Bona Me Yalıkavak

I stayed for ten nights and would happily have stayed longer. I was traveling alone with a walking disability, and the staff helped me in all sorts of ways. They really went beyond what I expected, and I felt very cared for as a woman traveling by myself. I’d gladly return. There was a small issue in the bathroom at the start, but it was sorted out right away. There are cats around, as there are at every hotel and restaurant here. Who they belong to doesn’t matter, and I think it’s silly to use that as a complaint about a hotel. Some criticism on this and other websites doesn’t match what I experienced. The previous owner may not have handled room hygiene well, and there may have been lots of cats, insects, and unfriendly staff then, but that wasn’t my experience at all. Not everything is perfect, but that’s true anywhere, since you can’t please everyone. If you want luxury, there are plenty of other hotels in Yalikavak, though they can quickly cost several thousand euros. I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the staff. Great hotel, and I’d come back.

The location was the only good part. The room was so filthy that I had to buy cleaning supplies and scrub the bathroom just to make it usable. The shower stall had gone moldy, the glass was covered in limescale, and it was obvious a sponge hadn't touched it. There was no hot water, and spiderwebs around the room. One dim light barely let us see each other. The full-length mirror was stained, and apparently sized for hobbits, since all I could see of myself was my legs.

This place is badly run down and filthy. The ceilings were covered in spiderwebs, the bathroom was dirty, and I didn't even want to touch the awful headboard. The rooms were full of bugs and flies, so getting any sleep at night was impossible. The pool was pretty much unusable, and there weren't even screens on the windows, so opening them wasn't an option. When we reported the problems, they offered to move us to a deluxe room. We were checking out the next day and didn't think it would make much difference, so we declined. It seemed like a recently taken-over hotel with a lot still needing attention.

The best thing about this hotel is its location, just a five-minute walk from Yalıkavak Marina. The rooms, though, were in very poor shape. Ours was a deluxe room with a pool view, and it was full of bugs and extremely dirty. A centipede was beside the bed; if we hadn't spotted it, it could have hurt us. I slept badly, and with no garden spraying, bugs and mosquitoes kept coming inside all night. We had to kill them ourselves. The pool stayed dirty during our visit, so we never used it. The garden was in disrepair, and the furniture was in terrible condition. There was no pest control, making it hard to sit outside without being bitten. The owners had taken over recently, but guests were clearly already staying there. There wasn't a phone in the room, and room service didn't clean or change the sheets. The sheets were dirty and smelled bad, and were never replaced. There was no table, and while there was a safe, there wasn't one. We found a single bottle of water in the minibar and got no more during our stay. The booking listed housekeeping, but there was no room service at all. When we asked reception for toilet paper and towels, they told us to come collect them rather than bringing them up. The staff were cold and uninterested. The room looked like the photos except for the mirror, which was tiny and nothing like the one pictured. The location is great, but I wish the rooms had been looked after properly so I didn't have to write this.