Crete Forum: Samaria Rooms in Chora Sfakia (Chora Sfakion)

I am surprised by your comments above.

Nobody can force you to take a room that you don’t like; you just walk out if it’s not up to your expectations. And most hotels in Chora Sfakion when they offer a double room, it usually has single beds put close to one another. Again, if it didn’t meet your expectations you just walk out. And if the owner yells at you, that’s one more reason for walking out!

In my humble opinion, if there was one person of being dishonest in this whole affair, could it be that this might be you?

The above description is a verbatim account of the situation. Obviously we could have walked away but being yelled at by the owner that we MUST stay since we reserved the room (even though not what we asked for) we didn't feel comfortable doing so. So he didn't physically force us to stay (although we felt he was threatening us), that doesn't make it right.

Please tell, what makes you think I am being dishonest? I find it quite bizarre. Perhaps it is an attempt to discredit my negative account?

I also tried posting my experience on a Sfakia Forum and was met by one of poster again implying I am lying (perhaps it is you?) and the forum administrator who totally removed my post (I guess that forum is just for positive experiences, huh?) and totally removed me from that forum.

Anyway - I hope future travellers will be warned by this account, despite of the fact certain people who might have something in it are trying to discredit it.

to be forwarned is to be forarmed.

Amongst the frequent visitors to Sfakia, and I am one of them, there is a view that Sfakians are amongst the most hospitable and generous people that one can find on Crete. If you were to spend some time reading through the postings in the forum from which you were barred, you will see this from the many comments made over many years by the frequent visitors to this place. Your report did not correspond with many views from others that frequent this place so that’s why I questioned the purpose of your posting. Why try and discredit a place and its people that so many others have found hospitable, generous and charming in dealing with them?

Places that we book sight unseen sometimes do not meet our expectations. (E.g. your expectation for double bed when usually single beds are on offer in most establishments in Sfakia). Was your behaviour unduly offensive to the hotel owner? Was his frustration in dealing with you and your demand for a double bed and a larger room when one was not on offer was misconstrued by you as offensive? In your initial post you quoted that the “owner refused to accept this fact”. Now you are escalating this to “being yelled at by the owner”. Are you being vindictive?

All the above is in replying to your question why I think that you may be dishonest.

I have no doubt that Sfakians are hospitable and generous. I also found that to be the case during my stay there.

I have no intention to discredit the whole area of Sfakia, nor the hotel in which I had this horrid experience. I simply reported my experience for others to be warned, since this is an excellent option the internet allows for.

Our behavior was in no way offensive towards the owner. to the contrary, we were being extremely polite and told him that although we are 100% sure that we specifically asked to reserve a room with a double bed, that is not the case, so we can simply leave and find another place.

He responded by yelling at us that we cannot do this, since '50 more people asked him for the room but he reserved it for us' and therefore we must pay him for the room.

My intention in this posting is to warn fellow travelers of this place, this is one of the purposes of this website.

It seems as if you are biased in a way which doesn't allow for other opinions voiced to be seen as legitimate in your eyes. ("If you had a bad experience, it is probably your fault or you are lying").

I have no intention to continue arguing with you on whether or not my report is legitimate, which I assure you it is.

This sounds, potentially, at least, like some kind of cultural miscommunication. I have a friend here from Tel Aviv, who when given a traffic ticket by a policeman, (California) treated the policeman with disrespect, for which he got a second ticket! My friend, Tamir did not understand, as he explained to me that in Israel no one treats the cops with respect and you can get over them by being a little aggressive. No one wants to be a "frier" (yiddish? for sucker).

Maybe YadSha had a little bit of that going on , or maybe the Creten gentleman was just freaked out by the idea of losing the money. I agree, though, in Europe typically in a budget place double bed is two single beds, and the rooms are small.

This is pretty off-topic, but:

I'm not sure the story you were told about the cops is true. If you don't treat cops with respect here, you'll regret it, just like anywhere else probably, and you cannot get them over with being a little aggressive, sounds like a fairy-tale to me.

And anyway although I live in Jerusalem I am European, so this whole theory about me having this aggressive thing going-on is bullocks.

And back to the topic at hand: I thought of a way to describe people's inability to believe that someone in one of their favorite holiday destinations acting in such a way, in a simile: it is like a parent of a child who refuses to believe their kid could hit someone or act inappropriately in class, they usually say 'My kid would never do such a thing, it's probably the other kid's fault, or he's lying' - we deceive ourselves when something challenges our current conceptions.

The view "Sfakia is an amazing place with amazing people" does not go well with the fact "A hotel owner in Sfakia acted badly", so in order to reconcile these two things, some might make up something along the lines of "The person who reported the occurrence is lying, or he is at fault", and then we can go back to feeling good again, with our views unchallenged.

Yes, Sfakia is a great place, yes, the people are usually nice, but at the end of the day, people are people, and some hotel owners, such the one in this case, only care about their money more than they care whether they are being fair to their customer, or whether the air-conditioner in their hotel room is about to explode and is pouring water into the room.

End of story.

i see your point yadsha, and the story i told was exactly what Tamir Shefer, cartoon artist from Tel Aviv, claimed to have experienced in 1993 in San Diego. i dropped by his house right after he got the tickets and thats the story he told

What i said was his claim, that the cops in tel aviv are from low backgrounds, so, at least in 1993 TA, you could get over on them that way, if you were ashkenasi and from north t.a. kind of thing.

Palestine/Israel has changed since then, so that, and your being a non-native, may account for the difference. It was easy to imagine an agro israeli male being push with the hotelier, since i have had that experience with israeli males and female, actually, here in san diego, and these are my friends, so i am not hostile to the culture. sorry you had that bad experience , and do appreciate the heads up as i am headed that way soon.

shalom

Thanks Kanadukathan.

As I said, I hope this report will be a warning to others so they may find a suitable accommodation for their travels to Crete, unlike Samaria Rooms.

Sfakia indeed is a lovely place. If you are in the area, I highly recommend Giorgos' Taverna in Komitades (on the road between Chora Sfakia and Frangokastello). He's a great cook and he and his wife are really nice and outgoing people. Also, me and my girlfriend really enjoyed parking our car and just exploring Komitades which is a real small town. It is beautiful up there, a nice little town on the mountain overlooking the sea.

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