Side Sun Hotel

1 reader found this review helpful

Side sun is nice hotel. Private beach is lovely. Rooms are clean, nice interior. Hotel's environment very nice, beautiful. The food here was the best I'd had at any all inclusive hotel. The staff were very friendly, nice animation team. By the way - most of personnel speak German only, but they are doing their best if you speak English.
Hotel is orient to german people (clients), because almost all people are from Germany, but it was not problem to lithunian. All services high-grade. Rooms in hotel are not very big, but if u are going do not sleep all time so it's not the most important thing. City Side is nice historical place. Take Green Canyon trip for sure - it is really amazing. Hotel I recommend for families with young children.I'll never forget this hotel and will back again next year.

It was the best holiday ever.The staff were very friendly.The food was nice and varied. The beach was very good ( clean and sandy ). The photo gallery from www.sidesunhotel.com is true.

1 reader found this review helpful

I don't really know where to begin. After reading the 3 previous reviews I can only suggest they had blinkers on, or the hotel has drastically changed in the last month or so!?
On arrival, we had no designated rep, just told to go to coach 1 and that was that. We were the final drop off. I actually noticed our Hotel Side Sun as we drove past it but the Turkish driver kept driving for a further 5 miles. You want to say something like surely this is the wrong way, but obviously, 'he must know best'?! We continued further and eventually dropped us in a busy narrow street full of shops and leering Turkish men, and made to carry our cases a few hundred yards to what was the 'Side Sun Side Hotel'. We tried to get him to understand this was the wrong hotel, and that we'd past it ages ago, but wasn't till the receptionist from this hotel came out to explain to him that we had to go back. He was plainly lost and we directed him back!
Eventually we got to the right hotel which really looked nice, what we were expecting! Although on check-in discovered non of the staff can speak English only German got a little worried! Then when we got our room the phone wouldn't work, and the air-con was on the blink. It was eventually sorted out but hard work when no one can speak English! By this time it was 2am and got to bed ready for our 10am welcome meeting...
10am and no sign of our 'rep'. He eventually turns up at 10.30. 'Alum'. A Turkish guy working for Thomson who also spoke little English and had the most irritating habit of 'going up' at the end of every sentence like he was answering a question. Apart from that he was OK! Until it was explained to us we would all be travelling by coach to a leather factory half hour away! There we would view a small cringe worthy fashion show, followed by half hour walking round their shop, practically ramming the worst leather clothing I have ever seen down our necks! And it wasn't even cheap! 200-400 pounds! When we eventually got out (if you can find the exit) we were piled back into the coach for a cruise down the green river. To be fair this was pleasant but all we wanted was to be round the pool enjoying the pool and beach and having a nice cold drink!! Once he finished his hour long meeting trying to sell us over priced trips to Turkish carpet factories we eventually made it back to the hotel about 2pm missing out on lunch at the hotel!...
The scraps that were left didn't give us much hope on what to expect in the buffet restaurant, but for the price we paid we weren't expecting Gordon Ramsey. Just edible recognisable food, and more appetising than salad, salad, and more salad. Oh, and German sausage and cooked meats. We thought we'd try and book the Mexican restaurant as what we found was not appealing at all. This made us MAD!
At reception we were told the Mexican was only served on Mondays and was already fully booked. We explained that we only arrived 2am that morning, and only there for 7 nights so we'd miss out? 'Yes' or 'Ja' they replied. The table plan was shown to us which had 12 tables. This is a hotel that has nearly 200 rooms! And they only have one reservation time of 7.30 and everyone is served together! All that was being offered to us was what he called Feesh! How about Feesh?! Realising he meant Fish restaurant! Unfortunately we don't like FEESH sir, we'd like Mexican! After about half hour of arguing the restaurant manager eventually came and agreed to 'squeeze' us in.
So we made it in and what a difference! It was beautiful food, we loved it! Although there were so many spare tables, they could have fit many more people in!
So apart from the food the hotel was beautiful throughout. Rooms were cleaned daily, the pool was gorgeous and the slides were so much fun! Plus the beach was right on the door step! Couldn't have been better?!...Well yes, if it wasn't filled with GERMANS!
They are every where!! Even the Turkish people who leer at you everyday can only speak German!! GERMAN everything! We even had to spend Euros because the Germans cant be bothered to change to Turkish Lira!! The hotel only had 6 British people there. Luckily we made friend with a lovely English couple. It was nice to communicate with someone! I realise we were in Turkey and I don't personally like holidays that are like Magalluf where you may as well stay in England, but this was over the top! You could have been in Germany if it wasn't for the beautiful surroundings!
So if you decide to go here, make sure you brush up on your German, eat like them and act like them (which includes getting up at 6.30am to reserve one of the few sun loungers!)
Another tip is to order you drinks in German otherwise the bar staff will ignore you!
So in conclusion I have mixed thoughts. I don't think I'd return to Turkey as I really didn't like the locals, sharing their time between staring and leering themselves towards women including my wife, and also greeting you in German all the time, when you say English, all they could say was 'ah, Manchester United!'
What made this holiday was the physicality of the hotel, it was beautiful, its location, a really great beach on its doorstep, and the weather was amazing. 45-50c everyday!!
For that reason I give it a 6. The locals, staff, food and mass of German holiday makers let it down.
A final note, you will really fancy a Burger King meal at Antalya airport on your return after eating German cuisine. Just make sure you have about £30 left! 2 x Standard Whopper meals = 48 Turkish Lira. You do the maths!!

FOOD: Generally we didn't like the foods. First of all, there were not that many alternatives as main dish. Then, the taste of the food is 3 out of 5. You gotta wait at least 5 or 10 minutes to grab some barbecued food if there is. The other thing is that you can never make a reservation on AlaCarte Restuarants even if you call them 3-4 days in advance.
BARS: It's the worst part, they close almost all bars after 5pm. For instance, there is a bar near the beach and it's closed after 5pm, even you cannot have any tears of water. ( at 5:05 pm you have to walk about 100 metres to have water or something from beach ) The other thing is that, possibly there is no-one serving in the bar, so you gotta call them or wait for them. The glasses are very dirty, i guess they are only washing them with hot water so you can see some dirts on the glass even if it's a washed one.
ROOMS: It's the best part. It's relatively big enough to survive ;). The air-conditioner works really nice. It cools down the room in about 10 minutes. They clean the rooms every-day but they are not changing the towels every day ( every other day ) and the situation is the same for mini-bar.
STAFF: It's certain that they need to double the number of employees in the hotel. There is lack of serving quality. The staff is very "kind"! so that they are always following your girl friend and keeping their eyes on your girl friend.
BEACH: Bearable
POOL: small but ok
OVERALL: They say it has 4 stars, but to me they deserve 2 stars at all. However, there are other hotels in Side with 4 stars and this hotel is better than those, when you compare the price and quality you may go with this hotel by knowing the issues i mentioned above.
PS: You should really try Rafting and Jeep Safari tours. They are really nice and cheap. They are worth it. You pay 15-20 euro for rafting and jeep safari including transportation, launch and guide service. for more information you should go out to the hotel, turn right, walk about 150 meters, then you will see a information desk. the guys will help you out and welcome you for certain.

Well just got back Sunday morning and we must say we were very disappointed indeed.
Due to the fact we found the bar service very poor, the beach bar and pool bar opened at 10am but the bar men would spend 20 minutes cleaning up from the night before mess, the food was cold and rubbish and left uncovered for the flies to munch on.
At lunch time if you arrived for lunch bang on 12pm the staff wouldn’t of finished putting the food out and when the food was gone it was gone lol, not to mention when they ran out of plates you had to wait for them to wash them lol.
The air con was bad in the hotel, they seemed to hold back in the lobby even though it was touching over 100.
Don’t get me wrong the holiday wasn’t bad but it is not a 4 star hotel more like a 3 star.
The rooms where very clean and I think that was the only plus about the hotel lol.
This was my 3rd time in Side and I must say it was the worst hotel I have stayed in.
Defo say we won’t be going back here again lol.
Love Side don’t like Side Sun. Giving it 5/10 was being generous.

Just got back from a week’s holiday. Where do I start? It was the worst holiday I have ever had.
We arrived early hours of Sunday morning, we were given a key and left to find our own way to our room out of approx 600 rooms). We had booked as a party of 4 with 2 rooms... two of our friends were on the top floor and we were on the bottom. The air conditioning did not work and the weather was 50 degrees.
When the air con was apparently "fixed" it leaked along the ceiling and walls and the carpet was then wet through and we had to paddle on the carpet all week.
The hotel had 99 percent German guest who were really rude and unfriendly. Whenever any of the English guests walked in to the room they would talk to each other all look over at us then snigger to each other, and then talk again and laugh together with dirty looks...if we smiled at them they would turn other way.
They made all of the 20 English guests that were there feel very uncomfortable and intimidated.
The Staff only spoke fluent German and Turkish, and very little English, so anything we needed to ask we had to try using hand and sign language.
On our last night in the hotel all us English Guests got together in the lobby to have a drink together. At ten past midnight the lights were switched off, to persuade us to go to bed... all week whilst the other German guests were in there having a drink, the lights had been kept on till 3am.
The day we were leaving the German guests that left before us had their luggage taken to the bus for them... but when it came to us leaving, "surprisingly" we had to do it ourselves.
If you are English I would not recommend you stay at this Hotel. I am writing this truthful review so that no one else’s holiday is ruined like ours was.
All 20 of the British guests will be writing a letter of Complaint.
I had saved up and looked forward to this holiday all year... to want to fly home by midweek!

We have just returned from a thoroughly enjoyable weeks break.
The hotel was nice although our room was on the dark side due to the location but on the whole very comfortable.
The food was really nice and varied also freshly cooked and the staff were very helpful and always on hand.
The animation team were particularly enthusiastic and worked really hard in getting us to enjoy ourselves, were brilliant with the little ones and put on a different show each night.
The downside was limited free ice-cream and a very limited bar although local wines and spirits available.
The beach was on our doorstep which was a bonus and there were plenty of sunbeds in the shade as the temperature while we were there reached 35degrees!
On the whole to sum it up - Brill.

Excellent hotel. The rooms were a nice size and had a good air conditioner in there (which you do need). Lovely pool and most were from England so it meant you didn’t have to get up early to claim a sunbed. The food was good but a bit repetitive. There was not a great deal of alcoholic drinks to choose from. The entertainment staff were very friendly (especially as we were 3 20yr old girls) and tried there best all the time. There’s good night life 2 minutes up the road aswell.... PERFECT
All in all a good holiday would love to go again