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The best family-friendly hotels in Greece

Junior suites are worth the small price difference from standard doubles for their bigger bathrooms, and there are also family rooms, all in tasteful pastel shades.

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An insider's guide to the best family-friendly Greek Islands hotels, featuring the top places to stay for villas, kids' clubs, swimming pools, watersports, tennis and babysitting, in locations including Corfu, Crete, Santorini, Rhodes, Skiathos, Naxos, Paros and Hydra.

MarBella Corfu, Agios Ioannis Peristeron, Corfu

A 1960s-founded resort hotel that has got a completely new look (including various rooms knocked together to make bigger units), and now matches its official five-star rating thanks also to willing staff and good food.

It’s very family-friendly, with many two-bedroom family suites, a children's pool (the 'Splash Park'), a set-hours crêche, babysitting service, and various kids’ clubs by age range, including a games room for teenagers. There are, in fact, often large numbers of children in residence.

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Daios Cove, Agios Nikolaos, Crete

Overlooking a rocky Cretan bay, this is a good bet for attentive, friendly service across a collection of spacious stone-clad villas and rooms with fabulous sea views.

Facilities include a Crèche Club supervised by UK childcare experts Worldwide Kids, a game-stocked kid’s entertainment room and dozens of well-monitored watersports activities, available from the resort’s sandy beach. For parents, it has several excellent restaurants and a well-equipped Anne Semonin spa.

Astra Suites, Imerovigli, Santorini

Astra Suites is a well-established caldera-edge hotel with colourful rooms, prime views over the Skáros castle-rock, top-notch staff and decent food.

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Family suites take parents and two children; baby cots are supplied elsewhere; and kids under five stay free. A fair-sized caldera-edge pool has day-beds and wooden loungers. This (and four private ones) are heated for comfortable spring or autumn use.

Mandraki Village, Koukounaries, Skiathos

A family-friendly, low-rise hotel in a garden setting, with a creditable on-site restaurant as a bonus; deservedly popular and thus often full. Junior suites are worth the small price difference from standard doubles for their bigger bathrooms, and there are also family rooms, all in tasteful pastel shades.

Vamos Traditional Village, Vamos Apokoronou, Crete

Vamos Traditional Village, in the verdant Apokóronos region, was one of the first, and still among the best, of Crete's rural accommodation outfits.

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This is not a single inn but scattered, restored stone houses up to 200 years old. A range of organised activities is offered by the management, such as a guided walk to nearby villages and a cheese- and bread-making safari. Some of the houses are suitable for up to four people (a mix of doubles and twin rooms), and some have private or shared swimming pools.

Rodos Palladium, Faliraki, Rhodes

This has perhaps the best stretch of Faliráki beach  vast lawns lead to it  and has the advantage of being so big (355 rooms, 22 suites) that you might secure a vacancy even in high season. Five-star appointments throughout, including a spa, ample sports facilities, three restaurants and a huge pool with island feature.

Kavos Hotel Naxos, Ágios Prokópios, Naxos

The Kavos Hotel Naxos, just above Ágios Prokópios resort, is an ocean-view establishment offering stone-clad cottages, neutral interiors and excellent food. Built in 1990 but updated regularly since, the Kavos was among the first developments here, snaffling a prime position, 10 minutes’ walk to the nearest beach.

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The two- or three-bedroom bungalows are popular among families, so ensure you book well ahead (they’re often pre-booked a year in advance).

Yria Hotel, Parasporos, Paros

The 5.5 acre site, in which Yria Hotel is located, is densely landscaped with palm trees, olives, pittosporum, topiaried conifers, frangipani, plumbago, hibiscus and bougainvillea, dotting lush lawns.

Galleried maisonettes fit two up, two down, with a ground-floor, stone-clad garden patio and separate entrance for upstairs which has views over trees to the Aegean. The main fresh-water pool is big, and 3.5m deep.

There's also free use of a tennis court. Children up to five stay free; there are rate concessions for ages 6–18.

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Yria Hotel, Parasporos, Paros

The 5.5 acre site, in which Yria Hotel is located, is densely landscaped with palm trees, olives, pittosporum, topiaried conifers, frangipani, plumbago, hibiscus and bougainvillea, dotting lush lawns.

Galleried maisonettes fit two up, two down, with a ground-floor, stone-clad garden patio and separate entrance for upstairs which has views over trees to the Aegean.

The main fresh-water pool is big, and 3.5m deep. There's also free use of a tennis court. Children up to five stay free; there are rate concessions for ages 6–18.

Atrina Canava 1894, Oía, Santorini

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Atrina Canava 1894 is a small cliffside hotel with exceptional service and appealingly quirky units. The name commemorates the year the current owner's great-grandfather bought land here and dug two kánaves (wineries).

These have been adapted as lodging and joined by 13 other, more recently excavated ones. The Junior Suite, the Atrina Villa and the original Canava 1894 villa all have two bedrooms and two bathrooms, though the beds are a king and a queen (no twins). The Atrina Villa has a full kitchen.

Bratsera Hotel, Hydra

Hydra’s largest four-star hotel occupies a former sponge-processing factory dating from 1860. A recent refit has kept that fourth star burnished. A few of the higher-grade rooms and suites accommodate three to five people, particularly the Lafina family room.

This, facing south and west, has a double bed and three twins, plus two bathrooms. The fair-sized, deep (and unheated) courtyard swimming pool is the only hotel pool on Hydra.

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Source: telegraph.co.uk

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