Pugs1973
April 16, 2025
We have just got back from a 10 day holiday at the Grand Aquarium, This was a kind of experiment for us as we always go all-inc in Turkey, with this being our first self catering trip, and first time in Icmeler, just to see if it was cost effective, so I'll be as honest as possible. We arrived in the early hours of the morning, around 2.30am, we were given a warm welcome and our cases were taken to our room for us by some very friendly and helpful staff, so first impressions were great, however, when shown to our room we were quite shocked at just how small the rooms were, way smaller than they looked on the pictures, this was a one bedroom room in the annex just next to the main hotel, we are a family of 4 with a 7 and 13yr old, and we knew that the kids would have the bedroom and we would have the pull out sofa bed, however, when the sofa bed was out there is no more room...anywhere, it takes up the whole living area, and the only place to put your clothes away is in the bedroom, that's four suitcases worth of clothes in 1 wardrobe with around 10 coat hangers, and there is nowhere to put your suitcases either, so upon discovering this I went back down to reception to see if there were any bigger rooms available, it couldn't be sorted then but we were told to come back the following morning to speak to Saliye, so we stayed packed and did that, this has to be said though, while doing this I asked if there was anywhere we could get some water and milk, and the guy behind reception actually sent someone out on a motorbike to the shop for us which was incredibly helpful of him and was very much appreciated. The next afternoon we eventually caught up with Saliye who is genuinely one of the hardest working, helpful and friendliest people I have ever met, and she managed to secure us a 2 bedroom room for 7 days, this cost us an extra £180 which I thought was excessive seeing as the actual hotel bill was only £330 anyway, but I payed it because I really didn't see us enjoying the holiday crammed into the original room, this room was so much better, having the extra bedroom meant we could at least unpack, although the double bed in the extra bedroom had the hardest bed I have ever slept on, I woke up aching most mornings, and the bedding they give you which is a waffle sheet and a blanket is really not great (in the first room we got the blanket had holes in it too) So that was the first bump in the road, but we were sorted at least. The following week was great even though the weather was not so much, I think we got every season thrown at us, one day it didn't stop raining at all and weirdly, when the rain was bad the water would go out, something to do with the council, this happened twice for a few hours each time which was not ideal, you couldn't even flush the toilets, there were a lot of disgruntled people when this happened but it was no fault of the hotel apparently. As the week went on we really got a feel for the place, the payment system is k