PALOMA OCEANA

My holiday review - long sorry! Arrived at Birmingham airport which I thought would be chaotic, but was surprisingly very calm and everything seemed to be working perfectly. Through security in about 6 minutes which was fab! Really made a big change not having to take out liquids and electronics. In the departure lounge with over two hours to go so settled for a nice breakfast and relax. Plane departed only 20 minutes late and arrived at Antalya without much of a hiccup, apart from my son pulling his tooth out on take off! Thankfully the tooth fairy came to turkey! On arrival at Antalya, the airport was quite chaotic and bags took over an hour to come, however, collected them and made our way to our taxi which I highly recommend @yamanalanya. 35 euros for a lovely cool private transfer. This is where things went wrong as 55 minutes into our 60 minute taxi, our ten year old realised he’d left his Nintendo switch and phone at Antalya airport! It must have dropped out his bag. On arrival at hotel, reception and check in great and the Tui rep Joanne was fantastic at helping us liaise with the airport and in particular Ali A (from Tui) who were both amazing, the switch and phone were handed in and ready for us to collect on our return journey. Room - Room was amazing. Biggest room we’ve ever had. Really spacious and. Right with everything we’d want. We had a family room overlooking the pool in the main building on level 3. Perfect. Pools - we chose the one nearest the beach due to closeness of everything. We learnt on day two though not to pitch up in front of the speakers! Very loud. The other pool was lovely too, but lost the sun quite early on. Bars - nice range of drinks. Piano bar was my favourite. So relaxing. Food - buffet was expansive, but not to my taste which isn’t a fault of the hotel, just my personal preference. Tried all the al a cartes. Found Avare disappointing, but Quentine was incredible and Wabi Sabi good also. The flatbread stall was good by the water park, but a shame the Aqua snack bar was closed. Quentine was lovely to sit for lunch as it’s right by the beach. Water park - on site park was good and kept the boys entertained (ours are 10 and 13). We also got the shuttle at 10am to the big Paloma Water park. This was good for a couple of hours. Drinks were available here all inclusive (soft only). Tipping - never felt you were pressured to leave a tip, but when you did, it was greatly appreciated. Shopping - went into Side twice and the town was amazing. We took the bus the first time, can’t remember how much it was, maybe a euro each person and took about 20 minutes to get to Side. A short strolls past some beautiful ruins where archaeological we’re working on took you into the lovely bustling streets of Side. Haggling was encouraged and if you paid in cash as opposed to card, you were more likely to get a better deal. I would say most of the shops preferred Euro. We are at the @Royal Castle and the food and service was amazing. The second time we had a free pick up from the @Twins restaurant. Again, brilliant food and service (free pick up from the hotel) and watching the sunset was amazing. In addition, outside the hotel are two shopping centres and dozens upon dozens of shops to browse through. Sunbeds - I Went down most mornings to read and watch the sunrise at 7am and still plenty of beds available by 9am and indeed throughout the day, I appreciate though my holiday was going into the winter season and so this could be different during the peak weeks. Entertainment - didn’t see many, but the ones I saw seemed quite good and the Michael Jackson one was brilliant. Clientele - not a fault of the hotel, but I found a lot of the visitors to be rude, unnecessarily so. Would I come back - no, but not through fault of the hotel, I just never go back to the same hotel. Would definitely come back to turkey again though. All in all, wonderful family holiday and sad to be leaving. Until time Turkey 🇹🇷

We’ve been coming here for 10 years and the highlight is always eating at Serkan’s restaurant. These days it’s called “Quentines”, but where ever he’s working we always eaten there. He really knows how to remember and look after repeat guests, and has always made us feel like old friends!! The hotel is as great as ever, and we will be back again next year, and looking out for Serkan as always! Great service also from the hotel front desk, led by Rahime Karagun.

Well where do I start other than Wow!!we have just returned from a 2 week stay at the Paloma Oceana which is where we were married with us was our close family and friends who all could not rate this resort highly enough. From the waiters to the kitchen staff to the cleaners they were all so friendly and couldn’t do enough. The resort was clean gardens were always being tended too while we were there the beach was spotless and the food was lovely so many different dishes and something for everyone.Now our wedding from us arriving nothing was too much for The general manager and Begimai who to me is an amazing person and absolute star her and her team went above and beyond to give me my special day and it was more than my expectations,I lost my mum so planning and having the wedding without her was really hard and Begimai took all that on board and gave me my dream wedding from the setting to the venue was absolutely stunning and breathtaking and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to get married in Turkey you really are in safe hands and it’s such a beautiful resort thank you to everyone especially Begimai you really have no idea how much it all meant xx

Fabulous hotel, been a few times now so it shows how great it is. Where to start, rooms massive, great facilities. Staff are so helpful and friendly. The evening entertainment is amazing and you'd struggle not to engage and have fun! The grounds are well kept. As a vegetarian I didn't struggle to eat, plenty of variety. Just fantastic and the patisserie is stunning!

Excellent hotel, very clean. Staff all helpful especially if tipped you get priority. Rooms very spacious & immaculate ( stayed in main building ). Food is of a high standard and always something to eat, and am a fussy man. The only thing that lets the place down is the drinks, they are labelled premium drinks but they are not. The draught beer is Efes and flat as milk. For a 5* hotel you should have the option to get a bottled beer, they used to have 1 bottled beer but stopped it due to cost. Now the cost of staying here keeps going up, I think they need to up their game and give the option of bottle lager like other good 5* turkey hotels. Tempted to revisit but I don’t think I can drink the draught efes for 2 weeks. There is also the waiters asking you to change their tip money to notes constantly, which also. Keeps you in plenty change to keep tipping ( clever fiddle & the bar managers are aware ). If your not a drinker yiu will love this place. #bottledefes #bottledBomonti #draughtispoor