'Hotel Medesa,' what can I say. We booked with Vision Holidays, not really knowing what to expect from this company, however, we thought "this is a 5* all inclusive hotel, how bad can it be." Sadly, only after booking the holiday, we took a look on trip advisor to find that Hotel Medesa had very mixed reviews. We were obviously very worried at this point, so we rang Vision Holidays asking if we could change hotel or even cancel our holiday. Their answer was that they were unable to change our hotel, and if we cancelled our holiday then we would lose the money that we paid them. So we only had one choice; go to Hotel Medesa in Gumbet, not expect a 5* hotel, but make the most of our holiday in Turkey.
We arrived at Bodrum airport, to find no transfer was available to pick us up. We asked Thomas Cook Reps if they had seen anybody from Vision Holidays, and they told us that they had not seen anybody from this company all day. We waited a good 45 minutes to see if anybody from Vision Holidays were going to show up. Sadly not, so we had to catch a taxi to Hotel Medesa costing us £40, straight away. This was not the best start to the holiday, at all.
Hoping that things were going to get better we checked in to Hotel Medesa. The staff here were very unprepared, and didn't seem to be expecting us at all. When checking in, we asked if we had a sea view and a balcony as requested when we booked with Vision Holidays. But no such luck, the fax they received showed just a standard room. After a bit of negotiation we finally got, what we told was, a VIP room. However, the best is yet to come. We were taken into a lift and went DOWN five floors. We then had to go down more steps, and the pathway to our room was very dark and dingy with only minimal lighting. When we eventually reached our 'VIP' room which was not only at the very bottom floor, but was also at the furthest end of the hotel, we were in absolute shock at how anybody could rate this by 5* standards. Ok, we did not expect 5*, after reading reviews on trip advisors, however, we did expect cleanliness and safety.
Our look around the room left us astonished. We requested a balcony with a sea view when we booked with Vision Holidays, instead, we were given no balcony, and a sea view which was hidden by a big tree that was directly outside the window. The room did not follow safety and fire regulations, as if we were trapped in the room by a fire and could not use the door because of the fire, then we would not be able to escape because there was a barrier on the outside of the window only allowing you to open it about an inch or two. We were told we had a mini bar in the room, instead we got a small fridge that was out of order. We hardly ever had any hot water, the mattresses were blood stained, there was fungi growing along the bath and around the flush in the toilet, there were 4'' screws protruding from the skirting boards, and one day, our bed was changed with soiled bed sheets. We eventually got clean sheets and tried to get off to sleep, hoping that things would improve in the morning, after all, this hotel advertises that it has a 5 star rating.
It was a warm night so we decided to turn on the air conditioning. It came on lovely but it also came with a shower of water, which was not only a pain in the bum, but it was a hazard, and left a damp smell in the room. We decided to turn it off and try and settle down for the night but all we could hear all night was 'drip, drip, drip'. Even with the air conditioning off, it continued to pour water out.
The next morning we went for breakfast which was very basic, cereal etc"¦ After breakfast we decided to take a look around. The gym consisted of a rusty broken weights bench and a broken leg machine, which were crammed in a tiny corner of the indoor swimming pool area. The indoor pool was ok, I suppose, if you like bathing in freezing cold water, except it had a dirty great big hole above it which made us feel very unsafe.
The outdoor pool was ok, with sun beds set all around the pool. However, this hotel advertises it having a children's pool, as well as an adult pool. This is not so, it is a very small circle pool, which could be interpreted as a puddle. The bar by the outdoor pool was the only bar that was open to us the whole holiday, even though the hotel advertises having 4 bars. In the evening, all the dining chairs and tables we taken outside, by the pool, where evening meal was eaten. Some nights it was very chilly to eat outside, because the wind was strong due to us being well above sea level. A jacket was definitely needed. The food consisted of all basic salad and cheeses etc set out in the restaurant inside, and then the main meal was put into compartments in what looked like a school dinner trolley, which was placed outside, and where you helped yourself. Because of the wind, within minutes of it being put out, the food was instantly cold. The food was awful. We had to eat out every night. The first night, we tried the food; the only thing that looked and tasted half decent was the rice and small kebab squared looking things. Everything else was very plain or had a disgusting taste to it. I am not being snobby when I say that because, my boyfriend, who would eat anything, was even put off by it all. Even the staff were only eating the rice and kebab squares.
Entertainment in the hotel is non existent. We never experienced any entertainment, the whole time we stayed at Medesa. A games room and TV room is advertised, however, the TV is the same size as the one in the room (which is tiny) and in the games room, there is only a chess board, one pool table which you have to pay about £2.50 to play for an hour, and there are two electronic games, however they were very dangerous as when my boyfriend tried turning them on, he nearly got electrocuted.
Outside the hotel was a tank, with a waste pipe going in the top. This was the hotels waste storage and absolutely stank of human excretion, making my boyfriend heave every time we took a walk into Gumbet. The walk into Gumbet took about 15 minutes and was quite pleasant once we had passed that awful smell. However, it was quite tiring when walking back to the hotel as it is at the top of a hill. Gumbet is quite busy with a lot of bars and pubs etc, however if you want to go clubbing, then you have to travel into Bodrum, as the music played in Gumbet bars consists of some English pop songs, but mostly songs to try and get you to dance, like YMCA.
On our final night, we returned to the hotel in the early hours of the morning, to find a big lizard in our bed!!! We were horrified! And when we rang reception to ask what to do, and if we could change rooms, they fobbed us off by making out that they couldn't understand, and that they had no other rooms. So we had no choice but to sleep with the lizard in our bed. As you can image, we didn't have the best nights sleep!!!
I know I have probably bored you to death with this very long essay, however, I don't want people to go through what we have, by staying in this Hell Hole!!! Please take a look at my pictures, and hopefully this will put you off staying at this horrible, unfriendly, unclean and boring hotel.
We will be visiting Turkey again in the future, but as for returning to Medesa, NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS!
