Hi, Have just returned from the Hemera and thought I would add a few comments.
1, The hotel is lovely and the staff can't do enough for you. My kids were treated really well by all the staff and everybody was friendly. Special thanks goes to Ali in the resteraunt and Tudgay (Animation team)
2, There is a spa onsite but the massages are very expensive and I would advise you go outside of the hotel.
3, The food is generally good but the breakfasts are very strange (brussel sprouts anybody). The food for kids is very limited I thought. There is a snackbar which does burgers,pizza's,omelettes etc which I recommend.
4, There is a hairdresser on the complex which I used however the guy managed to burn my ear when he was shaving me. Also the guy wasn't keen on giving change.

All in all had a good time and would recommend.

arrived at hemera at about five in the morning, check in was easy was shown to our rooms (we had four) and the porter bought the luggage up to our rooms.

one of our party had three adults and a 14 year old (mother and three children) adult prices for three adults and one child we were told by thomas cook rooms would not accomadate them so paid extra for family room. family room was the same as the other rooms our party had but with a settee as a forth bed. complained to rep(good looking but a dim) who told us the hemera family room was different from the thomas cook family room and that we had been booked a deluxe room. got no where with the rep even tho we had the original invoice on us that said FAMILY ROOM, another couple there complained about not getting a family room and was told the same so be careful.
food was very varied and always something for everyone some of our party can be fussy but no problem at all. mini bar in room filled everyday with water and fizzy drinks.

safety deposit box in room with no charge

entertainment a bit caravan! mored geared to Russians/Germans entertainment team a bit moody...never really said hello

cake shop open (also had ice cream)from 10 till 6 the cakes were to die for .

three restaurants..one fish was ok...one turkish..the best...and one continental..ok ish none of them seemed to like kids..it was more a couple thing to do considering we had 4 children and 9 adults they hated us!!!

beach bar gave bottles of water to take onto beach as well as serving snacks (pizza and burgers)

all in all we had a brilliant holiday, they clean the hotel rooms spotless everyday. grounds were being cleaned constantly

courtesy room by the hairdressers was good too i have never been to any hotel that has a good sized room for use after check out!

flights were night flights which was a nightmare with the kids

On arrival at about 1am in the morning we checked in swifty and soon arrived at our room, to which we were very impressed.

We had booked a family room, which on entering our room there were twin beds and treble wardrobe & shelving storage area which we also managed to store our suitcases in, moving down a hall way type area there was the bathroom consitising of a walk in shower, toilet and hand basin. All very clean and a good size. Then continuing in the hallway to the queen sized bed, with tv, mini fridge, treble wardrobe with storage shelves, safe. And the a baclony that had a pool view. This room was spacious for the four of us, 2 adults and two kids aged 7 and 11yrs old.

Air con in the room - was ok, but you only get one room key.....so we used to pop back after the maid had been and slide our Tesco clubcard into the slot for the room key that kept electric going, to keep the air con going whislt we werent in the room....... every little helps hey :)

Two water slides, one wiggly blue one and a straight white slide.....not huge but enough to keep the kids happy....

Pools where lovely and well kept.

Sunbeds werent a problem if you dont mind getting up early to get the spot you want either around the pool or in the hotel grounds. Plenty of trees around if you like the shade.

Towels : Fresh towels for around the pool or beach every day, just hand over your card at the begining of your stay and you change towels on a daily basis.

The main pool is of a good depth and goes in a semi circle, with the slides just off it if you swim under the brige that goes over the pool.

Theres a relaxing pool, and a small toodler pool.

Pool bar close enough to the relaxing pool and main pool, with plenty of seating area..even has a digital temp gauge just so you know how hot it is :)

Plenty of drink choices : Efes, fizzy drinks, fruit jiuces, cocktails for adults and kids, international drinks, tea, coffee,chocolate, water etc.....

The food - was very good :)

Breakfast : Turkish sauages, beans, scambled egg, fried egg, potoates, cereals, fresh rolls, crossiants, fresh breads, boiled eggs, fruit, pancakes, waffles..... just some of the choices available...

Lunch : Can be eaten in the resturant.again large section of main meals and desserts and fruit. Or theres the snack bar near the beach area. Where you can eat pasta, salads, jacket potatoes, pizzas, pide bread with mince meat or yellow cheese, chips, sometimes a bbq was also on...

Ice cream and cakes: Avaible from the passterie from 10am to 6pm...... and boy what a choice of cakes too :) Missing them already.

Around 3pm: At the snack bar : waffles or pancakes.

Evening meals : choice of 3 resturants fish, italian or international , you can only book one of these's per week at the guest relations desk int he main reception area of the hotel.

Or eat again in the main resturant... again many choices of main cousres, desserts, fruit and bread.

Pop corn for the kids is avaiable in the snack bar area near entertainment stage in the evening.

Entertainment:

The animation team work very hard, Ali and the gang are fab.. still huming their theme tune, and even bought the cd so have it in the car now.. they had some good pool games if you wanted to join in. The ask you but not push you.....They put on some shows in the evening, some better than others....fav of mine was the rock and roll show...

Kids mini club : superb for little ones..Huge fab air conditioned room which has a superb in the floor cushioned area for the kids to sit inside with coloured cushions for when they had cushion fights !

This the cleanest kids club I have ever seen. Even had a few beds in should a little one want to lie down. Flat screent tv, two large tables each end of the room.... activities my son did was colouring, making biscuits, making water bombs, being painted up as an Indian... he loved it ( he will be 8 in August)
The mini club was open in the mornings and afternoon, and seemed to last a few hours.

They also made sure kids had drinks and served fruit.

The hotel also has an air conditioned games room, with pool tables, footabll tables, games machines, playstation 2, internet access with web cams.

Shops in hotel : Leather shop, clothes shop ( ie swimwear, t-shirts etc), Gift shop with newpapers, sweets, blow up lilo's for the pool or beach.

Hotel photographers: They snap away in the evenings, and by the pool during the day..and they are freiendly happy guys who actually take some lovely pics....8lira a picture buy more and get them cheaper, also if you buy enough they will sell you the smaller pictures and a disc with all the picutres on.

Beach :

Showers, taps to wash off that sand :) Sunbeds with cushions, if your lucky to get a cushion that is..

Pedelos on the beach are free, just show them your ard to prove your staying the Hotel.

Lots of others activites including parasending, babana boats, jetski's and windsurfing but these are at a cost. You also pictures taken whilst papasending and they are not bad priced either, we paid 7 lira each picture and also got to buy the disc which had all pics on for 20 lira.

Outside the front of the hotel:

Taxi stand in the driveway of the hotel or outside the main gates of the hotel.

Dolomus buses stop also outside the hotel main secruity gate entrance, they seem to run every 10 minutes into Side, or the the markets.

Across the road from the Hemera is the Fortis, which is a Cash point machine or hole in the wall machine in a glass box with doors, our son called it a glass tradis..

Plenty of bars and resturants to drink or eat in for a change, we didnt so i cant recommend any, sorry... the usual gift type shops, hairdressers and of jewellery shops.

About 150-200 metres away is also the Oxyd nightclub.

If you have aroom to the front of the hotel, then I could see that the music and traffic may be annoying to hear.. personally I would not like a room there, but if your in the main hotel you should be ok....some rooms dont have much of a view, and just have trees,and possble generator noise to...which we noticed whilst walking down the corridors to our room.

Late room checkout : Prices have changed.

Its now 10 euro's per hour, and not 50 euro's til 6pm.

There is a large courtesy room, with air conditioning, two sofa's, dressing table, coffee table and tv..theres a wall of large lockers to hold your hand luggage etc. There is amens shower, toilet and change room...as well as a ladies shower, toilet, and change room.

We used this room,a nd found it catered for our needs, although we only shared it with a young couple, who didnt have two kids like we did...can imagine it could get quite busy later on about 6-7 when most people are wanting to shower etc and eat befroe leaving for journey home.

Well. I think of covered most areas of my report. And I hope it is of some help to someone....We booked this hotel after hearing of good reports from people we have personally met, dropping off holidays makers at this hotel on previous trips to Side, and of cousre this website....

We honestly say, we will return, maybe not next year but in couple of years time, this is because we'd like to see other areas of Tureky having stayed in Side now 3 times......

Would also recommend a lovely evening stroll along the beach to the Town of Side, takes about 25-35 minutes, and thats with two kids :).....

And also taking a dolomus bus or taxi to KumKoy for shopping.....

WOULD NOT RECOMMEND:
Thomas Cook's trip to Troy and Dolphin Show..... Kids under 10 yrs arent able to go on the slides, water inflates rings hard to get as people keep hold of them and you need then for most rides, foods rubbish, drinks expensive, to packed to keep an eye of kids and our rep never told us..... he did however arrange for a full refund of the day, and we were grateful for this.

If you wnat to go to water park and see doplins go to Aqualand in Antayla, rides and water activies even for toddlers, far cleaner, better organised, nicer dolphin and whale show, better food, and better saftey for all the family.

hi all we got back from the hemera on monday 19th and its getting better , there are chillout areas on the lawns down towards the beach and a few more slides and a trampoline near the kids club for the little ones. only turgay and ali remain from the main animation but they did say robin would have been back sometime this week as hes been away helping his brother .one word of warning though but i must say this

On 23rd May 2008, the Oxyd Nightclub, which is located 150 meters from the Hemera and the Hotel Sunrise Queen, opened its doors for the season. The night was shattered by Rave music on till 04.00 am, from 04.00

having visited hemera hotel on many occasians can only praise both hotel and staff.everyone works 1oo% to make your holiday a holiday not to forget & you wont,you can do as little or as much as you want tried to book for September only to be told fully booked until November ( our fault.) but will be back in January. LOVE THE PLACE.

My holiday at the Hemera. (Long, so get a cuppa)

Upon arrival at the hotel, we were welcomed politely, and had our bags brought to our room. We weren't entirely sure where we had to go to eat as the porter
didn't speak very good english but we found it in the end.

It was incredibly intimidating going to dinner for the first time as we were stared at quite blatantly, for the entire time!! I wanted to go home at that point, but the restaurant staff were so welcoming.

The next day was much better. I think as we had children, we had an easier time, something tells me we would have been ignored otherwise! LOL.

Accommodation: Our apartment was to sleep up to 6, however, in the first room there were only 2 single beds, and the second, there were single and a double, plus a cot, although we didn't request a cot as our 2 year old doesn't need it. The main bedroom had two wardrobes, however, the second one didn't, but did have a drawer or two.

In the living room, there was a good sturdy sofa, a single chair and also a small kitchen table. The kitchenette was fine as we were all inclusive, however, despite having tea bags, there was no spoon, and despite having a one ring mini stove, there were no pots, pans or plates! So maybe there is a self catering element? I'm not sure.

We had a balcony, although didn't use it much as we had the kiddies.

The bathroom was fine, with plenty of towels, face flannels and two robes.

The maid service was fantastic, with top ups of cotton, shower cap, soap, and new towels/face flannels daily.

We also had one small coke, one small fanta, a big bottle of still water and 2 small bottles of fizzy water, daily.

We couldn't fault the accommodation, I only wish we'd ask the staff to remove the cot as it was in the way most of the time! (doh!)

Entertainment: The animation team were OK. We didn't really see them much, well, apart from the bubbly Ali, who really helped make the holiday. He was always full of life and the kids absolutely adored him. A couple of others did their best to engage my husband in a game of darts, and football, which he enjoyed, but there was no real pressure.

The mini club wasn't manned most of the time, but I think this was due to a lack of kids around, so we pretty much had it open all the time and the kids would roam from the park, into the club, and back out into the park again.

The pools were open (2 main, 1 kiddie), but as you can imagine, the water was freezing, not that it stopped our 2 year old from dipping her legs in at every opportunity!

I only went to the Aquarim (?) bar twice as it was incredibly smoky and I didn't want to bring the kids in there, but we watched 20 minutes of the magic show, which was fantastic and we watched all of the sultan dance, as it was our last night, I thought it would be a nice experience. We really enjoyed it and the bar was open till 1am (although I left at 12am) At that time, the lights were dimmed low with only a few people left.

Food: You had breakfast which was 7am - 9.30, with late breakfast 10-11 (The time we usually arrived, but no orange juice left, so be warned!)

Lunch was from 12 - 2pm and Dinner 7 - 9.30

I found the food very nice and varied, although repetitive after a while. The breakfast, lunch and dinner is buffet style and everything is warm and refilled very quickly. The waiters were fantastic, one waiter in particular was amazing (ALI, we love you!), he was soooo attentive and funny, the kids loved him and he made our holiday so much better. As soon as we walked it, he would smile and greet us, and at our last meal he prepared the table with flowers, were completely taken aback. Sorry, I digress.

I found the cakes a little funny tasting, I can't quite put my finger on it (but the kids loved them, naturally) The kids fruit juices were far too sweet (the apple and cherry) Although the orange juice in the morning was fantastic.

At breakfast there were boiled eggs, fried eggs, scrambled eggs, omlettes pancakes, beans, mushrooms, occasionally fries!? Muesli, sugar puffs etc. and a variety of rolls (we loved the seeded ones in particular!) and also fresh fruit (red/green apples and pears)

Lunch/dinner was rather the same variety of foods, alternating with fish/chicken, veg, lamb, rice, potatoes, pasta (their rice and lamb, rice and peas, rice and tomatoes etc, were to die for, absolutely tasty!)

There was also, German, Turkish and Italian night.

There was one other restaurant you could make a booking with, which we did, but we ended up cancelling as we thought there may not be enough variety for the kids as they were quite fussy.

In between meals, there is a patisserie, which served cakes, biscuits (didn't like them at all) ice cream, a real winner with everyone and those lovely seeded rolls. We only ate the rolls and the ice cream, they also serve tea, coffee and hot chocolate. Very friendly staff, and we often took our rolls back to our apartment.

Drinks: I visited the pool bar and only recognised Malibu (as imported drink) and as I'm not much of a drinker, I just had Malibu and coke. When I went to the aquarium bar, I had a Tequila, courtesy of the manager who chose it for me, Yikes! Went straight to my head that did.

The beach bar was pretty dead and as mentioned earlier, their fruit juices were incredibly sweet, so I had to ask them to be watered down all the time.

Beach: The beach was fine, incredibly quiet *(time of year I guess) but I saw quite a bit of dog/cat poo, which was a bit off putting to be honest, but then I'm quite squeamish anyway! There was also a guy who would patrol the beach, inviting you to ride a horse for a fee, but we declined on all occasions. There was also another guy who just took random photos of you/your kids and walked off. When I asked who he was, he explained he took photos of guests, who can then pay for the ones they wanted.

Local area: There wasn't much to see, except shops and shops, we weren't able to explore much further than a 20 minute walk each way, but it was still a nice walk nether the less.

Excursions: We went to pergu and the waterfalls. Originally, I was a bit annoyed at the price (

Stayed at this hotel for a week 29th September

We have just got back from the Hemera hotel and all I can say is it was the best holiday we have had so far.I won't go on and on but would like to re-iterate what Alastair and Helen in the previous post said.
I would also like to add that the animation team in this hotel are fantasic.They are very friendly and constantly on the go whether it be through the day around the pool or on a night doing the shows.They are also very attentive and welcoming to younger children.They have a different nationality rep for the guests who stay there which is good for the language barrier.
Its also great that you don't need to take beach towels with you as they are provided fresh and clean every day for each member of your family.
Breakfast is 9-10am,then late breakfast is 10-11am,lunch is 12-2pm,then evening meal is 7-9pm.The Kumsal snack bar near the beach is open 10am-5pm so if you don't want to go into the restaurant you can head down there and get things like burger,chips,pizza,salad,pastas(hot and cold),jacket potatoes ,etc.Also pancakes are made everyday from 4pm down there.The patisserie is definitely worth a mention,so contemporary and clean.Its open 10-5 also and has all the big gateaux you can get in the restaurant as well as ice creams and little things like biscuits and finger cakes.Tea and coffee also available in here.You can have as many as you want all day.Snack are also available after midnight if you are still hungry and the lobby lounge bar is open 24/7 all inclusive.
The only downside as said previously is the sunbed situation.Apparantly the Russians pay the towel man 10 euro's per week to reserve sunbeds around the pool for them(very sneaky!!)but its funny because he shuts at certain times of the day so if the are down late they don't know which beds are theirs.I overheard some English guests saying if you wanted poolside beds they were getting up between 3am and 5.30am just to reserve them.Personally I could not be bothered.As long as you are down no later than 10am you can get a bed but it would probably be on the grassed area which is near the pool anyway.Most hotels I've been in are like this though.
What more can I say but I highly recommend this hotel to anyone and it is fantastic value for money and entertainment is spot on.We will definitely be returning in the near future.
FAB FAB FAB!!!!

As a family we have never stayed at a better hotel.

We have stayed all inc all over the place but never as good as the Hemera it is fantastic.

The first week we spent 14 euros? You get free sun bed towels for around the pool and beach beds and free water.

The staff from the reception to the cleaners are very helpfull and polite. As for the food superb yum yum.

The place is continuously being cleaned honestly it is spotless. Within 12hours of getting home we booked again for august 2008 and we have never been back to the same resort twice!! That is how good it is.

Also when you have had a few "scoops " and the beer munchies kick in ask at reception and they will phone for a kebab take-a-way for you, superb......we cannot wait for 2008

The hotel Hemera is set on the outskirts of the town of Side,it's a fairly large and well set out hotel with a good sense of space, with everything within about 5/6 minutes walk. First thing to say is that the hotel has had a major upgrade earlier this year so now does have lifts to all floors, which was great for us as my wife had a injured foot and wasn't up to dealing with lots of stairs.
All the public areas such as the bars and restaurants were kept immaculate, this can also be said for all external areas such as footpaths and garden areas which were just beautiful.
Staff were simply great!From gardeners to cleaners waiters to bar staff even the reception and management were simply superb! Most had some English language skills which did of course vary but communication was not a problem.


Food in the restaurants and snack bar at the beach was plentyful and varied and of a good standard. The only slight exception to this is a meal we had in the international a'la Carte restaurant where the meal was cold minimal and of poor quality, this might just have been us or the staff were having a off night, either way we thought the meal poor.
The rooms were just fab!large king size bed, television , air conditioning, tea making facilities, lovely lovely bathroom with the best walk in shower we have ever had anywhere on holiday! Even bath robes and toiletries were supplied. Don't know if they are all standard but our balcony was a great size with plaenty of room for table and chairs, the view wasn't great (mostly trees!) but we have had worse!

The guests at the hotel came from all over Europe and beyond, without exception we found the russians, Germans, dutch, French and belgians etc to be courteous and friendly, there were no difficulties whilst queueing for food or other items. In fact I had some great conversations with people from many other nations and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The hotel grounds, pools, and beach are all just fantastic, if there was one gripe it would be the ever present moan about the number of sun loungers and the lengths to which people go to reserve them sometimes at rediculous times of the morning, this did cause some concerns for some guests but not for us! Great hotel, great staff, great accommodation, great pools and beach, great facilities including spar just first class throughout!