Stayed at the Onar Village for a week over New Year travelling with Noble Caledonia who basically acted as the booking agents for Kyrenia Holidays. NC use this hotel year after year for Christmas and New Year breaks and we have looked at it many times in the past before eventually getting round to it now.
The hotel was disappointing in many respects. Firstly, it is a fair way out of town and is right on a main dual carriageway with no foot path, so do not even think it is possible to walk into Kyrenia. The hotel runs a courtesy bus to the harbour where they also run a restaurant but it goes at 10:30 and returns at 4pm so you're stuck there unless you get a taxi back. We took a taxi both ways and these are cheap at around 10 lira each way.
The room was what I would have expected from a three star hotel in Greece or Spain thirty years ago which, given that North Cyprus is a bit like that all over didn't really surprise me - but things have moved on in the meantime and nostalgia isn't all it's cracked up to be. First problem was that you are verboten to bring food or drink to the room! We ignored that and bought a bottle of wine and some biscuits in. Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools!
We stuck to wine because the drinks fridge didn't work. I reported it to reception on the first day. They smiled sweetly. It still wasn't working a week later when we left. Neither was the jacuzzi incorporated into the end of the indoor pool. My wife doesn't swim so this was one of the things that attracted us. Be warned that the pretty picture in the brochure is actually of the turkish bath not the jacuzzi. We asked reception about this, who simply replied 'the jacuzzi does not work'
As might be expected in December, it got quite cold at night. The problem was that the air conditioning unit / heater had two settings - full blast and off, so you would get it blasting away to heat the room up to oven temperatures and then turn it of and let it cool down - which it did rather rapidly. This got rather irritating ater a few days.
New Years Eve was interesting. They laid on a couple of long tables for us in the corner of the dining room whilst all the locals celebrated the evening around us. Irritatingly, they increased the prices on the wine list for that evening so the somewhat mediocre wine available cost even more for that night. I thought that rather greedy and unnecessary. Also we felt like we were intruding and that they didn't really want us there.
There was a welcoming fire and comfy shairs in the bar, but if you want to use this then you need to get in smartly as there isn't enough space for more than about a dozen people at a time. Breakfast buffet was adequate but extremely repetitive. Dinner was a buffet with a choice of two main courses - dished out for you to make sure you didn't take too much. Food was generally good, and the soups were excellent. Other than that, pretty unremarkable really
All in all, we had a good week as the group we were travelling with were out on half or full day tours every day. If this were not the case, then I am not really sure why you would go here in winter time - or in the summer time either really if I am honest. There are better hotels in the area.
- Onar Holiday Village Kyrenia
