Surmeli Efes

12 readers found this review helpful

Just arrived back after spending a wonderful 10 days in this hotel with my Mum and Sister. We arrived at the hotel at 5am and the reception staff were lovely sorting out our luggage and we were asked if we were hungry as they would arrange a salad. The transfer is 2 and a half hours from Bodrum airport so I was glad to find water in the room when we arrived and a lovely clean spacious room overlooking the sea. The bathroom had a bath and power shower with toiletries on arrival and our towels were changed every day for fresh, clean warm ones. There were three of us in the room and hot water was always available and our linen was changed on a regular basis.
Breakfast in the morning was a pleasure. The restaurant is filled with fresh bread, pastries, cereals, fresh fruit, omelettes and pancakes to order, meats cheese and salads. Lunch time was filled with a variety of hot and cold food although we only ate there a few days as we usually grabbed a few slices of pizza from the pool bar. Waiters were always friendly, polite and our plates were cleared quickly. You can have wine with your meals, beer or soft drinks. Dinner time had just as much variety and people have mentioned that there was no British food, but what do they expect being in Turkey. The only criticism I would have on the restaurant was that food was never piping hot. Desserts were plentiful and ideal if you have a sweet tooth as Turkish desserts are indeed very sweet! Alcoholic and soft drinks were readily available although you have to pay for your drinks if you are in the Disco. No problem with this as we used to stay in the disco till around 1am and then pop to the cocktail bar where they were still serving till gone 2am as part of your all inclusive. You could get a sandwich from there also if you were a little peckish.
As for the entertainment team, they are fantastic! Paris, Kevin and Katie deserve a special mention as they were always so friendly, great fun to be around and all look like they love their job making our stay a pleasure. There were sports throughout the day and show time in the evening although some of the humour wasn’t quite to my taste but a lovely evening was always had by my family and I. Maybe the music could have been a little quieter around the pool as this did get a little tedious at times. However, there is a relaxation pool you can visit if you fancy something a little more quiet and romantic.
There is a market that comes to the complex every Sunday and you can pick up a real bargain if you have a little banter with the sellers. We took a day trip to Ephesus with a tour guide (I would highly recommend this as you may be a bit clueless if you have nobody to explain what each place is) and also a trip to the local traditional market.
I never go back to a place twice because I like variety, however I would definitely recommend this as a lovely relaxing holiday. I sat there one afternoon at the beach bar sipping my amaretto, looked around and thought to myself, how can anyone write such bad things about this place.
Ps. A big hello to Graham in Preston and friends :-)

9 readers found this review helpful

My family and I have just come back from an enjoyable week at the Surmeli Efes near Kusadasi. The weather was fantastic, the setting and location was close to perfect and the staff were very pleasant and friendly, if on occasion perhaps a bit over eager. The facilities are of a satisfactory standard, with exception of the gym equipment being badly maintained - but let's face it, who goes on holiday to go to the gym?!
The food was pleasant if not a bit monotonous, more than a week there would most likely see you bored of the food and more inclined to dine off the resort.
There are plenty of excursions and activities available for all ages but I should point out that you don't always get the best deal when booking from the hotel. Turkish baths, for instance, aren't as great value at the wellbeing centre as they make out, you can get them much cheaper elsewhere if you just ask.
The beach is lovely, with soft sand and nice warm sea. However when the wind gets up a bit the soft sand can be somewhat of a problem as it has a tendency of flying all over the place.
Having said that, we did stumble across a couple of minor issues such as the lifts. We found more often than not that we were fighting our way out of the lifts as uncourteous guests barged their way in before letting anybody out (but this cannot be made fault of the hotel, we just found it somewhat irritating)> Also, at night the mosquitoes come out in force! My boyfriend and I sat in the Bubbler Bar for no more than 15 minutes and I counted 12 bites in that time. More came up later.
Last but by no means least, when we booked our holiday at the Surmeli Efes we joked in giving it a nickname of the Smelly Orifice. I believe that we well and truly jinxed ourselves by doing this as it most definately lived up to the name. Unfortunately, the septic tanks are not covered, so if you happen to be down wind of them you get the most horrendous stench! Although it was not around all the time, it made its presence known when it was. One night we had to go indoors and stay indoors because it got that bad. The Surmeli is even known by locals in town as the Smelly hotel. This is really unfortunate because other than this I would have been more than happy to return to the Surmeli Efes but it has put me off.
If you want to go into Kusadasi itself you can get picked up right outside the hotel by a Dolmus (minibus) which run every 10minutes, although be warned that Dolmus means 'squashed' in Turkish and this is quite literally the case!! There are taxis available but they are an absolute rip off when you could just wait an extra 10minutes for the next Dolmus and pay a tenth of the price. Alternatively, there is a bar in Kusadasi called Murphys who offer a free pick up and drop off service if you ring up and book them.
Kusadasi itself is a lovely place but you do get hassled by the shop owners quite alot so avoid the bazaars where possible (unless you're feeling brave!)
I would also recommend visiting Ephesus as it really does make the holiday, there is also Dolmus pick up from the Surmeli for this too.

5 readers found this review helpful

we have just come back from the Surmeli Efes and found it overall to be clean, well managed and very friendly. True their are flies it the restaraunt but there not too bad, some of the guests are very ignorant and push you when you are trying to get your food. I was very disappointed that there were no walks outside the hotel, which runs along a main road with no pedestrian walkways into the town of Kusadasi - which is too far away anway to walk into, which means unless you catch the dolmus bus which is very efficient you have to stay on the site.
The bus transfer is 2 and a half hours long - not 1 and a half hours long as stated in the hotels description which makes it very tiring for the transfers to and from the hotel. There also is no ice cream included in the all-inclusive and the price of the icream is very high 14 lira for a Magnum ice lolly - the cost soon mounts up if you have sa young family. The food and drink though is always available and of a very high standard. the waiters were very friendly if not a little over stretched while we were there.

6 readers found this review helpful

best holiday in years food great all day long.entertainment good laugh by annimation crew.room good plenty of space(family room).staff very helpfull allways at hand to serve.very clean allround.good value for money would go back any time .pools very best.hotel photografer was very good value for money had lots of nice pictures.

6 readers found this review helpful

We (2 couples) came here to celebrate a birthday and had a fantastic holiday, I would definately recommend staying here end April begining May,the hotel was so clean everywere, The whole staff were great and could not do enough for us, we felt very pampered by the waiters and bar staff, considering we were here before the start of the season the only thing closed to us was the restaurants but we had plenty of choice anyway, The Animation team were absolutely fantastic and such a great bunch, they would do anything for us and were such good fun to have around, would recommend for couples or Families,

2 readers found this review helpful

I have just come back from staying at this hotel, and really wouldnt recommend it. When we arrived at the hotel, we were greeted well. But when I awoke to have breakfast we couldnt believe that the food was infested with flies!!!! this applied to lunch and evening meals. I found this to be disgusting!!!! i also got a tummy bug there which i put down to the food. Also this proved to be a problem when sunbathing, flies kept landing on people it was very frustrating.
The staff appeared to have an end of season attitude, and basic services werent delivered. Guests could snack during the day at the snack bar, and again this food was infested with flies and was cold!!!! certainly not the standard of a 5* hotel, i think a 3* could get this right!!!
On the first day it took us 20mins to get a drink from the outside bar. We were told to go to another bar by passing staff and when we had walked to the other bar there was no-one to serve us. My partner and i then complained and eventually someone did come to our assistance.
What really upset us on departure was that we were to vacate the room by 12.00 considered we have only arrived 6 days before so had been cut short of a day. Our flight wasnt till 2.45am the next morning, so we asked if we could use a room to shower and get changed in before we left. We were then told they didnt offer this and we couldnt pay extra for another room as they were booked up. To top it off a miserable man from behind reception then told us that we could use the turkish baths!!! how rude?!!! we were then told we couldnt have any meals on the day of departure......
I have to say that the waiters and bar staff were excellent and were generally very helpful...its a shame that is had to end on a sour note.

1 reader found this review helpful

Well just come back from the Surmeli in Kusadasi yesterday and really felt like I needed to log a review. Firstly, at best I would say the hotel is a 3*. Would also recommend you do not stay here in October as all the Al la carte restaurants are closed even though this is not stated when you book !!! The only restaurant open is the main Efes restaurant which to put it politely the food is bland, repetive and not particularly varied. Or at lunchtimes only you can eat at the snack bar cold chips, cold pizza and salad - Hardly 5* though. As it was close to the end of season all the Entertainment staff couldn't really be bothered and were just looking forward to finishing !
On a brighter note the bar staff and waiters were all very friendly and polite.

1 reader found this review helpful

After spending a week at Surmeli Efes, I must say the best thing has to be sea view from our balcony, beach with warm, shallow water, plenty of free sunbeds with no reserved towels over them. Water sports were excellent. Dolphin and water park was only a short ride on the bus.
We were surprised that some receiptionists can hardly speak English. Our journey to Kusadasi was also an adventure itself, shopkeepers thought we were all millionaires when they saw the hotel bracelets on our wrists.
Right, the worst things about the hotel are as followed:
1. Aircon inside the room.
For some reason, the aircon inlet vents sucks up cigarette smokes from somewhere outside and blows it into the room, making the room stink of smoke. The aircon also only blows out nice cold air for a few hours before blowing out warm air! Can you imagine how bad it was? Blowing out warm smelly smokey air!
2. Food.
They seem stick to their one and only food menu for the whole week, breakfast, lunch and dinner, everyday was the same. The guy who make omelets thinks people would be impressed if there were flames coming from the frying pan, well, it was impressive until you taste the omelet, it tasted like charcoal. I had an omelet which had more egg shells than egg! Lunch and dinner was marginally better, but we wouldn't have rated the food 5*.
3. Evening shows were very tacky, in the end, we opted to stay in our room and watch BBC News instead!

6 readers found this review helpful

I would just like to say that this was a superb hotel catering for all needs. I went to this hotel from looking at it on line, I then read the reviews of the other guests and felt a little unsure as to whether we had done the right thing. On arriving at the hotel we were pleasently surprised it was spotless inside and out. We were equally as pleased with the rooms spacious with excellent see views. They had entertainment on throughout the day for both adults and children. and there was a evening show on every night as well as live music at the pool bar. the food was well presented and plenty to go around, the waiters were very helpful. The hotel had 4 pools around the complex but we went to the beach every day as it had its own beach with complimentry loungers and water sports, you had to pay for motorised activities but this was a reasonable price. The beach was cleaned every night and bins were emptied throughout the day. The hotel had a dolmuch stop right by it we used this form of transport quite a lot it was cheap and run pretty much all day and night. The had a variety of stops but you could get off and on where you liked, this was fun too as the locals use this service too. We would recommend this hotel for families or couples it was well worth the money we paid...
G Edis

2 readers found this review helpful

We have just had a great holiday at the Surmeli Efes, other people are commenting on the lack of choice in food and that it was repetetive I say that they were in another hotel as we ate something different everyday and my kids loved the choice...if you have picky kids then its ideal because they can have simple food if they wish but the variety was amazing I bet all the people who are complaining about not enough choice dont cook different meals everyday at home. !!! The staff were great and put up with a lot of ignorant guests treating them like skivvys ! Your holiday is what you make it ours was brill ! The animation team were always there helping the kids to get involved with activities and the place was so clean and well maintained I was impressed. The rooms are cleaned and beds made everyday and I felt so safe there, we didnt lock anything away for two weeks and nothing was touched. The bus service is great regular trips into Kusadasi and Kusadasi itself is still very Turkish which is what you want, not streets full of English pubs etc.
Well done Turkey Brilliant place we will be back!!