“People don’t say they’re going to Greece, they say they’re going to Sani,” says Victor Gordo, our charismatic Spanish tennis instructor on the first day of our five-night tennis camp stroke luxury Greek odyssey.
Gordo might be sporting the office Rafa Nadal Tennis Academy uniform — and indeed, it’s probably part of his job to peddle clever marketing lines like this — but he’s certainly not wrong. The Sani empire does indeed feel like its own country, in a way — or at least its own city. Five glittering hotels, 10 plus seaside swimming pools, on-brand everything from Sani wine to Sani perfume.
Oh, and every facility and activity you could possibly want for a five-star family getaway on the Med: on-site GPs, on-site supermarkets, on-site... scuba-diving? The Bear Grylls survival bootcamp, a Chelsea FC football academy and the Sani Treetop Adventure are among the impressive conveyor belt of activities on offer alongside the tennis centre. No wonder guests come back every year — 70 per cent of Sani’s bookings are from repeat guests.
Indeed, the name Sani has essentially become slang among well-off London families looking for guaranteed luxury in the Med. It was voted winner of the World’s Leading Family & Beach Resort last year and has had an A-list following for years. Andrea Bocelli and Jack Savoretti jetted in to perform at the Sani Festival concert in August and Jamie Vardy, Billie Faiers and Emma Bunton are among the celebrity guest-list.
From Michelin-star dining to beachside babysitting, here’s what to expect.
Where is it?
Right by the Aegean Sea on a 7km stretch of unspoilt coastline in the north-east corner of mainland Greece. It’s just a 45-minute drive from Thessaloniki airport on the Halkidiki peninsula, surrounded by pine forests and wetlands.
Style
Picture a large Greek town but with golf buggies: majestic palm trees, gleaming white walls and charming Mamma Mia-style tavernas with wicker chairs and blue and white chequered table cloths — made for Instagram.
The 1,000-acre Sani empire feels curiously similar to a luxury golf resort given there’s no golf (yet) and is so vast it could probably do with a few more signs. But the size doesn’t mean there’s a lack of style. The self-contained estate sits amongst acres of pine forests and harbours its own marina, with a rooms, villas, restaurants and leisure facilities all intermixed along the resort’s 7km of coastline.
You won’t get quaint, off-the-beaten track romanticism or honeymoon-perfect intimacy, but you will get Mediterrean charm, modern luxuries and dozens of quiet sunbathing and suncastle-building spots to choose from — which is impressive, given the number of guests Sani sleeps.
But the magic of Sani’s size if you don’t feel on top of each other. Smiling staff are on hand to whizz you around the resort in chaffeured golf buggies and there are so many pools to choose from that you’ll never struggle to find a sunlounger spot, even in high season. Switch up your sunbathing spot every few hours and you’ll easily have a different view each time.
The style throughout is chic and simple, but there’s a luxury feel — and a green feel, too. The resort has earned itself 10 Blue Flags and has been declared the World’s Leading Luxury Green Resort by the World’s Travel Awards. It also recently became the first carbon neutral resort in Greece thanks to its renewable energy sources, its reduction of single-use plastic by 80 per cent in recent years, and olive tree-planting programme. The majority of the food served is sourced from within 100 miles.
Which room?
Before you tackle that part, the real question is: which hotel? Sani sleeps thousands of guests but you wouldn’t know it. The resort has five hotels to choose from, and while they all share beachside locations and a white-grey-turquoise asthetic, there are subtle differences.
Sani Beach is the biggest and most affordable, with family-friendly rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows, some with private gardens. Sani Club sits at the far end of the resort, nestled in the olive groves, and some suites come with private pools. Porto Sani features a toddler’s splash pad and is known as the “wellbeing” one thanks to its luxury spa suite. Sani Asterias is the resort’s most intimate hotel, with just 57 rooms and in-room beauty treatments, while the most expensive hotel is the ultra-luxe, grown-up-friendly Sani Dunes, which features Michelin-star menus and the largest heated lagoon-style pool in Greece.
Under-12s currently stay for free at Sani Club, Sani Beach and Porto Sani, while Sani Dunes and Sani Asterias both offer discounts if you want to bring the little ones. All rooms have their own charm, from seafront bungalows with terraces overlooking the beach to two-floor villas with a private pool, perfect for an extended family getaway (multi-generational family holidays are common here). If you are bringing little ones, the resort provides everything from cots and bottle sterilisers to pushchairs.
Each hotel has its own personality, but they don’t feel cut-off from each other. Staff are happy to book you into AquaFit at a different hotel if yours is fully booked that day, and each property blends into the next via a series of lagoon-shaped swimming pools and palm tree-lined paths. No big gated communities here.
Food & drink
Michelin-starred French cuisine. Organic seabass sourced from within 100km. Farm-to-table Greek dishes from fresh feta salads to sumptuous souvlaki. Sani boasts 27 restaurants and 35 bars, with a food and drink offering that’s impressively high-end and wide-ranging for an all-inclusive resort, from Asian, Peruvian, Italian, Spanish and French food (there’s even a harbour-side creperie) to more authentic, traditional Greek fare.
There’s a Dine Around menu that lets you explore restaurants across the resort and differs depending which hotel you’re at and which board you’re on (check this before you decide where to go, and remember drinks are always paid for). There’s a restaurant to suit every need, whether you’re a foodie couple in search of award-winning tasting menus or a frazzled young family in need of a buffet dinner and an early night (world-leading children’s food expert Annabel Karmel MBE is behind the kids food menus).
If you’re the former, head to Lima on Porto Sani’s veranda, Sani’s newest restaurant and its hot new Peruvian offering serving Latin American dishes with a modern twist. Other high-end offerings include Sani Asterias’ elegant Over Water restaurant with a Michelin-starred chef; Porto Sani’s Michelin-starred tapas restaurant El Puerto; the Saint Tropez-style Beach house restaurant; Sani Marina’s fresh fish restaurant Alexis; and also its Thai-fusion Asian outpost.
Steak-lovers should head to the New Orleans-style Grill by the Pool restaurant, while Pines’ healthy Greek food is all sourced from within 100km. There’s also a private dining option for up to 15 people.
If you’re looking for something simple, there are also several international buffet options to choose from at lunchtime, including Olympus and Poseidon. Come back and have gyros every day if you’re a souvlaki addict, or mix it up and rotate around to a different one each day. Staff, mostly Greek and Albanian, are notably accomodating and seem happy to be there — ask for their recommendations and feel free to double check which dishes are included in the Dine Around menu before you order.
Breakfast is a buffet affair, from all the usual fruits, cereals, pastries and hot options to made-to-order omlettes, smoothies, even ice cream and sweet treats. Breakfast doughnut, anyone? Actually, don’t tell the kids.
Facilities
Morning yoga on a clifftop sundeck. Lunchtime dolphin-spotting from your paddleboard. Guided jogging tours through acres of beachside pine forests.
Yes, the food is great, but Sani’s USP is its activities, from its five spas, three water sports centres and giant on-land sports centre to its 10km of forest trails. Chelsea FC has a football academy there for four to 16-year-olds; the Bear Grylls Survival Academy offers family and teen courses in navigation, shelter-building and signalling skills; and tennis fans fly in from across the world to play at Sani’s Rafa Nadal Tennis Academy, complete with eight clay courts and world-leading one-to-one coaching. Former world number one Carlos Moya regularly swings by to give coaching sessions, as does “Uncle Toni”, Nadal’s uncle and former coach Toni Nadal.
It’s opportunities like this that have garnered Sani an eclectic range of guests far beyond young praents on their first family holiday in the sun. George, a Londoner working in the film industry, is here on a 10-day solo holiday to improve his tennis, and when a friend at home sees that I’m there, she messages to say her parents from Wimbledon are jetting in for a week of coaching next week. I tell her to watch out if she hopes to play with them when they return: my groundstrokes are unrecognisably improved after five days knocking around on court with our enthusiast coach Victor, who’s here for the summer from his home in Barcelona.
Bird-watching, beekeeping and cycling are among the other more unusual offerings at Sani compared to most Greek beach resorts — in a large part thanks to its unique location among the pine forests and 250 acres of wetlands. The Sani Treetop Adventure is free for all guests (think Go Ape-style high ropes courses, but after a morning at the pool) and if you fancy some escapism, you can explore the resort’s 1,000 acres of unspoilt wilderness by bike or by foot. Sign up for the 9am guided jogging tour if you fancy earning your breakfast.
Back at the main resort, the marina sits at the heart of Sani life, with sparkling white superyachts alongside more charming old sailing boats, some of which are available for sunset cruises each evening. Scattered around the main resort around the marina you’ll find the more traditional all-inclusive type activities, but an impressive number of them.
Yoga, pilates and aqua fit are among the roster of daily classes you can book on the Sani app (trust me, you’ll want to use it just to keep of everything you’ve booked), and there’s also a fully kitted-out watersports centre, offering sailing, waterskiing, paddleboarding and scuba-diving — perfect if you’re a group of friends who all fancy trying different sports during the day but still want to group together for dinners in the evening. You couldn’t get bored if you tried.
If you’re a family, Sani specialises in child-friendliness, with a dedicated kids club, Ofsted-approved creche, and baby swimming lessons for babies and toddlers between six months and four-years-old. There’s also beach childcare (including a complimentary 30-minute Babewatch team on five of the beaches) and a private nanny service available, plus an evening babysitting service you can book for date night. The resort’s chic “white night” party takes place on Wednesday nights so make sure you bring your linen shirt.
What to Instagram
Your tennis partner against the bright orange clay as they sweep the court post-match. Or just the view from your sunlounger by one of the resort’s many, many infinity pools - preferably in October when your friends are wrapped in scarves back at home.
Best for?
Sani might be known as an all-inclusive sanctuary for burnt-out families in need of some TLC in the sun, but don’t be put off if you don’t have kids. We spent our sunset cruise chatting to young sporty couples looking for an activity holiday to retired couples looking to brush-up on their tennis.
Don’t go if you’re looking for a cultural trip exploring towns and cities and just need a place to rest your head, but do go if you’re into keeping fit on holiday or you’re a gang of friends with different daytime interests who still fancy dining together in the evenings.
How to get there
Flights to Thessaloniki are just over three hours from London and it’s a 45-minute drive at the other end.
When should I go?
Between April and October. Temperatures hit highs of 30 degrees in July but a lower-season trip at one of the quieter ends of summer is ideal if you’re keen to avoid the crowds (or have a tendency to burn).
The upside of a September getaway is it’s still warm enough for tanning and sea swimming in the day, but you won’t get sweaty on your way to dinner — though you certainly will if you’re planning to play tennis. We were begging for shade within minutes.
Details
Sovereign is offering a luxury seven-night holiday to Halidiki, staying at the Sani Beach hotel, in Double Garden View, on a half board basis, from £1,320 per person. The price includes flights from London Stansted with Jet2, private transfers, and breakfast daily. Based on a 14 October 2023 departure. Book via sovereign.com
