"🌴 Family Review (2 teenage girls) 👨👩👧👧
Having been to Akra Fethiye twice and absolutely loving it, we were a little unsure what to expect from Akra Didim, especially as it’s a brand new hotel.
We were completely blown away! 🤩
From the moment we arrived, we were made to feel so welcome. The staff were attentive, friendly and genuinely seemed to care that we were having the best holiday. The hotel itself is absolutely stunning and has such a luxurious feel throughout. Even the toiletries in the room were gorgeous - you genuinely don’t need to pack anything in that respect! 🛁✨
🏖️ Adult Pool
We spent every day around the adult pool and honestly… wow!
We’re not people who enjoy being crammed in amongst lots of others, so this was perfect for us. There were always plenty of sunbeds available - even the luxury day beds and the beds actually in the pool. If you saw my previous post, the photo taken at around 10:40am on an average day says it all!
One of our favourite touches was the drinks service. Simply scan the QR code from your lounger and your drinks arrive… often delivered by waiters on roller skates! 🍹🛼
A special mention to the lovely gentleman with glasses (sorry we never caught your name!) and the young lady with dark hair - both were so friendly. We also regularly visited the pool bar where Efe was brilliant. By the end of the holiday he knew exactly what we’d be ordering and always welcomed us with a huge smile and asked how we were.
❤️ The Staff
The staff really are one of this hotel’s biggest assets.
95% of the time service was incredibly quick, and everyone was so polite and attentive.
A massive shout out to Ramazan and Çağatay, who genuinely went above and beyond for us throughout our stay. They were exceptional. 👏
There were so many others too, including Dilek in the buffet restaurant, who looked after our morning avocado requests with a smile every day! 🥑
🌊 The Beach
We’re not normally beach people, but we actually liked the family beach.
It’s pebbly, so pool shoes definitely help, but the sea is crystal clear, beautifully warm and shallow enough to see fish swimming around your feet. 🐟
There’s a drinks and snack truck, towel station and you can jump off the wooden jetties into the sea if you’re feeling brave!
We also went to the weekly beach parties at the adult beach after the evening entertainment and they were such good fun! 🎉
🍽️ À La Carte Restaurants
We visited:
🍴 Bafa
🍴 Ocakbaşı
🍴 Livar
🍴 Incir
Every single one was fantastic, although Incir was definitely our favourite. The buggy ride down there is a lovely little bonus too! 🚙
🍕 Food
This deserves a mention…
I generally become unwell on holidays after being hospitalised whilst abroad back in 2017, so travelling always makes me a little anxious.
This is the first holiday since then where none of the four of us had any sickness or dodgy stomachs whatsoever. That alone was amazing! ❤️
🍸 Drinks
The best cocktails were definitely in the Lobby Bar.
The other bars were nice enough, but nothing quite compared.
Special mention again to Efe, whose Espresso Martini with a little vanilla extract was absolutely perfect! ☕🍸
The random purple welcome drink at the beach party was surprisingly delicious too! 😂
On a few occasions we saw a cocktail cart setting up at the lovely seating area by the fire pit. They seemed to do two special cocktails which looked lovely. However that started at 8.30pm, just after we would go to dinner each evening. After dinner we then went straight to the entertainment so we never managed to get one of these drinks. Would be nice if this started earlier so we could have had a pre-meal drink. 🍸
We also loved that premium brands were used throughout the hotel and the wine was genuinely really good - far better than we’ve had at many all-inclusive hotels.
The only thing we missed from Akra Fethiye was the lovely light strawberry sparkling drink they served there.
✨ Cleanliness
Honestly…
Wherever you looked, someone was cleaning.
Constantly.
The hotel is absolutely immaculate and the staff work incredibly hard to keep it that way.
💃 Entertainment Team
This deserves its own section because WOW!!
In all our years of travelling, we’ve honestly never seen an entertainment team this talented.
Every evening they performed professionally choreographed dance shows and they were absolutely outstanding. We actually wished the shows were longer because we didn’t want them to end!
They were also so friendly and regularly stopped to chat with us around the pool, at the beach parties and during the DJ sets at Livar.
The team included:
• Varvara 🇷🇺
• Niamh 🇬🇧
• Esma 🇬🇧🇹🇷
• Chloe 🇬🇧
• Budi 🇪🇬
• Freya 🇬🇧
• Canan 🇹🇷
• Izzy 🇬🇧
• Aaron 🇲🇽
• Kimberley 🇿🇦
• Geyser 🇲🇽
• Nathalie 🇸🇪
• Baran 🇹🇷
A huge thank you especially to Varvara, Chloe, Freya, Esma, Aaron and Budi, who were all so lovely. ❤️
They also run dance classes during the day which are definitely underused and well worth joining.
🎤 Guest Entertainment
For us, the visiting acts weren’t quite as strong as the entertainment team’s own performances.
We often didn’t stay until the end.
(And sorry… Pink Floyd just isn’t really a family holiday show! 😂)
However, Ezgi Alas was absolutely brilliant! She sang such a wide variety of songs that appealed to everyone and it was lovely seeing entire families up dancing together. Once the entertainment team joined in on stage, they then came down and danced with everyone for the rest of the evening, creating such a great atmosphere.
🎨 Daily Activities
We’re normally happy just relaxing (we both work incredibly hard and live very busy lives!) but it was lovely having activities available when we fancied them.
We really enjoyed:
🎨 Pottery making and painting
🧘 Sound Therapy at 5pm (so relaxing)
🏊 AkraFit in the adult pool most mornings at 11:30am
We also tried perfume making one evening at 9pm thinking it would be aimed at adults…
We couldn’t have been more wrong! 🤣
It was hilarious, but we were a little lost as most of it was in Turkish.
The only activities we really missed from Akra Fethiye were the afternoon garden parties, carnival games and games like Kubb.
🎧 251 Sound Club
This is a lovely little nightclub but sadly felt underused.
It opens at 11:45pm, but between midnight and 1am it was still very quiet.
People seemed to walk in, see it empty and then leave.
Personally we’d open it a little earlier.
We’d also been looking forward to some live jazz (which was advertised) but unfortunately never managed to catch any during our two-week stay.
One thing we really missed from Akra Fethiye was the Piano Bar, where different singers and musicians performed throughout the evening until midnight. We spent every night there in Fethiye. Whilst the DJ sets at Livar were enjoyable, they became a little repetitive over two weeks.
🎱 Arcade, Sports Bar & Karaoke
These are fantastic additions.
Everything in the arcade is free!
We loved the air hockey, basketball games, pool table and table football.
The only shame was that the bowling lanes weren’t open later.
🛏️ Rooms
We stayed in a family room and absolutely loved it.
It was incredibly spacious with two bathrooms (which is a lifesaver with two teenage girls! 😂), plus sliding doors separating the bedrooms.
The beds were unbelievably comfortable.
Fresh towels and pillowcases were provided daily, the housekeeping team were lovely and the dressing gowns, slippers and luxury toiletries were a lovely touch.
🧖 Spa
Definitely worth visiting.
There are loads of complimentary facilities available and it’s such a relaxing place.
If you’re thinking of booking a treatment, look out for Aladdin. He’s such a lovely guy, speaks fantastic English and has a great sense of humour.
Book through him if you can!
🚕 Taxis
Use Kent Taxis if possible.
They’re a lovely family business (Dad and four brothers) and were the cheapest we found. Their details are on this Facebook page.
The concierge also advised us that using the meter usually works out cheaper than agreeing a fixed fare.
🛍️ Trips
During our stay we visited:
🛍️ Altinkum
🛍️ Saturday Market
🌙 Night Market
We also booked a buggy adventure (£50 for a double buggy for around two hours including transfers).
Just be warned…
If you do the 4pm trip and ask to be dropped at the Night Market afterwards, you’ll arrive absolutely covered in dust! 😂
The photos were excellent though and cost us just £20.
🛒 Hotel Shop
Lovely shop with some really nice things.
The only slight downside was that nothing had price tags, so everything had to be scanned individually at the computer to check prices.
📸 Hotel Photographer
We had a family photoshoot which was fantastic.
The photographer was lovely and the photos came out beautifully… although he did have to Photoshop our windswept hair! 🤣
As expected, the starting prices were eye-watering, but after negotiating we paid around €230 for all of the digital images plus a beautiful album containing 20 printed photos.
💶 Tips
This is one of the few hotels where you genuinely don’t feel pressured to tip.
That said, we absolutely did because the staff work incredibly hard and thoroughly deserved it.
❤️ Would we return?
Hell yes!!
We’ll absolutely be back.
Yes, there are still little improvements that could be made - but the hotel actively asks for guest feedback and is already implementing many of the suggestions people make.
For a brand new hotel they’ve achieved something really special.
The staff…
The cleanliness…
The facilities…
The atmosphere…
The entertainment…
It all adds up to one unforgettable holiday.
Thank you Akra Didim for giving our family the most amazing two weeks and memories we’ll never forget.
None of us wanted to come home… even after 14 days! 🙌☀️❤️"