Porto Elounda Golf & Spa Resort, Six Senses Spa
Porto Elounda Golf & Spa Resort is the Kokotos family’s activity flagship on Mirabello Bay: about 130 rooms, suites, and villas around the island’s original golf course and Europe’s first Six Senses Spa. Porto Elounda opened in 1992, shares its estate and dine-around privileges with Elounda Mare and Elounda Peninsula, and guests score it 9.2 out of 10 on Booking.com and 4.3 out of 5 on Tripadvisor across 815 reviews. Our verdict lands at 8.2 out of 10: the estate’s best facilities package, with the half-board buffet and un-renovated rooms the honest caveats a 2025-2026 renovation is working through.
Hotel information
| Hotel | Porto Elounda Golf & Spa Resort, Six Senses Spa |
|---|---|
| Address | Main Street |
| Type | Air conditioning · Airport shuttle |
| Style | Golf-and-spa resort, family-friendly (Elounda Collection) |
| Signature | Europe's first Six Senses Spa; 9-hole par-3 golf course since 1993 |
| Keys | About 130 rooms, suites, and villas; 74 new suites from 2025 |
| Dining | Cosmos, Elies, and Thea on site; dine-around at the sister resorts |
| History | Opened 1992 by the Kokotos family |
| Nearest airport | Heraklion (HER), about 70 km by road |
| Booking.com rating | 9.2/10 (257 reviews) |
| Tripadvisor rating | 4.3/5 (815 reviews) |
| CreteLocals score | 8.2/10 · read the verdict |
Booking.com and Tripadvisor scores checked on September 19, 2026.
Location
Porto Elounda Golf & Spa Resort, Six Senses Spa is located at Main Street, in Elounda town. The map below shows the exact spot; Google Maps and Waze give turn-by-turn directions.
Who Porto Elounda suits, and who should skip it
Porto Elounda suits families and active guests who will use what makes it singular, the golf, the Six Senses programmes, the tennis of the Racquet Club, and it suits them at its best in the renovated categories. The lists below come from recurring themes in the resort’s 815 Tripadvisor reviews and 257 Booking.com reviews.
Advantages
- Six Senses Spa, the first in Europe, still the estate’s wellness anchor
- Golf on the island’s original 9-hole par-3 course, laid out in 1993
- Private sandy beaches with the heated main pool behind them
- Dine-around access to the sister resorts’ tables, Il Borro and the Yacht Club included
- 74 brand-new suites delivered in the 2025 renovation
- Location scored 4.6 on the shared Kokotos estate
Disadvantages
- Value scores 3.8, with the half-board buffet called cafeteria-grade by recent guests
- Two-tier room stock, since 14 Superior rooms still await their renovation turn
- Public areas read cold and sparse to some reviewers mid-renovation
- Paid extras sting families, from the charged kids club to 50-euro-per-hour water slides
The rooms: renovated only, and say so at booking
Porto Elounda runs about 130 keys in which the 2025 wave of 74 new suites now sets the standard, with the last 14 un-renovated Superior rooms scheduled for the coming winter’s works.
The guests’ own advice is the booking rule: renovated categories only, junior suite and up, confirmed in writing. The gap between the new suites and the waiting-list rooms explains most of the 4.1 rooms score, and the private-pool categories give the estate’s classic format at this address’s friendlier rates.
The golf, the Six Senses Spa and the estate
The golf course is the island’s first, 9 par-3 holes threaded through the resort since 1993, and it pairs with the Racquet Club’s Lux Tennis programme for the estate’s sporting mornings. The salt-water swimming and private sandy beaches hold the afternoons.
The Six Senses Spa remains the headline: Europe’s first, running the brand’s full programmes above the bay. Dinner starts at Cosmos, Elies, and the Thea lounge on site, then widens across the estate through dine-around, with Elounda Peninsula’s Il Borro and Yacht Club the trades guests praise most. The kids club runs as a paid service, worth pricing into family budgets.
How to get there
Porto Elounda is about 70 km from Heraklion airport (HER) by road, roughly 1 hour and 15 minutes via Agios Nikolaos, on the Elounda coast beside its sister resorts. Elounda village is minutes away.
Three transport options cover the trip, and each fits a different stay. A pre-booked transfer is the house standard; our guide to taxi and airport transfer services in Crete lists the operators and typical prices. A hire car adds Agios Nikolaos and the east coast, and our car rental in Crete page compares local rates. The Elounda bus plus a short taxi covers the budget route.
The Crete Locals review
Porto Elounda is the Kokotos estate’s busy child, the one built for guests who need a holiday to contain doing something, and its 1992 bet on golf and wellness still defines it: nowhere else on Crete tees off inside a five-star, and the Six Senses flag has flown here longer than anywhere in Europe. The 9.2 on Booking.com says the core experience holds; the Tripadvisor 4.3, dragged by its value line, says the edges need the attention they are finally getting.
The estate context is the quiet half of the offer. One booking here buys 3 resorts’ geography: the peninsula’s restaurants, Mare’s bay, the shared coves, and the family’s boats to Spinalonga, with Porto Elounda holding the most facilities and the most approachable rates of the trio. For families the arithmetic favours it, paid kids club notwithstanding.
The honest account is a resort mid-correction. The value score of 3.8 is earned by a half-board buffet guests route around and by rates that assume the renovation is finished when 14 rooms still wait, and the sparse public areas reviewers describe are what a lobby looks like the season before its own works. The management’s responses on record are specific and dated, which we weight in its favour.
Book Porto Elounda for the activity estate: a renovated junior suite, tee times and spa programmes reserved before arrival, dinners planned across the dine-around map rather than the buffet. May, June, and September fit the golf and the bay best, and by then the renovation should have caught the rooms the reviews still complain about.
