[Voycey]

Hotel / Holiday review

Not really sure where to start – I guess a bit about us, We are a young, easy going, not picky, couple. Unlike many people we don’t spend £300 on 2 weeks all inclusive and expect it to be 5 star quality.
Last year we stayed in the Marbel Hotel in Kusadasi – you can read our review of that on here.

This year it was Pigale Beach Resort.
The hotel (well complex / hotel) is situated on Pigale Beach (well 2 min walk away), the hotel campus Is really green, the contrast between the terracotta of the hotel buildings is gorgeous.

FIRST THING: If you have any kind of disability, walking problem, small children or any difficulty with steps – this hotel is not for you. It is built on a hill – there is no main hotel to speak of rather a collection of small chalets.

SEWAGE: The place constantly stinks of sewage, they have some serious problems with this – it is worse at some times than others but its still pretty gross.

The hotel is clearly based around its superior pool area, it boasts one of the biggest pools ive seen out of the hotels in Kusadasi, it is half Olympic size and has a slide.
It was great fun, see how many people you can fit down it at once, try and go down on your head etc etc etc – it doesn’t operate all of the time – it is on for about 4 hours of the day.

Plenty of sunbeds, don’t think we ever had a problem getting one – Germans still happily put their towels out at 6am – this didn’t matter as there were plenty to go around.


Now there are 2 reasons you come on an all inclusive holiday:

Food & Drink.

I am not picky in the slightest – ill eat anything, I read on so many reviews that the hotel “only caters for Germans”, ive always ridiculed this thinking that people were just too narrow minded to enjoy Turkish food.
HOWEVER – I have to say that this hotel catered mainly for Germans.

Breakfast – If you like Eggs your fine – but even after 2 weeks fried eggs gets a bit boring, there are boiled eggs (3 and 5 mins (or uncooked and hard boiled)), plenty of Ham and salami kinda stuff and lots of nice crusty bread and salad bits

Lunch – Some kind of rice / pasta / rice looking pasta, Chicken in a orange tasteless sauce, beef in a brown tasteless sauce, occasionally some kind of lamb / aubergine dish (not too bad) and sometime spaghetti with a tomato (just tomato) sauce.
Plenty of salad and Olives and then the normal Turkish Sweet puddings and of course crusty bread and soup (again tasteless).

Tea / Dinner – As above pretty much – whatever was left over from lunch is (not so) cunningly rearranged into something with new and different coloured tasteless sauces with a few extra veg chucked in.
Occasionally they will serve kofte or chicken kebap meat – so make the most of it!
Again all the usual veg.

I did notice that the sauerkraut (yep – see!) never seemed to disappear – but it did seem to reappear mixed with other veg throughout the week – I stopped eating it after the second day for fear of death.

I developed a bad stomach on the third day, I would recommend that if you are prone to a bad stomach hit the Chemist (Eczane) and get some tablets – they all speak English.

The snack bar is okay, they do Beef/Ham/Red Meat burgers with some good veg for it.
They do cheese sandwiches, pizza and chips, don’t ask for a Cheese burger cos the miserable arse of a chef will tell you to do one – ask for a cheese sandwich and a burger and silently stick 2 fingers up at him when he clocks what your up to and cant do anything about it.

As part of the all inclusive – once a week you can book a meal in Meze bar next door – we had the fish and the Mexican – both of which were very nice – the Mexican was a steak covered in a nice sauce and the fish was … well … fish (Turkish fish I was told)

THE WORST THINGS ABOUT THIS HOTEL:

The drinks are watered down – i'm not talking slightly watered down its at least 50/50.
The beer is VERY gassy – I like my beer but I could manage about 3 pints before it bloated me so much I wanted to die.
Whisky, Vodka, Gin, Brandy – all 50/50 spirit / water – the managers / bar mans excuse – “Its not good quality” – I don’t care whether its strips the skin of the back of my throat – I still wanna be able to get drunk (believe me – it is impossible to get drunk on the drinks at the bar!)

Now this isn’t opinion – we made friends with one of the barmen, I asked him to bring an unopened bottle from the back (you will notice that all of them on the counter(even full ones) have been opened, he did it – poured a drink from each and let me taste – very obvious which one wasn’t watered down – needless to say he served us “the good stuff” for the rest of the holiday (God Bless you Mare(sp?))

The only thing that wasn’t watered down (of course) was the Raki – however I was assured that the stuff was of utterly crap quality. Try Raki Sprite, its palatable and will get you on your way to being drunk.

The wines are like paint stripper, however after your mouth goes numb its fine and also gets you drunk 

OTHER STUFF:

The Animation at the hotel is fantastic – as rubbish as it might be (quality wise) there was still something happening each and every day / night, volleyball, water polo, basketball, karaoke, darts, bingo, Turkish nights, acoustic music, various other comedy stuff.
Ozzie and the other guys did a really good job at it – and although it was awful it fulfilled its purpose and the kids loved it.

The Slide is pretty good – no rules on it – the adults had more fun than the kids – it was good to see the grannies have a good go aswell 

Dolmus stops right outside – 1 dolmus to the centrum – 2 to ladies beach.

Pigale beach is definetly one of the nicer beaches in kusadasi – offers a lot of water sports and the snorkelling is really good around kustur Tropicana aswell.

Free Ice cream 3-4pm and 10-11pm

Don’t get a henna tattoo from the guys – they are crap!

THINGS YOU HAVE TO DO:

1) Hassle the manager (lanky guy) about the watered down drinks – he will feign innocence but at the end of the day its your money he is abusing.
2) Play Bingo – great fun!
3) See the Turkish night at the hotel
4) Book into Meze bar
5) Just visit Meze bar – really nice guys
6) Get a lilo and launch yourself down the slide
7) Get as many of your mates together and launch yourselves down the slide
8) Get some cheesy photos done by the photographer
9) Pick fresh pomegranates from the tree behind the photographer and eat them
10) Play scrabble!
11) Play volleyball – great way to meet people and a really good laugh
12) Go to the beach
13) Hire out a sea canoe!
14) Buy a bottle of spirits from the shop next door so you can get drunk!


All in all 5/10 and thats being generous - the only things that got it these points was the pool area and the bar staff / animation.

There are better hotels - you can do better

[Mella]

GREAT review Dan! You the man! Sorry to hear it wasn't the best hotel, but it sounds like you made the most of it.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write your honest opinion. It will be verrry helpful for other members.

Originally Posted by Voycey

ask for a cheese sandwich and a burger and silently stick 2 fingers up at him when he clocks what your up to and cant do anything about it.

ha ha ha that made me chuckle.

[anet]

yeah the cheese sandwich thing was quite amusing, anyway it still sounds like you have a good time even though the hotel wasn't brilliant. you've been very busy tonight

[Voycey]

its what you make of it tho isnt it? I was a bit miffed about the drinks - however the barman helped us out which was appreciated!

That chef was something else tho - I said to him "You dont smile much do you?" He looked at me and shrugged so i just kept winding him up until my burger was done - miserable git!

Bar staff were fantastic tho!

[thealankennedy]

Can/'t believe we went to the same hotel. None of the drinks were watered, the wine was very quaffable but I'll agree the beer was gassy and not my favourite brand of Turkish beer. The cuisine was definitely Turkish, with the occasional curry or Chinese style. The choices were amazing, I usually had one of the hot options. Sure some of the food looked strange to British eyes, unfamiliar cuts of meat and styles of cooking and many of the vegetables are seldom seen in England and they too were often in unfamiliar combinations. The range of desserts was phenominal. I just cannot understand all these negative comments.

If you want to eat like you do at home stay in England, go to Blackpool and feast on baltis and Chinese.

[CATHNJOHN]

Hi i think what you have to realise is these hotels change management and staff regularly,we went in May 2005,it was fine for what we needed after i insisted we were moved out of the matchbox sized room they put 5 of us in,when Voycey went in 2006 staff had changed and could have done again thats why we have different experiences of the same places.