Cratos Premium Hotel & Casino (Kyrenia, Çatalköy)

The coast road running east from Kyrenia harbour reaches Çatalköy after five kilometres, and on the sea side you see a large property stretching all the way down to the shore. That building is Cratos Premium Hotel: a 410-room resort with its own sandy beach, operating alongside a casino and night clubs. Although its name comes up in Kyrenia's busiest hotel cluster, in scale it is the small one among its neighbours, and for the guest that is exactly where the real difference begins. In our research as a team we looked at four questions one by one for you: what kind of place it is for a family, what it is like for a couple, which package covers what, and whether the doors stay open in winter.

What Being Small Means in Çatalköy

Çatalköy is not a neighbourhood of central Kyrenia but a separate settlement. Kyrenia's big casino hotels gather on this eastern flank, while the Alsancak-Lapta side to the west, we should note, has stayed quieter… In the "Tourism Planning Department" five-star list dated 16 June 2026, Elexus, Acapulco and Cratos stand side by side on the Çatalköy line. The first two are giant properties with more than one thousand five hundred beds, while Cratos, with 820 beds, remains the smallest of the three; but this smallness is not a shortcoming, it is a character. The walk from the lobby to the beach is short, the kids' club and the pool sit within the same garden, and nobody needs a map to find the restaurant in the evening.

The hotel opened on 21 July 2010 as the first tourism investment of Boz Grup, a company known until then for construction and marina businesses, and it closed its very first season at a healthy 90 percent occupancy. Guests arriving from Ercan Airport should allow for a 40-45 minute drive. In addition, for those coming on a package the transfer is usually included in the price; a single sentence of confirmation at booking is enough. Anyone planning to head down to Kyrenia in the evening should factor in those five kilometres from the start, because this distance is not walkable and a taxi is needed.

Rooms, and Not Being Fooled by the Word Villa

With 820 beds across 410 rooms, that works out to two beds per room, meaning this hotel is designed for two people rather than a large family. The Standard room measures 26 square metres and the Superior 35 square metres. The Standard Maldive Villa, despite the villa in its name, is the smallest on the list at 22 square metres, because while the name promises a spacious house, what you actually get is a compact room. Rooms with the Club prefix have the same dimensions. Junior Presidential, Presidential, King Suite and Maldive Villa Suite make up the top tier. A neighbouring benchmark gives a sense of scale: the standard room at Merit Royal Diamond in Alsancak is 35.5 square metres, and at Cratos you only reach that size at the Superior tier. Guests who want a sea view should rely on the booking note, not the tier name.

Same Hotel, Five Separate Contracts

If you search for Cratos Premium Hotel on agency sites you will see four or five separate concepts for the same hotel: Half Board, Full Board Plus, All-Inclusive, Non-Alcoholic All-Inclusive and, on some agencies, Ultra All-Inclusive. This is not a mistake; it is the hotel's sales model. Neighbouring Acapulco works the same way, and this is a selling method that has become a habit in Çatalköy. The base package is Full Board Plus, which covers three meals plus local alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks at set hours; what the upper packages add to this, the hotel does not announce. The practical consequence is that when you see two different prices on two agencies, we recommend looking at the concept line first, because the offer that looks cheaper is usually the narrower package. The dining set-up is built on one main restaurant and a few à la carte venues; the list mentions Italian and Far Eastern cuisine and a restaurant working in the ocakbaşı grill style.

Sand by Day, Port Cratos by Night

The beach is roughly 500 metres of fine sand and belongs to the hotel itself, and here the sand is not decoration but the hotel's main daytime programme. On the pool side there are several outdoor pools, a heated indoor pool and a separate children's pool. One section of the shore is set apart under the name Port Cratos, and the two faces of the day are lived there: by day jet skis, parasailing and banana boats set off from it, while at night the same area turns into two clubs. Cage Club and Coco Bongo put on shows on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights from 22.00 until 04.00. For a family arriving with small children the meaning of this is clear: on those three nights one end of the garden stays awake until late, and when choosing a room it is worth asking which block faces that side. A family looking for a slide park, on the other hand, will not find it here, because the hotel does not advertise an aquapark and neighbouring Acapulco's 24 slides do not belong to this property.

The spa is over 3,000 square metres, and the Turkish bath, sauna, steam room and fitness centre are included in the stay, while massages and skin care are charged separately. The casino operates under the same roof with a separate entrance, and guests under 25 and residents of North Cyprus are not admitted to this section.

Cratoys Mini Club

Cratoys Mini Club takes children aged 4 to 12, is included in the stay and is open during the day and in the evening hours. Since children under four are not admitted to the club, that age group's day is solved by the children's pool and the shallow beach, and the rest is left to the parents. The club age band is the same at all three Çatalköy hotels, so a family makes its decision based on the slides and the distance, not the club.

Concerts, Prices and the Winter Tariff

The 2026 stage programme features Derya Bedavacı on 22 August, Mahsun Kırmızıgül on 29 August and Ebru Gündeş on 26 September. Since the concerts are held in the hotel's own venue, for a staying guest they mean a separate evening programme. On dates that fall on a weekend hotel occupancy rises accordingly, which is why booking the room early makes sense.

On the price side, in early September 2026 the nightly starting rate on agency sites sits in the 19,800 to 20,100 TL band, while December check-ins drop to 17,600 TL. Because the figure changes with room type, package and search date, what should be compared is not the price but the concept name next to it.

Cratos Premium Hotel is open all year, but between 1 November and 30 April it operates on a separate tariff, and in that period the beach and outdoor areas are restricted, some restaurants and event venues are closed, while the indoor pool, spa and casino remain open. Cratos in winter is not a beach hotel but an indoor hotel; those who come knowing this are not surprised, while those who come without knowing find the beach closed. The difference is understood not on the booking screen but at the door.

You can compare the other options in Çatalköy in our guide to Kyrenia casinos, check seasonal budgets in our North Cyprus hotel prices article, and plan the city days with our Kyrenia travel guide.