roughly 20 minutes
Disadvantages
- Location scores 4.1, the weakest number, because Anissaras is a resort strip with no walkable town
- A la carte booking system is the standout complaint, with app reservations lost and desk queues
- Sunbed hogging with towels, and morning cleanup that sometimes misses last night’s glasses
- Scale, since 351 rooms means peak buffet sittings feel busy
The rooms: from doubles to family bungalows
Mitsis Selection Laguna spreads 351 rooms, suites, and family bungalows through low blue-domed buildings between the pools and the beach. The 4.6 rooms score holds steadily for a resort of this volume.
Families should look first at the family bungalows, the category the resort’s repeat guests book, and couples should ask for the quieter blocks away from the main pool animation. Sea-view rooms are worth the step at sunrise; swim-up and pool-adjacent categories put the Venice landscape at the terrace.
The pools, the beach and the 24-hour programme
The pool landscape is the resort’s centrepiece, a Venice-styled network of bridges and lagoons that runs from the main pool scene to quieter salt-water corners. Heating at the season’s edges keeps the water usable when the sea turns brisk.
The beach in front carries the Blue Flag, and the programme around it barely stops: kids club, theatre bar shows, the night bar after them, and food service around the clock. The a la carte restaurants are the week’s highlights, so reserve them on arrival day through the desk rather than trusting the app, the single most repeated tip in reviews.
How to get there
Mitsis Selection Laguna is about 17 km from Heraklion airport (HER), a drive of roughly 20 minutes, on the coastal strip at Anissaras. Hersonissos town is a short taxi east; nothing meaningful is walkable from the gate, which is the location trade-off to accept upfront.
Three transport options cover the trip, and each fits a different stay. A pre-booked transfer or taxi handles the short hop; our guide to taxi and airport transfer services in Crete lists the operators and typical prices. A hire car turns the isolation into a base for Knossos, Heraklion, and the Lasithi plateau, and our car rental in Crete page compares local rates. The north-coast bus stops on the main road above the resort for cheap Hersonissos and Heraklion runs.
The Crete Locals review
Mitsis Selection Laguna is the resort we name when a family asks which Cretan all-inclusive actually includes enough, because the 24-hour ultra concept here is the real thing rather than a marketing tier: crepes at midnight, 5 themed restaurants inside the plan, and bars that outlast the guests. Across 5,395 Tripadvisor reviews the 4.6 average is strong evidence the machine runs, and the 2023 move into Mitsis’s Selection tier formalised what regulars already treated it as, the group’s showcase on Crete.
The physical resort earns the tier too. The blue domes photograph like a Cyclades postcard, the Venice pool landscape gives the site a centre that big resorts usually lack, and the Blue Flag beach completes the triangle. Cleanliness at 4.7 across this many rooms is an operational feat, and the heated pools stretch the season further than most neighbours manage.
The two honest weaknesses are structural. Anissaras offers the resort and nothing else, so the 4.1 location score is geography rather than bad luck, and guests without a car see only the resort for a week. And the a la carte booking system, literally a popular-mentions chip on Tripadvisor, is the operational sore: reservations made through the app evaporate often enough that the desk queue on arrival day has become the guests’ own workaround.
Book Mitsis Selection Laguna as a destination in itself, and work the system like the regulars: reserve every a la carte night at the desk within an hour of check-in, claim sunbeds at breakfast rather than dawn, and keep one hire-car day for Knossos. May, June, and September give the pool landscape its calmest form, and the 20-minute transfer makes the arrival the easiest part of the week.
