I came across Serendip Select while hanging around Marmaris, and decided to try a new place to stay. I then learned that it was literally new, and it was their first season open. It was quite a perfect place for me and my girlfriend since it was not packed with people, and away from mass tourism; and just by beautiful sea. We found the place neath, with friendly & easy going staff. We could just read our books and listen to our music laying on the comfortable sunbeds one day, and get on the dive boat in Marmaris on the other. The rooms are very well decorated, comfortable and cozy; much better than I would expect. The restaurant with very flexible breakfast hours and great food is a big plus. We'll definitely pay another visit to Serendip, hopefully this year.

When I decided to go to Kumlubuk-Marmaris I was a bit concerned about the weather in October.I reached the Kumlubuk bay after taking a 20 min ride on a country road from Marmaris. I realized after my arrival that the weather was pleasantly warm (26C) and the sea was cristal clear.. Hotel personel were friendly and flexible. I was told that the place had been opened on June 2008 only. What I liked about this place most is the tranquility it offers, I spend hours reading my books undisturbed. The hotel has tastefully decorated great rooms (I got a free upgrade to suit) and a great restaurant offering delicious Turkish and international cousine. I recommend this place to anyone who does not need to be entertained by others, to those who feel happy by themselves would love the place...

My wife and I booked a week at the Serendip Select to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary and chose the hotel because of its quiet location, small size and luxurious 5 star rated accommodation.

We paid a lot of money for one week, expecting good service and to be spoilt, but we ended up feeling uncomfortable and embarrassed with my wife reduced to tears on two occasions by the attitude of one particular member of staff.

On arrival we discovered that the suite that we thought we had booked was not the accommodation we were allocated and this set the tone for the rest of the holiday. The hotel’s own website had described the ‘Queen Suite’ as having a Jacuzzi bath and this was a feature that we particularly wanted. We politely asked to change suites and explained the misleading information on the website but we were advised that it was only the more expensive ‘King Suite’ that had Jacuzzis and were reluctantly forced to pay for an upgrade. The hotel senior management were unavailable and we were unable to prove our point regarding inaccurate information on their website as it was suspiciously unavailable from our point of enquiry. The hotel receptionist insisted that we were wrong and even showed us a false web page depicting this later in the week. We know this was the case because as soon as we returned home we checked it out and the original website was still there albeit only until the following day when it was miraculously changed!

There were only 2 other guests when we arrived, with the hotel only offering apparently half of the rooms advertised. We therefore thought that we would receive special and personal attention due to it being a small and new hotel but this was not the case as were treated with disrespect and felt uncomfortable as there were more staff than guests and many of the staff were young and inexperienced. Some of the staff were however very pleasant and friendly but the overall feeling was that we were not that welcome even though we were trying to be polite by speaking in Turkish at times. There was no wine list in the restaurant and everything had to be requested rather than replenished automatically such as the complimentary refreshments in the room and even at one stage toilet roll! There was also no slippers, music centre or flowers as described in the brochure and website, in our room and we even had to ask for the bottle of wine that should have been there and even that was disputed and we had to convince the member of staff that it was part of the package.
It felt very much as if the hotel was being run on a shoe-string and that we were being stung financially for everything possible.

There was supposed to be a water taxi from the hotel’s private jetty to Marmaris but it was not in service and instead the only way available was by the ‘Road to Hell’ a twisty dangerous mountainous road, which we avoided at all costs. The first part was not even a made-up road!

However, it was a beautiful location, which was just as well as we felt very marooned there and apart from a few other restaurants, and snack bars there was nothing around not even a small shop to buy water or snacks. The cost of a taxi ride to nearby Turunc was 25 Turkish lira.

On our final day we were insulted by the receptionist by accusing us of taking the bathrobes from the room. We had to remove our cases from the taxi and open them up to prove to him that we did not have them and my wife left the hotel in tears. Not a good ending to our stay!

Serendip Select Hotel management did not apologise in writing or reimburse us for our extra expense or mistreatment and have to this day not admitted to their mistake with the website information or explained or responded concerning the shortcomings we highlighted. They obviously have no interest in customer satisfaction and have not heard of the phrase “the customer is always right” even when this is blatantly the case as even the tour company representative confirmed that she had seen the error on the hotel website.

The tour company we booked through, Anatolian Sky, were very supportive and did eventually reimburse us for the upgrade after trying in vain themselves to get a response from the hotel. We thoroughly recommend travelling with Anatolian Sky and hope to do so again in future, as it’s customer service is first rate and we thank them enough.
The lateness of our booking and the more lavish presentation on the hotel’s own website, with dodgy translation from Turkish contributed to our problem occurring. We will double check everything in future.

The stay could have been really special if the hotel staff and management had been fair and treated us with a little more respect. We strongly recommend staying in this area if peace, quiet and beautiful scenery is required but cannot recommend the Serendip Select due to our experiences there. We have now noticed that the hotel has been downgraded to a 4 star rating. Enough said!