"The hotel’s biggest advantage is its location.
It is literally just a two-minute walk from Cleopatra Beach. There is also a cable car nearby that takes you up to a beautiful fortress. The surrounding area is full of souvenir shops, supermarkets and cafés. The big bazaar is about a 10-minute walk away. There is also a popular street with bars nearby, which has a great atmosphere in the evenings.
If you are looking for more than just a beach holiday and want to explore the city, this hotel is a great choice.
Another plus is the staff, who are very friendly and polite. A special mention goes to Fatih, the bartender. He is a really nice guy who was always joking around and recommending places for us to visit. A special thank you to him for that!
As for the food, I would have liked to see more variety. The food was tasty, and you definitely won’t go hungry, but the selection was quite limited. There were usually 2-3 side dishes and two types of meat, with the rest being cheeses and salads. Breakfasts were particularly repetitive, and by the end of our stay, we were already tired of them. On the positive side, the desserts were delicious, with baklava and fruit always available. The drinks were also very good quality. The bartenders made delicious, strong cocktails, and the non-alcoholic drinks were great too.
However, the advertised poolside snacks were nowhere to be found. One day, we asked about them, and the staff simply pointed to some pasta and meat left over from lunch.
We later realised that snacks were only served at the private beach, which could be reached by the hotel’s shuttle bus at certain times. The snacks consisted of individual plates with a burger and a small portion of fries. This was nowhere near enough to replace a proper lunch. We only visited the private beach twice because the shuttle schedule was inconvenient if we wanted to enjoy some time at the beach and still make it back for lunch.
Our room for three people was spacious and tidy. The housekeeping staff cleaned it every day and always replenished the drinking water in the fridge.
One of the biggest downsides was the complete lack of entertainment. This hotel seems to cater mainly to older guests looking for a quiet, relaxing holiday.
Most of the guests were over 40 and came from Poland and russia, with a few Germans as well.
As three young Ukrainian girls, we felt that we stood out a lot. People were constantly staring at us because we seemed to be the only young guests like us at the hotel.
In other words, there is honestly very little for young people to do here. We only came back to the hotel to eat and sleep because we found it boring. The location was the only thing that really saved our holiday, as we could go out and explore the city, visit bars and go clubbing.
Another important thing for Ukrainian travellers to know about this area is that there are a lot of russian tourists. Of course, this is not the hotel’s fault, but it is still worth mentioning.
By the end of our holiday, this had become really frustrating.
The entire resort seems to cater to russian tourists. There are signs in russian everywhere, and shopkeepers in souvenir shops would almost always address us in russian, constantly assuming that we were russian ourselves. At Cleopatra Beach, there seemed to be very few people of other nationalities, and russian could be heard everywhere.
Some russian tourists even deliberately started talking about the war near us after realising that we were Ukrainian. The only way to deal with it was to ignore them. They seemed to get very annoyed when we refused to react.
This was one of the unpleasant things we will remember about our holiday.
However, it is important to understand that this situation is similar throughout Alanya, so choosing a different hotel is unlikely to make much difference in this regard."
