Kokkini Hani is the first proper resort village you reach heading east out of the capital — a relaxed strip of long sandy beaches and big, well-run all-inclusive hotels barely ten minutes past the airport, on the same coast as the resorts near Heraklion. It has the family beach credentials of the resorts of Hersonissos a little further along, but a calmer, more residential feel, with tavernas and mini-markets rather than a wall of bars. Because Heraklion (HER) is only about 20 minutes away by transfer, it's one of the shortest airport hops on the island — a real bonus with tired children in tow. If you want a straightforward, sandy, all-inclusive Crete week that's easy on the little ones, Kokkini Hani does it beautifully.
Every Kokkini Hani package we sell carries full ATOL financial protection under licence #11211, and your ATOL Certificate lands the moment you book — you can read exactly how your ATOL financial protection works before you part with a penny. Every hotel on this page has been hand-picked and inspected in person against our 22-point criteria, not lifted from a brochure, so you are booking a stay someone from our team has genuinely walked through.
"Kokkini Hani is the one I reach for when a family wants the beach and the aquaparks but not the noise," says Eleni Trachalakis, our Greece Operations Manager, who grew up on Crete and spent years as a Thomas Cook resort representative across the island before joining GoToBeach. "It's ten minutes from the plane to the pool, the beaches are long and sandy, and yet it still feels like somewhere people actually live." Eleni re-checks the resorts here herself each season, timing the walk to the sand and tasting the buffets on a quiet weeknight so the photographs match the morning you actually arrive. She'll happily tell you which hotels sit right on the beach and which have the main road to cross, and where the gently shelving sand suits nervous swimmers best — the things a brochure leaves out.
