hi everyone
here is my promised report on the hotels
i agree completely with elmo but will add a little more, the place is fantastic as mentioned earlier we had no problems found staff to be courteous, complex spotless and only complaints were mossies - all baby ones i think so spraying had taken place recently - and other guests -particularly the large southern group who spent the whole time swearing at their children and being sworn back at by them, particularly 'cameron' who despite being about aged 2 loved to call his mother an effing bit*h - yes you know who you are and you are named and shamed!
anyway onto the pleasant stuff, please do not worry about this holiday,
the food is a bit touch and go but perfectly edible and lots of choice , for a change try the theme restaurants they are very good! the chefs do try to please the 'i want british grub' crowd and that seems to be were the complaints lie as the turkish take on roast beef and yorkshire pud is strange to say the least but if you want that eat it here! we were a group of five and never went hungry - it's impossible to, and also up to now our bowels are all in working order for the first time ever in a post holiday situation!
the beach foam party is still taking place and was brilliant, fireworks, bonfire, flowing beer and spirits - not weak either - jacket potatoes and cheese being served, a singer doing blues brothers beach games such as limbo then the big moment the foam that flowed for about 45 minutes until everyone involved looked like giant marshmallows! a night we will never forget!!
the beach is as mentioned still a dark colour and not that impressive but nowhere near as bad as i'd imagined it to be. watersports on the beach we found to be quite expensive so gave them a miss this year (35 pound for parascending - we paid 12.50 in tunisia last year)
the complex is huge so do explore or you will miss out we visited the beach bar which had karaoke most nights there was the daytime snackbar that had big screen sports on a night, the pool bar at palace with the duo mentioned earlier, bars within the hotel which we didn't bother with, a bar at tropical which just had music playing and the two entertainment amphitheatres that we flitted between, they had the mini disco, bingo then acts such as robbie williams tribute, a rather blue comedian - we left that night he seemed funny but too adult for the kids - shows such as grease and a pantomine type thing called tickledom. on the flight home a couple were complaining that there was nothing for kids to do on a night and they had been playing football around the pool bar they said that first choice should sort this out but at the time time fc had the tickledom pantomine showing in the amphitheatre but the parents couldn't be bothered to leave the bar to take them there.
to be honest we heard lots of complaints from people about food and entertainment but our 3 kids were kept happy 95% of the time. the kids clubs were great, they did raft building, canoes, water ball games, the only place my kids didn't like was the games room inside the hotel as it seemed to be full of mouthy teenagers on the pull.
we went on the dalyan trip that we booked in the village - £45 for 5 of us, half the price of first choice - this was a brilliant day out it included a boat trip to the mud baths, lunch and a trip past the mountain tombs to turtle beach, definately reccomended.
another nice touch that the hotel organised was a market on the tuesday night, stalls were set out at both palace and tropical - more at tropical - so you could actually never leave the complex if you didn't want to, however we went to the sunday market in sarigerme anyway, i quite liked sarigerme it was tiny but the people very welcoming and we were offered cold apple tea in ever other shop, the staff were never too pushy though and just seemed to enjoy a chat.
on a whole we had a brilliant week and only wish we had booked two as we didn't want to come home, the staff went out of the way to make this holiday special and i have to admit it will take something special to beat this holiday as i can honestly say we had the best holiday of our lives!