Nana Royal Premium Resort & Spa
Nana Royal Premium Resort & Spa is the resort Crete knew for decades as Aldemar Knossos Royal, bought by the Karatzis Group for 80 million euros, gut-renovated, and relaunched at Anissaras for the 2026 season. Its debut-year guests rank it 1st of 26 hotels in Limenas Chersonisou at 4.8 out of 5 on Tripadvisor, with 9.6 out of 10 on Booking.com, both on young samples of 231 and 63 reviews. Our verdict lands at 8.7 out of 10: the most promising debut on the coast, scored with first-season honesty about teething problems.
Hotel information
| Hotel | Nana Royal Premium Resort & Spa |
|---|---|
| Address | Anissaras, Hersonissos 700 14 |
| Type | Resorts |
| Style | Family beach resort, relaunched 2026 (Karatzis Group) |
| Signature | Royal Wellness Club, 1,400 square metres built with Starpool; salt room |
| Keys | Roughly 375 to 413 rooms in 10 types, counts still conflicting |
| Dining | 4 or more restaurants plus a pastry shop |
| History | Ex Aldemar Knossos Royal; 80-million-euro sale announced November 2024 |
| Nearest airport | Heraklion (HER), about 20 km |
| Booking.com rating | 9.6/10 (63 reviews) |
| Tripadvisor rating | 4.8/5 (231 reviews) |
| CreteLocals score | 8.7/10 · read the verdict |
Booking.com and Tripadvisor scores checked on September 19, 2026.
Location
Nana Royal Premium Resort & Spa is located at Anissaras, Hersonissos 700 14. The map below shows the exact spot; Google Maps and Waze give turn-by-turn directions.
Who Nana Royal suits, and who should skip it
Nana Royal suits families who watched Nana Princess top our rankings and wanted the same group’s craft at bigger-resort breadth, and it suits early adopters who enjoy a hotel in its first, eager season. The lists below come from recurring themes in its debut-season Tripadvisor and Booking.com reviews.
Advantages
- Rooms and sleep quality both scored 4.8, the renovation’s report card
- Royal Wellness Club of 1,400 square metres built with Italy’s Starpool, salt room included
- Private sandy coves on the Anissaras shore with crystal-clear water in the guests’ words
- Dining across 4 or more restaurants with a pastry shop guests single out
- Sharing-pool suites and private-pool villas through the upper ladder
- Karatzis pedigree, the group behind Nana Princess and Nana Golden Beach
Disadvantages
- A September 2026 sickness-bug cluster appears across multiple reviews, flagged here plainly
- First-season teething, from housekeeping lapses to scalding-shower reports
- Buffet and drinks trail the price point for a vocal minority
- Review samples are young, so every score here carries a debut-season asterisk
The rooms: 10 types, all new this season
Nana Royal runs roughly 375 to 413 keys, the counts still conflicting between sources, across 10 room types from 35 square metre suites to villas with plunge pools, every one of them delivered by the 2026 renovation.
With uniform new stock, the choice is pure position: sharing-pool suites for the swim-up morning, deluxe suites toward the sea, villas for the full retreat. The 4.8 rooms score suggests no wrong answers yet, and the winter’s snag lists should close the teething gaps by next season.
The wellness club, the coves and the pastry shop
The Royal Wellness Club is the relaunch’s centrepiece: 1,400 square metres built with the Italian wellness house Starpool, salt room included, with yoga sessions on the dedicated deck feeding the review chips.
The shore keeps the old resort’s best inheritance, sandy coves off the Anissaras strand, and the food programme shows the group’s sweet tooth: a la carte rooms behind the main restaurant, high-quality dishes in the guests’ phrase, and the pastry shop that reviews treat as an attraction. A kids club, tennis, and the water park keep the family day full.
How to get there
Nana Royal sits on the Anissaras shore at Hersonissos, about 20 km from Heraklion airport (HER), a drive of roughly 25 minutes, with its Nana siblings minutes along the coast.
Three transport options cover the trip, and each fits a different stay. A pre-booked transfer or taxi is the simple arrival; our guide to taxi and airport transfer services in Crete lists the operators and typical prices. A hire car adds Knossos and Heraklion, and our car rental in Crete page compares local rates. The north-coast bus passes on the main road above.
The Crete Locals review
Nana Royal is the debut we have watched most closely, because the Karatzis family’s last 2 openings set the bar this programme measures by: Nana Princess holds our highest score on the island, and Nana Golden Beach owns the family tier. Spending 80 million euros on the shell of Knossos Royal, one of the coast’s grand old names, and reopening it inside 2 seasons is the group operating at full confidence, and the debut year’s 1st-of-26 ranking says guests met the ambition.
We also owe readers the file’s uncomfortable page. Multiple September 2026 reviews report a gastro sickness bug, prominently enough that it became a review chip, alongside the classic first-season lapses of thin housekeeping moments and hot-water surprises. New operations usually iron these out over their first winter, and the group’s track record argues they will, but a review written today includes them.
The score therefore splits the difference deliberately. The physical resort, rooms at 4.8, the Starpool wellness floor, the coves, would bid for the high 8s on hardware alone; the debut-season operations and the young samples hold it at 8.7 until a full year of reviews exists. We will revisit this page after summer 2027.
Book Nana Royal to catch a flagship in its opening act: a sharing-pool suite, the wellness club booked early, and the pastry shop as the afternoon ritual. June and September of its second season may be the sweet spot the first season is still earning.
