Merit Royal Gardens Hotel & Casino

The service was truly excellent, and the food was delicious. With glorious sunshine and breathtaking sea views, Merit Garden in North Cyprus made for a wonderfully relaxing holiday. Such a perfect getaway.

Love it here! The hotel grounds are lovely, great for walking around and spending time in.

The buffet was amazing, with a mix of Turkish and continental food. The beach is beautiful, the pool is nice, and the plants and flowers are lovely. We also liked the Moonlight bar at night, and the dogs were super friendly. Still, I wouldn’t go back. I’d give it a generous 4/10. I love North Cyprus, but it has a lot to improve, and I don’t think I’ll be back for another ten years. Be nice to tourists and don’t be so tight. We travelled with Cyprus Paradise, my wife and our two children, from 29 May to 9 June 2023. We flew five hours to Larnaka, then Cyprobus, a Turkish firm, picked us up in a seven-seater Mercedes Vito and transferred us north in just over an hour. When we arrived, Cyprus Gardens staff told my tired family and me there was no room. Half an hour later they finally found our booking. The communication was terrible, and the place seemed badly organized. Staff generally weren’t attentive. Waiters and waitresses seemed to serve Turkish-speaking mainlanders first because they could talk with them, leaving guests of other nationalities to get their own drinks from the bar. Some waiters also made snide remarks in Turkish, apparently not realizing I speak it. I confronted them about it twice. Drinks were poor quality, and customer service on our last day was 0/10. We had a night flight from Larnaca, but the hotel allowed only two hours of late checkout and charged £70 for our dinners. They’re the stingiest people I’ve ever known. The rooms were decent-ish, but maintenance was poor, as seems typical in North Cyprus. Our room’s front door number fell off on day one, the back door wouldn’t lock properly, and its handle was nearly falling apart. The step down to the garden was breaking up, and the neglected gardens had sprinklers that soaked our drying clothes at odd hours. There were dogs everywhere, in the restaurant, under your table, and in the garden. They were friendly but very hungry. I love dogs, but if you don’t, don’t go to this holiday village. The hotel scared them away to please some guests, and there seemed to be no system to care for them. One manager wandered around pretending to be on his phone, as if dealing with the dog infestation. He was hard to miss, a sort of Turkish Basil Fawlty. There were also a lot of older men, especially people going to the casino, around the pool with younger women, and plenty of openly immoral activity going on.

The gardens are full of well-kept trees and flowers, which give welcome shade on hot days. Rooms and shared areas were clean, and all the staff were friendly and helpful, with decent English when needed. I really enjoyed the holiday despite a couple of problems. The extra bed in our room was tiny, more like a child’s bed. At 170 cm I could just manage, but my legs were too long for a comfortable night. For the price and a four-star hotel, they should provide a proper normal-sized bed instead of an old, dusty sofa. The main restaurant played the same three songs on repeat. It got extremely annoying. Maybe management wants guests to leave sooner, but it wasn’t pleasant, and it must be awful for the staff who have to hear it all day.