Avia Resort & Spa

We’re on our last day at Side Crown Serenity Hotel and have had a lovely holiday. There’s plenty of food at mealtimes, including lovely bread, and the cakes are everywhere. We booked the restaurant for one evening and the meal was beautiful, with so much food. The staff work hard, and drinks and cocktails are served very generously. It’s a good experience, though I wouldn’t call it five-star. Guests need more information: reception couldn’t help us work out how to get to Side town, and we heard nothing about entertainment. There was only one evening of it during our stay, and with little or no music around the hotel, it could feel a bit lifeless. The hotel is also somewhat out of the way. The dolmush was excellent, and Google helped us figure it out. I’d recommend the green canyon trip and Hamam, but compare options and book online.

The beach was a highlight: it’s clean and fairly large, and we could find sunbeds at any time. The hotel pools were clean too, although there weren’t enough loungers there. After 7am, we couldn’t find a free one by the pool. The location is convenient, around 45-50 minutes from Antalya airport. A shuttle to the beach comes every 15 minutes and takes about 3-5 minutes; walking takes 8-10 minutes. The hotel isn’t on the beach. The property itself is nice, but the rooms and some other areas need work. Food was good, though there wasn’t much variety. What brought my rating down was the staff. They didn’t speak English, seemed unfriendly, and didn’t appear to care about guests. Some were quite rude. I’d call this a four-star hotel, despite the website presenting it as five-star.

The food was good, with fish, turkey and chicken each day, plus fresh, marinated and grilled vegetables, salads, appetizers, fries, mash and rice. There was a big choice of desserts and fruit. Over the week, we had Turkish, sushi and seafood themed dinners. The sushi was so-so, but the other two were delicious. Lunch was available at the beach too, with fries, nuggets, burgers, pizza and very tasty gözleme. Our Family Deluxe Pool View room was ready when we arrived after 11 AM, just as booked. It wasn’t newly renovated, but it was clean, the linen was fresh, the air conditioning worked, and the bathroom and towels were clean. Both minibars had water and soda. The only toiletries were hand soap and shower gel, so I missed having shampoo. The pool grounds were generally clean, but loungers went quickly. People didn’t seem to reserve them and vanish for the day. Smoking, though, was everywhere around the pool and beach. If you don’t like cigarette smoke, you really can’t get away from it, and I wanted to breathe fresh sea air. The beach is about an 8-10 minute walk. There’s a shuttle roughly every 15 minutes from 8:30 AM to 12 PM, then 12:30 PM to 5:30 PM. Walking is fine, except the route goes past a construction site and gets very dusty. Evening entertainment ran every night, nothing grand but decent. I’d describe this as a budget five-star, or more like a four-star. I took off a point for the occasional smudged plate and tables that weren’t always wiped well, as well as the dusty road. The constant smoking cost it two more points.

Sultan, the service employee on the 3rd floor, was so kind and did a wonderful job. She really made our stay brighter. A big thank you to the staff working here!