Sani or Ikos? An honest comparison

Sani and Ikos sit under the same ownership, they win the same sorts of awards, they occupy roughly the same price territory, and they are both genuinely excellent. Which is why most comparisons of the two end up saying nothing: both are wonderful, it depends what you want, do get in touch.

So here is the version with actual content in it, including the one structural difference that most people do not discover until they are at dinner.

The one difference that shapes everything

At Ikos, essentially everything is in the price. À la carte dining across eight or nine restaurants with menus by Michelin-starred chefs. A hundred wine labels selected by their sommelier. Drinks. A complimentary electric MINI Countryman for a day. A Culture Pass for museums and local sites. And the Dine Out programme, which pays for dinner at hand-picked restaurants outside the resort. Their own phrase for it is “more than all-inclusive”, and it is not an overstatement.

At Sani, stays are half board or full board, and dining runs on something called the Dine Around programme. It works like this: you can eat from specially tailored set menus at twelve of the restaurants at no extra charge, or you can order à la carte at any of twenty-four participating restaurants with a per-meal allowance deducted from the bill. At Sani Club, Porto Sani and Sani Dunes that allowance is EUR 25 per person per meal, half that for children.

There is no all-inclusive plan at Sani, and no included drinks package beyond a welcome bottle of Sani Land of Grace wine on arrival. Their framing for what is included is “We’ve made the exclusive, inclusive”, and there is a lot in that list, but it is a different list.

This is not a criticism of Sani. À la carte at a restaurant by a two-Michelin-starred chef, with EUR 25 a head coming off the bill, is a perfectly civilised arrangement and arguably a more honest one. But it means two people who eat and drink well will spend meaningfully more than the headline rate, and it means the mental arithmetic never quite stops. Some people find that liberating. Others find it the single thing they most wanted to avoid on holiday.

If you know which of those you are, you have already made most of the decision.

Ikos and Sani, side by side

What Sani does best

Scale and variety within one stay. A thousand acres of protected ecological reserve, seven kilometres of coastline, seven Blue Flag beaches, twenty-five restaurants and more than fifteen bars, five hotels each with its own character, and a working marina at the centre of it. You book one hotel and get the run of the estate.

That is a fundamentally different holiday from a single resort, however good. If you get restless in one property, or if you are staying two weeks, Sani gives you somewhere new to walk to on day nine.

Family credentials. World’s Leading Family and Beach Resort for seven consecutive years is not a soft award. The provision behind it is serious: Sani Little Explorers for 0 to 4, Sani Explorers for 4 to 12, a Teens club, a crèche following UK OFSTED guidelines, children’s menus by Donna Hay, and a complimentary Babewatch beach childcare service at three of the beaches. Porto Sani goes further and is built entirely around young families, all-suite, with complimentary Carol Mae baby consulting for families with children aged 0 to 2.

Seclusion, if you pick the right hotel. Sani Club sits at the far end of the estate in ancient olive groves, with beachfront bungalows, several with private pools and gardens. Nothing in the Ikos portfolio is quite like it.

Specialist facilities. A Rafa Nadal Tennis Center, a Chelsea FC International Soccer Centre and a Bear Grylls Survival Academy, all on site, all at extra cost. Also the largest heated lagoon-style swimming pool in Greece at Sani Dunes: 3,500m², wrapping the building so most rooms have direct waterside access.

What Ikos does best

• Not thinking about money. This is the big one. At Ikos you can eat in the best restaurant on the property on your first night, order the wine you actually want, and it costs nothing extra. For a lot of people that is the entire point of paying for a resort holiday, and Ikos delivers it more completely than almost anyone.
• Choice of destination. Eight resorts across two countries: Corfu, Kos, Crete, Halkidiki, Mallorca and the Costa del Sol. Sani is one place in Greece. If you want Mallorca or Spain, or if you have been to Halkidiki, Ikos is the only one of the two with an answer.
• Getting out of the resort. The complimentary MINI, two days of it in the Deluxe Collection, plus the Culture Pass and the Dine Out programme. Ikos actively pays you to leave and see the destination. Sani, being a thousand-acre estate with its own marina, is more designed to be stayed within.
• Bigger rooms. The new 2026 villas are a genuine step change: 360m² sleeping eight at Ikos Odisia, 265m² at Ikos Porto Petro with all four bedrooms en suite, 260m² at Ikos Andalusia with a barbecue garden and a private indoor gym. All sit inside the Deluxe Collection with the full benefits. Sani’s largest suite outside its most exclusive hotel is the 145m² three-bedroom at Porto Sani. Excellent, and smaller.
• Consistency of the family evening. Both brands now run a supper club for children aged 4 to 12. At Ikos it is complimentary in the Deluxe Collection across the resorts. At Sani it is new for 2026 within the Suite Collection.

What we would book

• Book Ikos if you want everything settled in the price, if you want a destination outside Greece, if you want to explore the surrounding area properly, or if you need a room for seven or eight people. It is the more complete package and the less mentally taxing one.
• Book Sani if you want the variety of a thousand-acre estate rather than a single resort, if you are staying longer than a week, if the tennis or football academies matter to your children, or if you want the specific thing Sani Club does with bungalows in olive groves. Just go in knowing how the dining works.

Two practical notes. Sani has five hotels and thirty-eight suite categories and the inventory varies sharply between them, so the choice of hotel is as consequential as the choice of resort. Only Porto Sani has three-bedroom suites among the hotels we recommend. And at Ikos, the Deluxe Collection is where the availability sits for late 2026, which is a separate conversation about categories rather than brands.

Both are properly good. Neither is right for everyone, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling.

Tell us whether the dining arrangement above sounds like a relief or an irritation. That last answer usually decides it.