This was our second stay at the Arum, our first being in 2002 and it was like coming home.

The Arum is a great hotel in which to relax, the card system means you have no need to carry cash which eliminates the problem of how much to tip, you can pay your bill or get a statement at any time during your stay from reception and if you pay in cash receive a 7% discount. The grounds are spacious and beautifully maintained with plenty of sun beds around the two main pools and private beach, although some of the guests still insist on getting up in the middle of the night to place towels on their chosen spot.

Arum is a German owned hotel so, German is the first language spoken here but most staff have a good understanding of English, the waiters are very friendly and nothing is too much trouble (say hello to Ismail

Just got back from a week at the Arum Hotel in Side, Turkey. Have to say this was the best holiday we've ever had, mainly due to the excellent friendly service of all staff at the hotel. We were due to stay at the Kentia Apartments in Side. However, on arrival we discovered that they had let our room out (not good!), we complained to Thomas Cook and were upgraded to the Arum.

The food was of superb quality, and had a great range; we visited the a la Carte Restaurant on our last night and had a great value meal. There are two good restaurants with bars that you can visit throughout the day, one is situated right on the beach, both do a good variety of food - from burgers through to fish salads.

You will be issued with a payment card that gets swiped whenever you make a purchase within the hotel, you then sign a receipt and get a pink copy - keep track of these receipts because its a lot easier to hand over a card - we were worried about going over budget, but ended up having plenty of money left over. We settled our account by cash and were pleased to get a 7% discount (this equated to around 3 free meals!).

From growing up in Malta & Cyprus, I was well expecting to find the usual creepy crawlies and poor hygiene. However, I was amazed that the whole hotel building, and grounds were kept completely immaculate. Arum is located right on the beach, and has its own private beach area with plenty of sun-loungers with parasols.

The pool area is superb, again with plenty of sun-loungers. We found the waiters to be very friendly and attentive, and they tried very hard to speak English (their English is far better than our Turkish!). The reception is open 24 hours, and they will do their best to help you with anything you need. We found that the entertainment was great. The animation team is far better than in any other hotel that we've stayed in. They work tirelessly - some days between 1000 and 0100! They encourage the guests to join in with sports and games, and put on a good show at 2130 every evening, some of the dancing is fantastic. We hope to keep in contact with one of the girls. Our favourite night was the garden party - held fortnightly; you have to experience it to appreciate it.

We will be returning.

We visited the Arum with our two girls, aged 8 and 4, staying in one of the apartments.

We would definitely recommend this hotel/apartments for anybody travelling with similar aged children looking for high quality accommodation, food and facilities.

The swimming pool area is huge, with plenty of beds and surrounded by grass areas where you can get away from the pool to lie in the shade under a tree.

We paid to upgrade to half board on arrival - far cheaper than booking it as part of your package in the Uk (I think we paid about

Great sized rooms for a family with 2 teenage girls and lots of storage space to unpack our suitcases. The hotel was fabulous. Everything was clean and well maintained and any small problem was dealt with immediately. Towelling robes were supplied (and they gave us an extra 2 for the girls) and also towels for by the pool.

The club for teenagers was not open because of the time of year but there was crazy golf and we more or less had our own squash court for the 2 weeks.

The bathroom was great, nice bath and power shower! Clean towels every day if required.

If I had any critisism at all it would be that the cooking was fairly limited as there were only 2 solid plates and the pans were pretty big so they did not fit on the stove properly! To anyone self catering I would definately recommend a dolmus ride to the Migros (supermarket) in Manavgat (about 2-3 miles away) to do a big shop for all the basics at the start of the holiday. A lot cheaper and a lot more choice than the hotel shop and the local stores.

The hotel snack bar was very good for food but be careful of the cost of drinks. Also the icecream bar was ridiculously expensive.

Overall it was a fantastic hotel and better than in the Thomas Cook brochure.

I would 100% recommend the Arum to anyone.

we stayed at the arum appartments/hotel. what a great place this is, we stayed in a one bedroomed app which had a double and single bed in the bedroom and a daybed in the living area which was comfy enough to sleep on.

the cooking facilities were limited only two rings, but they were fine for what we needed.power shower in the bathroom was great, always hot water and tv with nearly all german channels, but mtv, bbc prime and cnn in english.air conditioning is free in the app.

everywhere on this site is clean with beautiful flowers. everything gets washed down every night. our app was cleaned every day, fresh towels whenever we needed them, very high standard. you don't need to take any towels with you as you are given a towel card for towels for the beach and pool.

as reported before the site works on a card system, you just hand your card over for any food or drink and then settle up whenever you want, we settled every 3 days or so, drinks are quite expensive 3mil for ice tea or coke, 3.5mil for a beer (sm). the shop on the site is very expensive and not very friendly--probably because we had lira and he wanted euros. try and avoid having to buy anything other than your bread from him. plenty of little supermarkets outside the hotel.

i was looking forwarsd to being able to go to the gym, but although it has a good range of weights, it only has two bikes and one treadmill, which you could wait an hour for. the germans won't move for anyone.

the pool is fab, as its so large it never seems busy and the beach is private and ajoins the site, but the sea is very rocky on the arum beach, but if you just walk 15 metres to the next hotels beach the sea is sandy. plenty of sunbeds and all free. the germans still play the towel game, but theres so many beds and so much room it doesn't matter.

food in hotel restaurant is wonderful--mainly caters for the germans, but still plenty we liked--

Hotel was very clean and spotless, rooms had excellent facilities, beach was private and plenty of sunbeds available.

The only downfall was the entertainment, which was virtually non existant.

Could not fault this hotel, and would most certainly return in the future. PS If you have teenage daughters you have to keep an eye on them as the Turkish waiters do take a fancy to the English girls.

The room was large even for a family with 2 teenage girls. It was cleaned everyday and the housekeepers always made an extra effort ( e.g by making things out of our night clothes).

The food had a wide variety, my daughter is a vegeterian so she can be quite difficult to cater for but she had just as a choice as we did.

The hotel itself has got anything you need there but it is quite a walk from side.

The hotel staff were very friendly and would put them selves out do do anything they could for you (in fact my eldest daughter still is in contact with one of the entertainers) They all spoke good English (and german)

The entertainment was good something for everyone.

There were alot of Germans but even they could not put a downer on our holiday. Its an amazing hotel would reccommend to anyone. We loved it so much my eldest is going back next year with her boyfriend.