Kalamaki is a good place to stay with something for all age groups. The restaurants are many and varied as are the bars. It is an easy resort to reach from the airport - just 10 minutes in a taxi. The resort itself is quite flat and there are many paths and roads to make getting around very easy.

The resort seemed reasonably clean. We did not see much entertainment around the resort. The beach was ok.

Resort was OK.

Beaches nice with good access.

Only a few pedalos, best area for watersports was Kerri beach, further down the coast. You need a car to visit this beach from Kalamaki, or you can catch the local bus.

Entertainment was not existant apart from the greek night / bbq which was good.

Found Kalamaki to be a relatively quiet, clean resort with something for all ages. Younger visitors could take a taxi into Lagana, which was practically on the doorstep. Much of the entertainment was along the 'main drag' of Kalamaki, with bars providing karaoke, Elvis impersonators, quizes etc but all enterainment went behind closed doors after midnight. Road to Crystal Beach was mainly made up of restaurants and bars with not much entertainment on offer. If you want a sunday roast try to have one in a British run restaurant as we had one in a Greek one and ended up with roast beef with a carrot in the middle of it, 2 tiny roast potatoes, cabbage, lettuce, cucumber, tomato and gravy. Crystal beach is clean with plenty of sunbeds, although on the weekend the locals seem to take up many of them. If you do hire a vehicle try to visit the other beaches in the area, as they are well worth it. We all found Kalamaki to be a peaceful, clean and friendly resort and will return.

Kalamaki is 5 kilometres west of Chania and about 20 mins bus ride. Buses come very very regularly which was excellent for trips into shop/eat.

Kalamaki itself had three or four tavernas including Kalamki Bar and Salavantes. We ate and drank often in the former.

The owner and staff couldn't have been more friendly or accomodating. Beach was wonderful - sandy with crystal waters and good swimming. Free sun loungers along the stretch we used. You could walk right round the bay in about 15 mins. Lots of tavernas en route.

There is a mini-market in Kalamaki, open til at least 11.00pm selling all the basics, a couple of gift shops, internet cafe, ATM, car hire.

Road, as mentioned above, is lethal though so don't think you can send your kids over to the beach to play on their own! I wouldn't even let my 16 yr old son try and cross on his own.

If you like discos and karaoke evenings, I didn't see anything like this going on - but that is not what we wanted anyway.

There was a large hotel on the coast road going towards Agia Marina/Platanias that had regular karaoke evenings that we enjoyed listening to from our balcony some nights! General cleanliness of the area was a bit hit and miss but no worse than anywhere else we visited in Crete.

Unfortunately there was a squashed kitten that was left out in the sun on the rubbish pallets by the shop for far too long - not sure why is wasn't disposed of elsewhere.

The Kalamki bar hosted a music evening for a local bazooki (?) trio. It was very atmospheric. Try their Pirates Fire cocktail. My daughter lived off it! Moon rise over the bay was a memorable evening.

Definitely worth considering.

The resort was very clean hardly any rubbish around.

The entertainment was suitable for families I would recommend Saturday night live which you can book at the welcome meeting at your hotel.

The beach was fairly clean and I would visit this resort again.

Lots of lovely eateries,too many to mention, a must has to be Mikaloes, great food,service and prices. The main strip is alive at night and great for families too,by far the best resort on Zante

Kalamaki is a beautiful place, the locals are very friendly and make you feel very welcome. There are plenty of bar/clubs for every age group and not too rowdy or full of club 18-30.

Can't imagine going anywhere else for our main summer holidays - it's Kalamaki for us!!!!

Some things I'd read about Kalamaki were making me regret my decision to go there. But its actually a really nice place.

Zakynthos
The airport is tiny - but then its quite a small island. As long as you aren't travelling on the busiest day of the week its fine.
The island is quite Brit.-friendly to put it mildly, most people in the service industry speak English well. Menus are in English or Greek and English - whereas in other places in Greece they also have menus in German, Italian and Dutch etc
Zankynthos town made a pleasant afternoon out, but I wasn't that impressed with the shops

Kalamaki
I don't like the sea much so I didn't visit the beach, preferring the pool, but I heard it was very nice.

Kalamaki is quite a small place, quite easy to walk around, and stroll up and down in the evening - the people stood on restaurant doors are a bit annoying
There are a lot of English-focused bars, but no more than most other Greek "resorts" to be fair. They all show British television and sporting events, and we went to a couple for lunch while the Greek restaurants were closed for the afternoon.
There are far too many Indian& Chinese (combined) restaurants for such a small town. Why visit Greece and eat asian food?
We found two fantastic Greek restaurants - MILO'S, opposite the Venue bar, was amazing. Friendly Greek waiters, traditional Greek food, no chips. I only hope it never tries to compete with the cocktail bar/pizzeria end of the market because it will lose all its charm. HERA is toward the laganas end of town and busier, and slightly more upmarket (bearing in mind a meal for two will cost around 30 euro!!) but very nice none the less.

There are some really lovely shops in Kalamaki selling nice and unusual gifts, as well as the normal tat. Take your time looking round all of them its well worth it.

The rep tried to get us to book the usual trips out but we found that the sightseeing tours were about half the price if booked direct from one of the companies on the strip. Book with the office closest to your hotel so you don't have far to walk for the pick up.

The rep also tried to convince us that the only way to reduce stress at the airport was to pay 7.50 euro each to pre-book seats on the plane home. We reasoned that the absence of queues when we arrived was a good omen. And that if it was truly vital the holiday company would do it for free, and if it really cost 7.50 to do why was it cheaper for kids? With only two of us we took the risk, if there are more of you it might be worth it, but it will also cost you more.
As it happened the departure went really smoothly. Whether you're pre booked or not you have to stand in the same queues, which the first choice reps managed really really well. Their are around 10 of them milling around keeping everyone informed and moving in the right direction. We queued outside under cover for 30 minutes, then another 15 inside. (Check in at Manchester had taken well over an hour the week before!!) They send you in 10 at a time, keeping groups together. We x-rayed our suitcases and got our boarding cards and went straight through passport control into the lounge.

The lounge is mostly non smoking which is great, and although busy, we got seats quite easily as there were just two of us. They called us to board about 40 minutes before flight time and we were all on ready to go twenty minutes early, which the captain took advantage of. Not only that but despite not prebooking our seats my husband and I got the two leg room seats near the emergency exit - which would have cost £40 to book in advance.

Great resort, much cleaner than many Greek places I have been.

Ideal for families, lots to do and see and if you get a car and drive around you will find probably one of the best beaches on the island is in kalimaki - we toured several resorts and much preferred Kalamaki.

Watching the plans go over as you are on the beach is an amazing site!