Sonmez Hotel

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SonMez Hotel near Hisoronu; OluDeniz.
My partner and I stayed at the hotel last week; July 2009. The holiday itself turned out very well on the whole after a slow start. We arrived in the early hours of the morning and was greeted by the hotel manager Ergon or Jimmy as he likes to be called. He told us we had no room because the tour operators overfill his hotel without his knowledge, so we were taken to another hotel at 4 o'clock in the morning and told we would have a room the next morning. Apparently we were lucky, some other guests had to sleep on sun loungers by the pool and sit around for the whole of the next day before being given a room. Anyway we were told the next day that we could have a room in an hour; after 6 hours we were given a room that was totally unacceptable. The room had a double bed in it, a toilet and shower but no room whatsoever, we had to walk sideways around the bed as the room was so tiny, no where to put anything. In the details for the hotel it states that there are fridges in the room ; a kettle and complimentary tea and coffee but if you want these you have to pay for them. We couldn't have fitted a fridge into the room anyway, there was no room. So we told Jimmy that it was unacceptable, he agreed and said we could move tomorrow. On the third day of our weeks holiday we were finally put into a larger room which was acceptable.
Most people have to go through this pattern of not getting a decent 3* double room until they have endured being in other rooms or hotels first. The problem seems to be that the hotel accommodates Israeli students for one or two nights and they take priority for rooms, when they leave you have to complain quickly and insist on a room before the next lot of students arrive. Also Jimmy does not insist on people vacating their rooms at midday as stated in the terms, which means if their pick up is at midnight they are not told to vacate at midday and so the next guests can't get into the rooms.
The entertainment such as karaoke and barbeques doesn't happen, but their is a pool table and wii sports game that you can use if you wish for free.
The good part of the holiday was that the hotel is nice, the pool is quite large and the food if you are half board is great, you get a different meal each night which consists of soup; bread; dips; a main meal and melon to finish. We couldn't really complain about the evening meal at all because it was always very tasty and filling. The breakfast is, tomato; cucumber; olives; cheese; bread and preserves, you don't get the boiled egg you normally expect in Turkey. If you want anything different you need to pay for it, plus as standard you pay for the air-con which is £3 per day, incidently the same price as the fridge if you want it. The Dolmas, (little white bus) will take you to Hisoronu; OluDeniz or Fethiye for a very small cost.
Top Tip - the water sold at the hotel is 1.5 Turkish Lire for a small bottle but if you buy it at the supermarket it's 25cents. The kettles to hire by Jimmy are £2 per day but you can get a small travel kettle from the Azda supermarket in Hisoronu for a few Turkish Lire, so buy one and take your own tea bags.
Overall the weather was fantastic and we had a great time once we had gotten over the initial rooming issues.