Initially, I wanted to leave Hotel Casa Delfino in Chania prematurely without complaining about anything and simply absorb the cost of a ruined vacation without aggravating any of the staff. However the annoyances were piling up and I finally complained when a staff member was unable to print my boarding pass due to an obvious misconfiguration of her email client, printer driver or other software. The resulting barcode only loosely resembled the barcode on my screen, with light gray where black should be and dark gray where white should be in many places. I immediately recognized it as an artifact of severe compression. When I informed the staff member of this and my concern got summarily dismissed, I told her that I used to write software for barcode readers. I was informed in no uncertain terms that she (a very young woman) had a lot more experience with barcodes than I (a 51-yo software engineer with barcodes as a special competence), and that I basically should just take a hike and stop whining. I went for a walk to cool off and then complained with a senior staff member, explaining that the reason I left was the complete unavailability of an Internet connection (WiFi in the rooms did not work) and that half of my nights were ruined due to severe noise between 04:00 and 05:00.

This got the attention of the owner, Margarita Markantonaki, who first tried to make me feel guilty by saying I "traumatized" her because she was pregnant (she seemed to be much more interested in coquetting with her pregnancy than resolving an issue that had ruined my stay) and then by admonishing that I should have "said something!". I explained that I had complained about non-functioning WiFi every day of my stay and that I was a regular guest in the lobby, to use the WiFi signal there. And that the staff had shrugged their shoulders at this problem. And that I already had complained about a noise issue and already had been given another room and that this only had resulted in different noises. I was at the end of my tether and needed to catch up with both Internet-based work as well as sleep.

Margarita Markantonaki, the owner of Hotel Casa Delfino in Chania, Crete then said "We will refund you the entire sum of your stay", which was 3300 Euro. I had left about halfway my stay. I had to pay for a premature flight home so I responded "Just refund me for those nights that I will not stay, fair is fair". She proceeded to pick my brain on the last hours of my final night in that hotel on how she should fix their WiFi problems. I had rather spend my last night in Chania relaxing in a cafe, but since she so generously offered a refund I told her everything I knew about WiFi-over-power-line, how best to install this on each floor (we decided that the broom closet on each floor would be the best solution), I told her that she had to make sure that all four buildings were on the same mains system or buy four systems (but they are cheap), basically I solved their WiFi problem for her, but she needed much more handholding that that, since "I have to do everything by myself, my husband is not involved because I gave him no ownership part of my hotel, and the technical guys we paid a lot for are incompetent".

I told her that the problem with noisy guests checking out in the middle of the night could be solved by politely asking them, the day before they leave, to take care not to slam doors and drawers or scratch chairs over the floor and not talk while walking up and down the stairs with luggage. Or write this on a piece of paper, put in the room somewhere.

To make a long story short: Mrs. Markantonaki spoilt my final night in Hotel Casa Delfino and never gave me a penny of the promised refund, not even when I later asked for it in an email.

The most scandalous aspect: Since she was so generous with her offer of a refund, I had left a 300 Euro tip for the cleaning staff at Mrs. Tsismenaki from the Reception, which she put in an envelope which she stapled shut. So my total costs for stay (extra) flights and tip were in excess of 4000 EUR and what I received in return is ten days of sleepless nights and nothing to do, no work, no entertainment because there was no WiFi. Breakfast, for which I had paid, was not suitable for me so I had my breakfast elsewhere. Casa Delfino's Margarita Markantonaki broke her promise of a refund. She is dishonest, a liar and a fraudster, since she engaged into an verbal contract - with witnesses - of giving me at least 1500 EUR, meaning she currently is in unlawful posession of 1500 EUR of my property.  I now wonder whether my 300 EUR has been given to the cleaning staff!