Holiday Village Turkey Sarigerme

7 readers found this review helpful

firstly i have read some reviews for the same time we were there-24th may/8th june,and wondered if i had stayed in the same hotel!
the difference of opinion for the same time is quite unbelievable.
yes,you are tucked away from all the hustle and bustle of turkey,but thats because of the all inclusive which we couldnt fault,selections such as fresh dressed salmon,sliced roast beef(freshly cooked and sliced in front of you)lamb in mint sauce,fresh chicken plus a massive selection of their own dishes-you will not go hungry,the desserts are to die for!!!
the hotel staff are polite and courteous,and not at all how i was told turkish people are with young blonde haired children.
the entertainment is very much aimed at children,but when you book you should be aware it is a family holiday and their job is to keep the kids happy.
yes,there were a few people who had drank a little too much,the odd annoying guest,but that is nothing to do with the resort itself!!!
the only downsides i felt....were the room sizes,quite small if you are a large family like mine(2adults 3 children) but they are impeccably clean,and you dont really spend that much time in there do you??
people complained about pools being closed......would you rather they not clean them??????again problems caused by guests.
secondly,the outside toilets on the palace side,of an evening got a bit whiffy-due to the baby changing stations etc i am presuming,but this wasnt every night.
i had never been to turkey before but i would go back,the place is massive,right on a gorgeous beach with watersports,a beachfront snack bar serving freshly made toasties,unspoilt gardens and the little town of sarigerme just 1 lira away!!
the entertainment team work their socks off with the no doubt minimal budget they have,my sons favourite being leigh-she will lead you all in the club dances and is amazing,my little boy was in love with her!
had a great time,met some fantastic families whilst there and none of these little quibbles would put me off going back-i would say the palace side is better,you will never get to see all the pools its just too big,but book your a la carte restarants on day 1-THE TURKISH ONE IS GORGEOUS!!
IF YOUR CONSIDERING THIS PLACE YOU HAVE PROBABLY GOT CHILDREN,BOOK IT,ENJOY IT AND GET INVOLVED WITH AS MUCH OF THE ACTIVITY AS YOU CAN-THERES NO FEELING LIKE SEEING YOUR CHILDS FACE LIGHT UP,BECAUSE THEIR DAD HAS BEEN CROWNED MR HOLIDAY VILLAGE 2010!!!:)

25 readers found this review helpful

Everything about the stay was fantastic and we have travelled to many places in our time near and far.
Our rooms were actually next to the new building being built and I can say we heard nothing at all. The entertainment was good, the reps were great, the rooms clean and up dated, all the staff was friendly, and the food was good.
This hotel offers lots for children of all ages so if you are not keen on having children constantly around you then don’t book this hotel. The food was typical type of food you get aboard and if you are in another country do you not expect to have foreign food.
For those people that want British food then all I can say is stay in England. I have two children aged 15 and 16 and they had a fab time and did not want to go home.
Would definitely go back again but the temperature hit over 40 last week so we need to buy factor 50 sun screen had all other factors with me, but this cost £20.00 so be warned, remember to bring enough.
Airport is expensive (aren't they all!) and prices in the resort shops can be higher for certain goods, always ask before you commit to buy and they do like English money so it's not really worth changing all your money into Lira.
We had a fantastic time in and around the quaint little village of Sarigerme, we did all our trips with BASKET TOURS after finding them on the 3rd day when we left the village and booked all our trips with them, we did all sorts, 12 islands, jeep safari, dalyan 3in1. The workers there are fantastic, funny, kind and generous.

24 readers found this review helpful

Firstly about us, family of four (kids 11 and 7) who have visited every holiday village over the last 6 years except for rhodes.
Stayed here from 21st May for 14 nights in a kids den room which are only on the palace side. Firstly the plus things - the food - yes the food! Fresh fish to die for especially the salmon, grilled meats from the barbecue - lamb excellant! the breads, doughnuts, pancakes and lastly the puddings all too die for. Now my only gripe is - THE ENGLISH HOLIDAY MAKER, they do not put the lids back on food, they use their fingers to pick up food and put their fingers in the fruit before choosing what they want - by the way this is not the kids but ADULTS!
The hotel staff are brill, the place is spotless, cleaners are fantastic HOWEVER the same cannot be said about the FIRST CHOICE REPS - ignorant, inexperienced, dont take any responsibility for complaints and cannot organise many of the activities at all.
Now then the pools and closures, yes about 8 times during 14 days but ALL down to the holidaymaker again and the hotal staff cannot control this. To give an eg one day an adult was dared to toilet in the pool on his last day - yes you guessed he did it!!!!!!
The entertainment during the day is amongst the best I have ever seen at a HV but lack of things for children aged 11plus. At night there is more choice than any other HV we have been too BUT there is an awful lot that could be improved come on first choice.
Went on the safari jeep day trip thru f choice whichis great fun and the mud baths are also excellant.
All in all enjoyed very much,would definately reccomend the hotel BUT NOT THE ENGLISH! Also come on first choice get your act together, we pay you money for a service whilst on holiday and WE ARE NOT getting value for money from you!

7 readers found this review helpful

The Holiday Village Turkey is massive, but is of course 2 hotels merged into 1. We stayed on the Palace side in a Kids Den Room. The room is carpeted with sliding doors to separate the main bedroom from the kids room. Each room has it’s own TV with English channels (BBC1, ITV, Sky Sports 1,2 & 3) and the main room also has a small fridge (Not very cold). The beds are very very hard. The bathroom is also large with bath and shower, hairdryer and toilet. I could not fault the room at all and it was cleaned daily with fresh towels, although the walls are paper thin. There are loads of lifts so disabled access is good. Check In was quick and a bell boy brought our luggage to the room within minutes (He did want a tip).
There are 17 pools but this includes 2 indoor in the spa’s, several very small secluded pools tucked away behind the posher rooms, some very small kids pools and 2 large main pools. Whilst there for 2 weeks we were aware of pools being closed on at least 8 occasions due to kids pooing or being sick in the pool. They close for at least 24 hours. I’ll never understand why parents don’t put swim nappies on young children.
The food was edible but not that good, although the fresh pizza in the first week was excellent (very poor in 2nd week). The sausage is infact bratwurst and most of the food is coated in spices. The drink is also quite poor. It claims to be Coca Cola, but I can assure you that if this was real coke then it was watered down. Water was in bottles in fridges located near the bars but was often quite warm.
My son attended at 6 kids clubs and seemed to love attending and the staff were pleasant. This gave us a nice break. They last 1 ½ to 2 hours and go from 10am thru to 11pm. The evening entertainment on the Palace side was rubbish at best (One night the entertainer Leigh, played a game of can I remember 18 kids names). There was one exception when we saw Jack Glanville who was a very good comedian brought in from the UK. They have another on-site entertainment team which do try hard but fail to really impress. They do a show called Loose Chippings (Based similar to Scooby Doo) and they also put on many other shows including the Widgets of watchamacallit a place on the tip of your tongue. These are 2 puppets and a person in a suit and they perform in the theatre (Outside arena) which the younger kids enjoyed. We never saw Bob the Builder has he only came out to the main pool. I can’t believe that they never visit the kids pool.
We used the small kids club pool everyday, but be warned the sunbeds are all gone by 7am. We had to reserve ours at 6am or we could not keep an eye on our son in the pool. It annoyed me more when beds were reserved but no-one used them all day long. Towels are free but again they open at 8am and towels run out by 9am.
The grounds are huge and clean, with cleaners always buzzing around. There is also handgel near all the places to eat although it rarely got used.
One of the worse things was the residents of Chavchester that got drunk from 9am and were often seen stumbling to lunch with not a care for there kids welfare. We even heard some horrible and violent domestic disputes which I reported to Security, reception and First Choice. Not a lot was done about it. The First Choice rep even said “I can’t comment as they pay my wages”.
We didn’t do any excursions, but came close to doing the Dalyan Mud Baths from Basket Tours in the village. They charged £20 per adult, kids 0-6 free and 6-12 ½ price. First Choice charged £27 adults and £17 kids (All Kids) for the same trip.
The welcome meeting was as usual a chance for them to push there trips on you. Most people walked out.
They do like english money in the hotel and resort. I never took any Lira and never changed any money into Lira. The airport is a con, charging you £10 for a visa and it is also very expensive costing me £22 for 2 KFC meal deals.
The mosquitos are a real pain in the backside. We took tropical formula mozzie repellent but they even got past this to give us several bites. The wasps come in 2 sizes, normal and massive. There are jumping spiders which are a bit freaky and large cockroaches and these live near the bushes.
The beach is massive but it is a course black sand that doesn’t allow you to build sandcastles.
Overall this place was clean and tidy, but due to the lack of good entertainment and decent food I would not return.

19 readers found this review helpful

This was my first visit to Turkey and I read some very negative reports about the hotel prior to travelling. It left me and my wife wondering if we had made a mistake.
Six of us, including two children stayed at the tropical side of the resort.
The rooms were clean and well kitted out.
The balcony view from our room looked out onto wasteland, but this was at the rear of the hotel and we didnt spend alot of time in the room anyway, so this wasnt a problem.
The room had air conditioning and the rooms were cleaned every other day, except on two occasions when we had to ask for clean towels etc.
The hotel itself is lovely and is well maintained and cleaned constantly.
I lost count of how many times I saw the cleaners on my way back to the room at night and then working again early the next morning.
The staff are friendly and polite and the kitchen staff and chef's are quite funny.
The one thing which annoyed me slightly was the baggage boy on arrival. I am not adversed to giving people a tip but when they knock on my door requesting a tip...i draw the line.
Aside to this though everyone else was brilliant.
The dining area was clean and the staff were very tentative.
In relation to the food I can say that I never went hungry but the meals were very similar from day to day with only a few dishes changing.
The bread and desserts however were fabulous!
The entertainment for the kids was brilliant, the entertainment staff (Dixie, Jamie and Adam) were brilliant with the kids and always appeared entheusiastic and up for it, even though they again worked long hours.
My only gripe with the hotel's entertainment is that there is a lack of alternative entertainment for the adults, There are several areas over the two sides of the hotel where more entertainment could have been provided.
Not all adults want to endure the mini disco every night!
The daytime activities were what you would normally expect from a child based resort and the grounds and gardens were well maintained.
The Swimming pools were excellent and were welcomed when the temperature sored during the day.
The main problem with the pools are that they are sometimes closed for 24-48 hours due to children being sick in them or using them as toilets.
On several occasions during our stay the reps were shouting over the tanoy system for parents to put swimming nappies on children who were not toilet trained.
Some parents sadly, are devoid of all common sense and continued to get the pool closed for everyone else. (Thanks for that!)
I feel that the hotel cannot be blamed for this as due to all the bad press over the last few years, they have strict procedures and guidelines to follow.
This in tandem with the sanitation hand spray devices in all the toilets and eating areas allowed guests to keep bacteria free.
That being said, lots of people did not use the sprays and didnt encourage their children to use them either.
I personally did not see anyone who was ill due to hygeine whilst we were there.
The last point I would like to make is about the trips and excursions.
We went on the mud baths and tombs trip which was excellent although we were taken to the Dalaman Carpet Factory on route where we were encouraged to buy items if we wanted to. We also went on the first choice fetiye market trip in which the coach was late and then proceeded on a 2 hour 50 minute journey to the market. This journey normally takes 40-45 minutes but again we were herded into the Gold Centre where again we were encouraged to buy Gold.
As a result we had only a short time in the place we had all paid to go to.
These extra stops were not explained or covered by the first choice reps....coincidentally.
My advice is to go down to Serigerme village and use one of the tour companies down there, they are cheaper and go direct.
Altogether though we all loved the hotel and the holiday and would certainly encourage other families to go.

4 readers found this review helpful

we have just returned from the holiday village for the 4th time in five years but this time we have come back four days early at a cost of £276 to our pockets. this hotel is absolutely dreadful now, we stayed in the tropical side and it was just a nightmare. staff are ignorant and dont want to know you, the first choice reps are useless and dont have a clue, the maid service is non existent or they clean your room when you are getting ready to go out at 6 in the evening. the corridors are dirty the outside toilets are in a dreadful state. the excursions advertised in reception dont start until peak season so whats the point in advertising them. we booked a family den with a double bed and bunk beds we ended up with 2 single beds and a sofa bed. being truthful this hotel is an utter disgrace now. the food is okay if you want to queue up for ages and then enjoy chips. there are 2 toasters in the restaurant for a hotel with over 1000 holiday makers the wavelength kids club for 11-15 yr olds is virtually non existant. there arent enough sun loungers for sun bathers and if you want an unbrella you had better get up early because there are only about a dozen i would not go back there if the holiday was free of charge if you are going there this year i would think very carefully about it. the best thing about this place now is the beach

14 readers found this review helpful

Me, my husband and 3 year old son have just returned from Pegasos side of the holiday village Turkey and can honestly say it was great. Immaculately clean and there was something there for everyone. So many pools, which again were well kept and clean and there was never a shortage on sunbeds. Clean rooms with Air con and all the staff were extremely helpful. The only negative I would say was the availability of the Al a carte restaurants. We only got to eat in the Italian which was fantastic and would love to have tried the others but they were full for the rest of week when we booked on day 2 of the holiday. I'm sure the food and service would be excellent in these too. We will definitley be returning to this one.

11 readers found this review helpful

Myself and partner and 3year old just back and can't say a bad word about the village.Rooms clean,food excellent
staff were the best ever !As we went at the start of the season and never been to turkey before I highly recommend this type of holiday to familys.Please try the beef sandwich at the adult bar (family during the day ) adult only at night and the pancakes! Entertainment was very good considering they just started, we went between the 2 hotels tropical and palace we were at the tropical side.We had the turkish baths in the spa which was fab worth every penny.My 3 year old loved the kids club just like nursery.A wee tip jump on the bus to sarigerme just at the bottom of the hotel costs 1 lire drops you off and picks you back up you get more for your money there because the shops in the hotel have to make there money.Wanting to go back later in the year it was that good.

10 readers found this review helpful

Firstly a bit about us. We have travelled the world extensively before having children, stayed in all sorts of countries, in all grades of hotel accommodation. Have travelled to Europe and much of the rest of the world. This was our second visit to the holiday village. previously visited in Octover 2007.
We stayed for 11 nights from 6 - 17 May 2010.
This time around the holiday company seemed to be the cause of most of the problems. Reps in the resort were poor, had little or no enthusiasm/drive. They had little knowledge of the resort and the surrounding area and were very unhelpful. I am still waiting to find out what my daughter can eat in the restaurant (she has a nut allergy), nobody ever came back to me, she could have starved for all the first choice reps cared!
The food was OK there was lots of choice and after the recent food issues in the hotel they have employed staff to check all the food constantly for temperature and bacteria. We saw lots of food being taken away if it did not meet the standard. however check the meatballs and the chicken, sometimes still a little undercooked.
The entertainment has been reduced since our 2007 visit, much more low key during the day and there are lots of quiet pools if you want to escape the noise of the large one. Kids club was great our 3 year old loved it.
Hotel in general was clean but the toilet facilities during the day around the pool area were in a terrible mess but I put this down the other guests not respecting their surroundings rather than the hotel being at fault.
Unfortunately what brings this hotel down in many cases is the other guests having no respect for others. Noisy and poorly behaved adults after spending 12 hours drinking. Abusing the poorly paid bar staff after their 12 hour shift is simply not acceptable and makes me ashamed to be British. Kids/teenagers with knives (which incidentally were flown home by the travel company) when this became apparent. Urinating in the lifts (adults, not kids), parents sitting reading books/sleeping off a hangover whilst their kids were left in the pools clearly out of their depth with no adult supervision and nothing to save them from drowning apart from a rubber ring, Kids left in the sun to get burnt until they were as red as can be, dirty nappies left on floors, kids going to the toilet on the grass etc etc.
If you want a peacful holiday with quiet mealtimes at a leisurely pace then this is not for you. If you want good entertainment for your children and their enjoyment is your main priority and to get this you are prepared to sacrifice your own needs and you will endure hectic mealtimes (bun fights even!!!) then give it a go, take some ear plugs, find a sunbed around a quiet pool and go out explore the local area, taken in the great surroundings, the public beach is fantastic, the spa is good (if not a bit expensive this time around).
Make sure you get it for a good price though it is not worth the brochure prices and 10 days is enough (maybe even 7!.....

8 readers found this review helpful

We read all the bad reports and press and even First Choice were up front with the problems before we went but lets face it on an all inclusive holiday you do have to take some of the responsibility yourself if the food doesnt look right "leave it well alone" And parents if your child has an accident clean it up or at least draw someones attention to it and if you do have to change your babies nappy at the poolside have the decency to take it away with you.
We had a fantastic time and even booked to go again this year with the children and grand children. The only problems that we encounted was not with the complex or with First Choice but with other holiday makers :- ie parents leaving soiled nappies around the pools.
Food wise we could not fault it. There was only one occasion that I coulnt eat what I had chosen so I left it and got something else, and belive me I am a fussy eater. All the staff were fantastic! on one occasion I dropped my drink on the marble floor and before I could even get a replacment a cleaner appeared just appeared and it was cleared up before I could get ambarrest about it. My wife and I are loooking forward to going back in June.