Nautilux Rethymno by Mage Hotels
Nautilux Rethymno by Mage Hotels is a 118-room five-star hotel on the coast road about 2 km east of Rethymno old town, and it is the strongest service performer in this round of reviews. Nautilux scores 9.5 on Booking.com across 965 reviews and 4.8 on Tripadvisor across 276, where it ranks 16th of 158 hotels in Rethymno and carries a 2026 Travellers’ Choice award. Guests return to the same subject again and again in their reviews: the staff. What holds the score back is the room design rather than the hospitality, and that distinction runs through everything below.
We have no commercial relationship with this hotel. Crete Locals earns a commission if you book through the availability links on this page, which costs you nothing and does not change what we write; the scores above come from Booking.com and Tripadvisor on the date shown in the table.
Hotel information
| Hotel | Nautilux Rethymno by Mage Hotels |
|---|---|
| Address | 23 Afstralon Polemiston |
| Type | Air conditioning · Airport shuttle |
| Style | Five-star coastal hotel 2 km east of Rethymno old town |
| Signature | Service guests name individually, and the Coral Wellness and Spa |
| Keys | 118 rooms and suites: classic, patio, junior suites, junior suites with private pool |
| Dining | Main restaurant, pool bar with a lunch menu, private dining on request |
| Group | MAGE Hotels and Resorts, with Melrose in Rethymno and Tiare in Athens |
| Recognition | Michelin Guide hotel selection, Tripadvisor Travellers' Choice 2026 |
| Ranking | 16th of 158 hotels in Rethymno on Tripadvisor |
| Children | The hotel's own booking form takes children from 12 years |
| Airports | Chania (CHQ) about 60 km west, Heraklion (HER) about 80 km east |
| Booking.com rating | 9.5/10 (965 reviews) |
| Tripadvisor rating | 4.8/5 (276 reviews) |
| CreteLocals score | 8.8/10 · read the verdict |
Booking.com and Tripadvisor scores checked on September 25, 2026.
Location
Nautilux Rethymno by Mage Hotels is located at 23 Afstralon Polemiston, in Rethymno Town. The map below shows the exact spot; Google Maps and Waze give turn-by-turn directions.
Who Nautilux suits, and who should skip it
Nautilux suits couples who rate service and breakfast above square metres, and who are happy to reach the old town by a 30-minute walk or a short taxi ride. It suits families with children of 12 and over, because the hotel’s own booking form takes children only from that age. Guests who need drawers, wardrobe space and a private bathroom will find the rooms the weakest part of the stay.
Advantages
- Service that guests describe as the reason to return, named individually in review after review
- Breakfast with wide choice and hot food kept hot, a detail repeat visitors single out
- Pool and pool-bar menu that hold up for lunch, so no one has to leave mid-day
- Coral Wellness and Spa, a gym, room service and soundproofed rooms
- Listing in the Michelin Guide’s hotel selection and a 2026 Travellers’ Choice award
- Junior suites with private pools for anniversaries and longer stays
Disadvantages
- Storage in the standard rooms is thin: guests report almost no drawers and little wardrobe space
- Room lighting draws repeated complaints as too dim for a five-star room
- Bathroom layout gives little privacy, and the night light reaches the whole room
- Standard rooms run small, so a week of unpacking feels tight
- Service at breakfast tables can lag early in the season while new staff train
- Low rooms on the road side pick up traffic noise and smell in the early evening
The rooms: 118 keys, and the upgrade is the honest advice
Nautilux holds 118 rooms and suites across classic rooms, patio rooms, junior suites and junior suites with a private pool. Classic rooms are the volume product and the source of most criticism: guests call them stylish and clean, then describe hunting for somewhere to put clothes. One reviewer who stayed 7 nights in a standard room wrote that in hindsight they would have booked an upgraded room, which is the most useful sentence in the whole review set.
Patio rooms and junior suites add the space the classic rooms lack, and the private-pool junior suites are the ones guests mention for anniversaries. Rooms are soundproofed and the pool-facing side is quieter than the road side. If you are staying a week rather than a weekend, treat the upgrade as part of the price rather than as an extra.
Coral Wellness, the pool and the awards shelf
Coral Wellness and Spa is the hotel’s named wellness facility, built for treatments rather than as a pool-side afterthought, and it sits alongside a fitness room. The main pool carries the day: guests eat lunch there from the pool-bar menu and stay put, which is a practical point on a coast road where the alternative is a walk.
Nautilux belongs to MAGE Hotels and Resorts, whose sister properties are Melrose in Rethymno and Tiare in Athens. The hotel lists a Michelin Guide entry, Haute Grandeur and Luxury Lifestyle awards, and Booking.com Traveller Review Awards. Awards are marketing, but the Travellers’ Choice badge is calculated from guest ratings, and at 4.8 across 276 reviews the badge matches what visitors actually wrote.
How to get there
Fly into Chania airport (CHQ), about 60 km west, or Heraklion airport (HER), about 80 km east. Both connect to Rethymno by the national road, and the drive from Chania is the shorter and simpler of the two.
Book a private transfer if you are arriving late or travelling with a group; our guide to taxi and transfer services in Crete covers the operators and the fares. Hire a car if you plan to see Preveli, Margarites or the Amari valley, since the hotel sits on the main road east of town and driving out is easy; our car hire guide for Crete explains the deposit and insurance terms to check. Guests report a taxi into Rethymno old town at around 7 euros, and reception will call one; the walk takes about 30 minutes along the coast.
The Crete Locals review
Nautilux earns 8.8 from us, and the number is a compromise between two very different halves of the same hotel. The hospitality half is as good as anything we have reviewed this year: guests name receptionists, breakfast staff and guest relations by name, describe being looked after through a medical emergency at 3am, and repeat that the service is the reason they would come back. That is not a marketing claim, it is the pattern across 276 Tripadvisor reviews and 965 on Booking.com, and it is why the hotel sits 16th of 158 in a town with a lot of competition.
The room half is where a five-star rating starts to strain. Several guests describe a classic room with almost no drawers, no usable wardrobe and nowhere in the bathroom to set down toiletries, which is a design decision rather than a housekeeping failure, and it is the single most repeated complaint in the set. The same reviewers describe lighting too dim to read by and a bathroom whose door and lighting position wake the other person in the room. None of this shows in photographs, which is exactly why it belongs in a review.
Location is a genuine trade-off rather than a flaw. Nautilux sits on the coast road east of Rethymno, so you get a quieter beach front and a pool that stays usable, and you give up stepping straight into the old town at night. A taxi costs about 7 euros and takes a few minutes, tavernas and a supermarket are within walking distance, and guests who knew the layout before booking treat it as a feature.
Book Nautilux if you want the service standard of a much more expensive hotel and you are willing to pay for a patio room or a junior suite to get the space. Look elsewhere if you need a room you can properly unpack into at the entry price, or if walking home from dinner in the old town matters more to you than the pool.
