Side Square Hotel

The beach bar only had water in October, and everything else cost extra. To get a beer, we had to go to another bar. The all-inclusive drinks were very sweet and barely tasted of alcohol. Food was poor and unappealing. From outside the hotel looked nice, but inside was a big disappointment. Our room was in an annex beside the main building. It was small and neglected, and cleaning products were kept in reused water bottles. There was a noticeable damp smell in the room. We left disappointed and wouldn’t choose this place again.

The beach bar looked fine, but its toilets were moldy from top to bottom. Some rooms had air conditioning that didn’t work properly, and leaning over the bathroom sink brought up a sewage smell. We even found a woman’s hair in a cake at the restaurant. Housekeeping was fine, but the toiletries weren’t replenished during our stay. If you’re European, apart from German or Russian, or American, I’d avoid this hotel. We felt deeply unwelcome, as service seemed to be focused on Russian, German, and Turkish guests. As someone who works in hospitality and studied at a hotel academy, I thought the service felt like a two-star hotel, maybe even one star, though the rooms and lobby looked decent. The restaurant was too small for the hotel, with huge queues at the start of lunch and dinner, and we couldn’t sit at our own table. We had to share a table with someone else. I’d rather not dwell on the food. We stayed a week, and it looked much the same every day. The meat was disgusting, and the chicken or turkey was mostly bones. After five days of eating what looked at least edible, I had to go to the toilet every 30 minutes. Eating at McDonald’s seemed to help, but the same thing happened when I ate the hotel food again. Drinks were often “finished” when we asked for cola or orange juice, which seemed like a way to cut costs. The worst incident was when we ordered two mimosas and got them in tiny glasses, gone in two sips. When I asked for bigger glasses, a very rude bartender who looked like she didn’t want to work there said, “no bigger glass.” So we ordered four instead. They barely tasted of sparkling wine, just like water. I tried to raise this with the manager. The general manager was called too, but he didn’t speak English and only listened to our conversation. He didn’t try to understand the problem and just defended the bartender, saying it was their standard. If their standard is to serve something that tastes like water when you order a mimosa, fine, but I don’t understand why the hotel has four stars. The sentence that shocked me was, “If you cause any more trouble, WE WILL GIVE YOU CHECKT OUT.” That would be unacceptable in Europe.

The location was good, about a 15-minute walk from the historic town centre, and the hotel beach was really nice. The air conditioning worked perfectly. Those were the main positives. The rooms need refurbishment, and whoever did the maintenance didn’t seem to try very hard. When we arrived, the fridge wasn’t working. It took three days and several trips to reception to get it replaced, and I had to threaten to ask for the hotel manager. Cleaning was shocking. The cleaners only changed the bed linen and didn’t wipe a single surface in either the room or bathroom. Even after the replacement, the dusty fridge wasn’t wiped down for seven days. Food choice was very poor, with turkey every day, and one day there were livers and hearts too. Whatever was left from lunch came back at dinner, so we ended up eating in town. There was no orange juice for all 10 days of our stay, and no juice at all for the last three days. One day there was no water either. Either red or white wine was short almost every day, so it’s hard to call this all-inclusive. Staff weren’t helpful and could be rude, especially at reception. I wouldn’t choose this hotel again.

We had a pleasant enough stay, and the location was pretty good, but we won't be coming back. The bar was fine for Efes and Raki, though the wine wasn't very good. Food started out reasonably well, then became repetitive and lacked the flair we found elsewhere. After a few days we went out to get more of a Turkish experience. The hotel also felt very German-oriented, from the food to the information. Our first room was the smallest we'd ever seen, but after asking, we were moved to a great one. Housekeeping was unreliable: it came very late, around 6pm, or more often didn't happen. Tea and coffee were never replenished. The so-called mini-bar had two bottles of water when we arrived and nothing added after that, so it was really just a fridge.