Perfect family holiday for all ages. My family of 5, 2 adults and three kids (14,13, and 10), visited holiday village turkey for 10 days. And when I say it was the best 10 days we have spent in the sun I mean it!
We visited the beginning of the summer holidays, with expectations that the resort would be very busy and crowded due to the time of year. However we were very pleasantly surprised to find that no areas were overly busy. The activity pool is by far the busiest, here the HV crew host quizzes, bingo, pool games etc. I would highly recommend the bingo, but be warned it is rigged. By the end of our holiday we noticed patterns of who was winning (for a free float your best bet is your youngest child!). If you’re looking for a more relaxing holiday I’d definitely recommend a sun bed by the quiet pool, you can find these towards the right of the resort. There are always sun beds here, and a much quieter pool. At our stay we saw maybe 7 kids in the most at one time. Queue for the slides are relatively small, but I wouldn’t rush to get there because they are nothing special.
I can’t express enough how much you need to get your kids in the kids clubs!!! My eldest was quite put off by the clubs before the holiday, I think she thought it would be boring. But quite the opposite. The Zone (teen club) had numerous activities, that she didn’t want to miss out on. And before we knew it she was in every session. She found a lovely group of friends, whom she is still in contact with now. My 13 year old did try out some of the sessions, and enjoyed. However he preferred to do his own thing with his father, despite this he still spent his time with the zone kids in the evening. And my youngest (the most shy out of my kids) also attended a club and found a lovely couple of friends, whom she spent her days with. A big shout out to mirade (I hope I’ve spelt that right), and Emily who ran the zone club sessions. My kids absolutely loved them. Also I would recommend the water polo, the zones take on it was a bit rough but all the kids loved this (I don’t think it was meant to be like this, but the kids got very competitive!). I know I’ve already said this but please try out a kids club atleast once!
The food was great, no complaints. I do like myself a bit of cheese but the selection was quite bland and flavourless, however I’ve found this with most all inclusives. By far our favourite meal was lunch, the selection was good, and very tasty. It was also open for quite a while, so the kids could help themselves later on if they were still hungry. We did go to an al a carte restaurant, the service was great. We only went once in our stay, purely because we felt the buffet catered for us more. By the end of the holiday however, we were dying for a bag of crisps. They may sell some in the shops at the resort, however we didn’t look.
Overall, we didn’t feel like anybody was pushing for a tip, apart from one time with the two young men who helped take our bags to our room, and did appear to be waiting for something. That was the only encounter we had where we felt pressured to tip. We prefer to do this at the end of our holiday, and at reception, there is a box where you can put money towards who you want to tip.
Room service was good however, we did find that occasionally we would come to our room at around six and they would still be in our room cleaning or changing the sheets. Once you come back to you with me are quite quick to leave however it’s just a bit of a shock the first few times it happened as we werent expecting to see them.
The bar staff were okay, there was no real issue. They catered for your needs, but nobody went out of their way, but at the same time nobody pushed for a tip which as a family we very much appreciated.
The nighttime entertainment was great however, we did feel that on some nights are catered more towards young kids, a lot of the shows were very HV crew focused in the amphitheatre. However, there were shows in the amphitheatre later on that catered more towards the age group that we had taken. I know that a lot of the kids have been going to holiday villages previously, enjoyed the entertainment. There was a lot of older kids dancing on those nights in the amphitheatre with the HV crew, but because it was our first HV holiday we didn’t feel the same. If you’re looking for entertainment, more targeted towards an older family like the family we took, we found that the activity bar was a lot better, they held quizzes and gameshow type events. And also games which my husband was very quick to get involved in. Overall the whole experience in the activity bar was just really enjoyable. The teams for the game are very competitive and it’s a really great atmosphere.
If you thinking of coming, I couldn’t recommend it enough. Considering what we got out of the holiday we thought the price was well suited, there were certain aspects of the hotel that led me to give this a four star. Just little things like the limited selection of drinks in the bar and little things like that. Nothing major at all. if you do decide to come to this hotel, please try out your (specifically older kids) in the zone kids club my kids loved it so much and I’m sure yours will to. if you haven’t booked this hotel yet please take this as a sign to do so, you wont regret it!