Heraklion airport is an experience.

You can wait along time for your baggage on arrival and be sent to the wrong carousel for your bags

departure can be chaos, in an organised way.

When you are thru to the departure lounge you will notice it is very crowded. All the seats taken, people sitting on the stairs.

There is a small dutyfree shop upstairs and a cafe. The cafe is not 24 hours, so make sure you have a drink with you.

p.s. it is called a duty free shop despite there being no requirement within europe

Hi ya

The airport is very small with hardly any facilities. We arrived there at 1.00 am in the morning and the cafe is shut but there is a coffee/tea bar downstairs. Apart from the duty free after going through imigration there are no shops whatsoever.

And yes I agree we had to wait ages for our baggage!

Karen

Solution is to go via Chania airport....it's clean, quick and easy.

Thanks for your replies. Unfortunately Richard, Chania isn't an option. We've booked a package hol and our destination airport is Heraklion. We fly 2 weeks SUnday.

Don't worry. Heraklion is one of the better Greek airports and it is normally organised chaos as opposed to just chaos. Seriously, I have never had an issue at all. Sure the facilities are limited but at least there are some and the queues for check in are manageable. The problem always comes about by tour operators getting the bus transfers there at the same time, to beat this hire a cab although cost might be prohibitive. If you are doing transfers, try and sit near the front. It sounds silly, but believe me getting out first and grabbing your luggage can save 30mins in a queue.

Have a great holiday and don't worry about the airport too much.

Hi jwhiting,

Thanks, I'm certainly not going to worry about the airport when I've a lovely Greek holiday to look forward to. I was just curious that's all. I've researched everything else and gone through planning with a toothcomb This was the only other thing I could think of to ask about. I'm so excited with just under 3 weeks to go

agree with JWhiting about taxi transfers.

we know always book our own flights, hotel etc and even have the phone number of a local taxi driver.
Who is there waiting for us at arrivals.

On arrival if you are worrying about taxi fares. All the prices to the resorts are listed on the wall as you leave the arrivals hall.
Just a word of warning, thou never happened to me, greek taxis are allowed to pick up more than one fare at a time!!

Have to agree with the other posters on this airport.............it was an experience to say the least.

We had to queue outside the airport as there were so many people inside checking in that it was chaos!!!

Once we got in and checked in it was VERY crowded with folk sitting on the floor - if you want Duty Free it was like first day at a Harrods sale, folk pushing and shoving - however we managed eventually get a seat and had fun people watching until our flight arrived!

i will say the same, it is chaos, i was stuck in there for 3 an half hour this morning , it is small, filthy and full of 18 to 30s shouting lol

We were there a couple of weeks ago. It was an experience, to say the least...
We've never been anywhere in Greece before, we are used to Spain.
Have to say though, everyone was very helpful, sending us over to the right bit when we went to the wrong bit etc. Security wasn't too hot - they weren't bothered about my see-through bag of small liquids and it was only later when we were sitting near the gate I realised I had a large spray can of Magicool in my bag and nobody at security had said anything about it.
Anyway, the Magicool came in handy in the hot sweaty "warehouse" while we were straining our ears listening for our flight to be called, because there was only one tiny screen very high up where nobody could see it.
The duty-free shop was fun - if you're paying with plastic they don't have card readers at the till, they take you over to another bit to put your pin number in. Got some nice limited edition smellies though! And cigs there are the same price as in all the shops on the island so you can buy them on your way home instead of buying them in resort and cramming them into your suitcase.

We must have been lucky then. Quickly through check in and security, and departures was almost empty - literally there was nothing there Ok a tiny kiosk selling coffee and pastries that looked like they were 3 days old, a small duty free that was shut when we first got there, and a bar that remained closed. At least it was clean - and I have been to worse airports!