Armas Belek Hotel

The pools were lovely and warm, kept clear of rubbish, and the pool attendant worked hard and was really nice. Bar and restaurant staff were helpful and polite. Food was good and the themed evenings offered plenty of choice, which is what saved the hotel for me. The drinks were decent branded ones, the waffles were great, and the women making the flatbread were lovely. Breakfast wasn’t especially suited to English tastes, though I enjoy most foods and that’s common at many hotels. We had a nice holiday, but the poor rooms, rock-hard beds, and rude reception staff let it down badly. I wouldn’t recommend the hotel to English guests who want to book excursions through it. The reps seemed to cater for Russian and German visitors, and we were told we couldn’t join several trips. One rep spoke English and was friendly at first, then got rude when we didn’t book Land of Legends through him and only wanted rafting rather than the combined trip. He didn’t seem keen to help after that and ignored us. It turned out well that we booked rafting online instead, as people on our coach said the combined trip was a con. The rafting itself was an amazing day. We booked two rooms for two adults and a child, plus an adult and a 6'1 teenager. They put the adult and teenager in a double room with an unmade chair bed, and my son’s feet hung over the end from above his ankles. They weren’t going to change it until we argued and showed what we’d booked. Each room also had only one key card, which made things difficult if someone wanted to go to bed early. Our family room smelled awful, the air conditioning barely worked, and everything felt dated. The bedding was dirty, and the towels were filthy, bright yellow with stains and a bad smell. Sometimes there was no toilet paper, and towels were occasionally taken away without replacements. The sheets were the same size for single and double beds, so you could cover your torso or just your legs. The beds were incredibly hard, like a slab of tile. We met a couple whose friends were bringing mattress toppers to try to make their beds bearable. When we asked for extra blankets, cleaners kept taking them away. In the end we helped ourselves to bedding and toilet roll from a supply cupboard nearby and kept the do not disturb sign on the door. A cot bed sat outside our room for eight of our ten days, with a dirty plate in it. The shower head sprayed over the screen if turned up fully, soaking the bathroom, and the shower screen had a cracked hole. Our friends arrived the day after us and had a room just as poor. Their hairdryer blew up in my friend’s face, and the wiring seemed very dodgy. We heard several people at reception complain that their fridges weren’t working. The reps and pool entertainment got tiresome. The pool music seemed to be the same 20 songs for all ten days. The woman running the entertainment did the same routine and playlist the whole holiday, and her whistle became very annoying. Belek has become so expensive, around three times the prices back home. String bracelets with one charm cost £7-9 and weren’t worth £1, and snacks and sweets for children were extortionate. Pool inflatables and lilos were £30. Fake goods cost almost as much as the real ones, so the only thing that might make sense is trainers.