We stayed at Sunset31 for 10 days at the end of September (perfect time for a visit, still hot but only really too hot over lunchtime).

The communications with the owners were a great start to the holiday as they were extremely helpful with all sorts of information (not limited to the apartment but how best to get around Crete etc as well) and always responded almost instantly. They were very friendly and welcoming.

The instructions how to get to the apartment were brilliant; we found it straight away with the help of all the pictures.

On arrival, we were greeted by Mary with a welcome pack of first food supplies. She also helped us with information about Crete generally and Panormo.

The apartment was very modern and beautifully decorated. It was so much more spacious than we had anticipated and the outdoor space (with the view of the sea) was great. We really enjoyed having breakfast out there ... and watching the sunset before going into the village for dinner. We stayed in the apartment with 4 adults and our 2 children and it never felt too small or anything. All appliances/facilities you could need were there, including dishwasher, good wi-fi, aircon in every room, washing machine and tumble drier (which was great for beach towels!). The owners had also provided us with normal towels and beach towels which had helped reduce the amount we needed to pack. For our 7 month old son we were supplied with a travel cot which was in great condition and even came with a separate travel cot mattress rather than just the hard ones they normally come with. He must have slept just as comfortably as we did as our beds had very good mattresses, too. We also got a very nice clean highchair for him. The apartment had insect nets, too, although we had absolutely no problem with any insects anyway. The communal (freshwater) pool was very well kept, too. It was cleaned every day and most of the time we were the only people using it, with maybe one or two people sitting around it. The pool has a shallow bit in which our toddler could easily stand and then a deeper bit where we could stand almost all the way to the deep end. It was long enough to swim some lengths, too.

We loved Panormo as a village. It has got the souvenir shops and restaurants like every other tourist resort but it has somehow manage to keep its charm of a beautiful fishing village, probably because the tourist shops are limited to just one or two streets and the whole village is kept really well with lots of plants and flowers everywhere. We preferred the beach by the harbour to the other 2 beaches right by the hotel. It had nice sand (although sand in Crete seems to be brown), was very clean, not very busy at all, the sea was very shallow (great for our toddler) and you could see all sorts of fish even in the shallow parts. The cute little harbour provided a nice backdrop, too. We only went to one of the beaches by the hotel once to go jet-skiing. Every restaurant we tried (and we tried a different one every evening) had good food, a lovely atmosphere and very reasonably prices. With a hire car, Panormo was also a great location for excursions. We went to Knossos, Frangokastello, Rethymno, Kournas, Chania and Balos Beach - all within an easy distance.

In the evenings we walked into the village which, if you walked all the way down to the harbour, took our toddler 20 minutes whereas we could do it in 10 minutes. We found it easier (with 2 kids in the heat of the day and all of the beach stuff) to just drive down to the beach during the day as there is a free big car park right by the harbour.

We had such a fantastic holiday, we will certainly be recommending this apartment to our friends!