Merit Royal Gardens Hotel & Casino

Merit Garden in North Cyprus was just the relaxing break I wanted. We had glorious sunshine, beautiful sea views, delicious food and genuinely great service. I had a wonderful holiday here!

Loved walking around the hotel grounds. Such a nice place to spend time, and I really liked the grounds!

The buffet was a real highlight, with a great mix of Turkish and continental food. The beach was beautiful, the pool was nice, and the Moonlight bar was a lovely place to sit with a cocktail at night. The flowers and plants were beautiful too. I also love dogs, and the ones around the village were very friendly, though clearly hungry. They were around the restaurant, under tables and in the gardens. The hotel would scare them off to satisfy some guests, but there didn’t seem to be any proper setup to care for them. If you don’t like dogs, this place probably isn’t for you. We stayed with our two children from 29th May to 9th June 2023, booking through Cyprus Paradise. We flew into Larnaka on a five-hour flight, then Cyprobus, a Turkish company, picked us up in a seven-seater Mercedes Vito. The transfer to the North took a little over an hour. On arrival, Cyprus Gardens staff told my tired family and me they had no room for us. After half an hour they found our booking, thankfully. Communication was terrible and the place didn’t seem well organized. Our room was okay, but not well maintained, which seems typical of North Cyprus. The number fell off the front door on day one, the back door barely locked, and its handle was nearly broken. The step down into the garden was falling apart. The gardens were untidy, and sprinklers soaked our drying clothes at odd times. Staff generally weren’t very attentive. Waiters seemed to favor mainland Turkish guests they could speak with, leaving people of other nationalities to get their own drinks from the bar. Some waiters were rude and made snide remarks in Turkish, not realizing I understood. I confronted them twice. There were also older men, especially casino visitors, often around the pool with younger women, and quite a lot of openly immoral behavior going on. One manager was hard to miss, walking around as if on his phone and seeming to do something about the dog problem. He reminded me of a Turkish Basil Fawlty. For our night flight home from Larnaca, the hotel gave us just two hours for late checkout and charged £70 for our dinners. Customer service was 0/10. They’re the stingiest people I’ve ever known, and the drinks are poor quality. Would I return? No. A generous 4/10. North Cyprus, I love you, but there’s a lot to improve. I don’t think I’ll be back for another ten years. Be kind to tourists and don’t be so tight.

The gardens and greenery are lovely, with well-kept trees and flowers that give plenty of shade in the heat. Our room and the shared areas were clean, and all the staff were friendly and helpful. They spoke decent English when needed. I enjoyed the holiday a lot, even with a couple of drawbacks. The extra bed was tiny, more like a child’s bed. At 170cm I could just about manage, but my legs were too long for a comfortable night. For the price and a four-star hotel, they should provide a proper full-size bed instead of an old, dusty sofa. The main restaurant played the same three songs on repeat, which got extremely annoying. Maybe management wants guests to leave sooner, but it’s unpleasant, and must be awful for the staff who hear it all day.