Firstly, I felt I had to write a review after reading all the pretty poor reviews of the place,
Secondly, if you pay rock bottom prices for a hotel, you cant expect 5 star standard. if you want 5 star, go stay in Lara Beach!
In June, myself and my partner booked 6 day break, staying at the Hadrianus Hotel.
Bit apprehensive as very poor reviews on the place!
I'll start off with the bad points, as that seems to be what people like to read;
-This hotel, is very similarly named to another Hadrianus hotel, which is a bit out in the sticks I am told, a lot of taxi drivers do not know where it is even though it is only ten minutes from the airport, so its a good idea to write down the address and show it to the driver when you go.
OK Bad points, all one of them, done. Well, there's one more, later...
Checked in, v late at night, bit of a cuffuffle finding it, but eventually I spotted it and got the driver to take us there. Checked in, around 11.30PM, possibly bit later, check in was very fast, and reception staff were very efficient, even though they speak barely, ok, no, english. As previous travellers have said, myself and my Boyfriend were the only english people in the hotel, this we didnt find out until day one. However, on check in, we were hot so thought we'd go sit by the pool and relax before going to bed. A group of Turkish people waved us over to some comfy beds in the corner and pointed out the bar etc and were very friendly, though spoke no english. (this sentence will become a theme of my report...)
OK got to room, basic, but very clean, very nice bathroom, though tiny shower. Small balcony, but then, we werent there to spend every day in our room! NB- Beds were single beds pushed together, not sure if all rooms were like this, but ours was...
Considering how clean the room was we didnt complain about the beds and just unpacked.
Ok, here is bad point No 2 - Breakfast! I lived on bread and cucumber, and some turkish meat, which to this day Im unsure of its origin...german sausage perhaps? Was amazingly rather nice though! So, we were thinking, better stock up on food as this is a bit diabolical, but to be fair Im jst not very adventurous so breakfast was a huge let down for me.
Got to the pool - Very nice, big, clean, etc. All beds have cushons and none broken.
Slide is a lot of fun, and this slide, is perhaps what made the holiday for us! We decided to invent our own kind of water sports, not sure why the hotel advertises water sports becasue there are none, so, anyway, the slide...We decided, itd be fun to go down said slide on our inflatable ring and lilo, this provided not only hours of entertainment, but, I cannot believe I am about to say this, also provided.....FRIENDLY FOREIGNERS! There were German people, Russian people, Turkish People, Bulgarian People, and Iranian people, all wanting to join in, all take photos together, have a laugh and a drink together, and have a group game of Volleyball, (ish). More, throw the ball around to eachother ball, but, not the point. From day one, everyone was so friendly, and we all had a good laugh together even though languages were an issue. We spwapped email addresses with a couple of people there too!
Now, entertainment, as previous review stated, this is a pool table and ping pong, though Im not sure why they were charged as we werent.
We got very lucky purely because we made a huge effort to get along with the staff, if you do this the whole experience changes. We made an effort to learn some turkish words from the lady at the on site gift shop, and we lend her our Turkey guide book so she could learn some english words with her boyfriend who also worked at the hotel. After this, we were given free sheisha pipe, had the waiters bending over backwards to get us a table at the restaurant each time we came down for food, and they even went off to get us drinks from the bar! They were so nice. The barman Erdal, was fabulous, he made us special cocktails, and had a laugh with us each day.
The food, like I said, after breakfast I was panicking slightly, but lunch and dinner, although a bit repetitive, was pretty good! Various kebab meats, rices, chips, pizza, salad, stews, chicken, fish etc, there was a lot of choice! Depends what time you got down there as to how hot it was but I have no complaints. I noticed that if people didnt make an effort with the staff you didnt get much back, perhaps leading to the above comments in other reviews, but make a huge effort with staff and they will do anything they can to make your stay better. We were hot, so they let us in the pool in the middle of the night, we were still in the bar after hours, but they carried on letting us drink for a while. They knew we were visiting our english friend who was working in Antalya and they not only allowed her into the hotel, but allowed her to use the pool, eat the food, and use the all inclusive...(This Im told, continued after we went home, she still pops in with her friends for a swim.)
On our last day, sob...
We got up late, oops, and missed our check out time, so was awaiting THE PHONE CALL. Said call never came, not only this, we wree allowed to keep our bags in the room all day, and keep our key. When the maid came to clean she just put our stuff to the site and prepared the room. We were allowed to keep using all facilities, and our flight, wast until 1 am the following day so we just left our bags in the room and carried on in the bar, which was nice. There was a show, turkish dancers, very good, music was bit repetitive but was a good mix of english and turkish music.
In the area, can very easily get a Dolmus (bus) to the shopping malls or the market, some good bargains to be found there! Many good food restaurants near the hotel, and the beach is local and very nice. Local shop sells water, cigarettes, booze, sweets, ice cream etc.
Lastly, yes the hotel is near the airport so you do see the planes going overhead, which I thought was pretty cool, to see a plane in the air so close, can be noisy, but DOES NOT shake the hotel at all. That is utter rubbish and exaggeration.
So, am very jealous of anybody visiting, the manager has even said we can return for free, so I may just return soon, but enjoy your stay, and say hi to Erdal at the bar from Cheryl and Ross :) XX And tell him you want raki and coke!
Amhappy to send photos to anyone if they message me, uploading to the review takes farr to long!
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC