Just got back from Malia - stayed at High Beach Hotel for a week, self-catering. The hotel is in an excellent location, overlooking the main beach [nothing like having breakfast overlooking the beach], and not far at all from the main clubbing strip. There are 3 pools, 1 for families, and 2 for everyone else - decent size pools, not too bad. The negative points would be that the rooms were not great and the staff around the hotel were generally unhelpful and didn't make you feel welcome at all [except George, who is a legend!]. There were a lot of Russians and a few Dutch in the hotel but still a fair amount of English lasses [big up to the Scouse girls!]. I'd recommend hitting the beach during the day - Malibu Beach being the place to be.
Dan