"We stayed here from 20 June to 5 July, a family of three, two adults and a teenage daughter. "All style on the outside, but a different story on the inside" is honestly the best way I can sum this place up.
This was our fourth trip to Turkey, so we've stayed at other 5-star hotels, and unfortunately we've stayed at better ones too.
We arrived to a dirty room - human hair in the shower, grimy shower panels, an empty minibar that hadn't been cleaned. We asked to switch rooms, and the 2nd one was slightly better.
The hotel as a whole feels run down and tired. The furniture everywhere shows real wear - scratches, dirt marks, that kind of thing. The chandeliers in the main lobby are missing glass chains, the lift doors and revolving entrance doors are covered in palm prints and fingerprints, there's dirt built up around the lift buttons inside and out…wherever you look, something's either barely hanging together or just been left to go downhill. It badly needs refurbishing, because no amount of cleaning is going to hide wear like that. I got the impression this place was once genuinely loved and looked after by its owners, but whoever's running it now isn't interested in investing in anything beyond making the outside look good enough to pull tourists in.
Cleanliness generally could be a lot better too. The toilets by the indoor pool regularly smelled of urine or sewage, the ones near the disco often had no toilet paper, and on one busy afternoon there was no hand soap anywhere. The soap dispenser by the indoor pool sat broken for days. The toilets near the Infinity Bar smelled awful around 3:30pm most days. It felt like nobody was actually checking or restocking them on any kind of schedule. The sunbed areas didn't seem to get cleaned regularly either.
Food was probably the biggest letdown, especially in the first few days. There was almost nothing for late arrivals to eat - the patisserie, while open, was dirty, with grubby cupboards and serving dishes, and all that was left out was some leftover deli slices, bread, and plain boiled pasta with ketchup. Not exactly what you want after a full day of travelling.
Breakfast the next morning was a bit better, but still well below the standard we've come to expect from other Turkish 5-star hotels. Lunch was disappointing too. Dinner was consistently the best meal of the day, and things did generally improve as the week went on - especially after around 26 June, when the hotel got noticeably busier. Not sure if that was tied to peak season kicking in, but both the food and the evening entertainment picked up around then.
The beach restaurant was a definite step up from the main one - steaks, burgers, pizzas, all ordered via QR code at your table. There was always fresh fruit on hand too, cherries, watermelon, nectarines, and the local women making fresh gözleme under the amphitheatre were lovely.
The pool is genuinely one of the best things about this hotel - it's enormous. Even though people reserve sunbeds early with towels, we never actually struggled to find one, even showing up later in the morning. There's loads of seating scattered around the resort, decent summer music by the pool, good cocktails (alcoholic and non), friendly pool bar staff. The evening shows were hit and miss, though.
The grounds are huge too - you'll easily rack up 10,000 steps a day just walking around.
A few things worth mentioning that genuinely aren't the hotel's fault: there's a mosque nearby, so expect the 4am call to prayer - completely normal in Türkiye. There's also a rooster somewhere near the neighbouring orange grove, so light sleepers take note. Neither bothered us much, but worth knowing before you book.
What did affect our holiday, though not the hotel's doing, was how some other guests behaved. As the place filled up, so did the bad behaviour - people cutting the buffet queue, pushing into lifts before anyone could get out, taking umbrellas off clearly occupied sunbeds, even changing nappies (no's 2) on poolside loungers when baby-changing facilities were less than thirty seconds away.
One day, while I was doing Pilates, I came back to find someone had actually moved our sunbeds and umbrella. When I said something, I was told, "This is Türkiye, our land. If you don't like it, go home." O…kay. Later that same day I watched the identical thing happen to another family.
I also noticed guests who tipped the pool bar staff got served ahead of everyone else waiting in line.
None of that reflects on the hotel itself, but it does colour the whole experience. You don't really go on holiday expecting to have arguments over basic manners.
Our shower had weak water pressure even though we were only on Level 2, and getting the temperature right was nearly impossible unless you used the overhead shower, otherwise it was either scalding or freezing. Around day eight, the bathroom started smelling of sewage too.
A few smaller gripes: iced coffee at both pool bars ran out by 9 or 10am most mornings and just wasn't topped up for the rest of the day. We also witnessed staff arguing openly on the restaurant floor during breakfast one morning - not the holiday vibe you're hoping for.
Overall, this hotel has so much potential it's almost frustrating. The staff are friendly, the grounds are beautiful, the pool is fantastic, and the atmosphere around it is genuinely lovely. But the lack of maintenance, the patchy cleanliness, the repetitive breakfast and lunch options, and all these small overlooked details drag the whole experience down.
The devil really is in the details - and this hotel proves it."
