ANIMAL CRUELTY AT THIS HOTEL DISGUSTING! We stayed here with our 2 children aged 5 and 10 years. My husband and I and the children had a lovely ground floor apartment and it was great as you had direct access from your terrace straight out to the pool. Close to the local shops and 10 minute walk to the beach. The first 6 days of the holiday at this apartment were great until the saturday evening when the remaining staff (approx 6 including the chef) had their evening meal together at the restaurant which was located beside the pool. They were always giving the stray cats leftovers from the restaurant which I thought was nice as I have 2 cats at home! However, on this particular evening, we decided to have a game of pool at the pool table a few meters from their table. One of the staff coaxed a cat over with leftover fish bones and once it tried to take the bones he scooped it up under its belly and proceeded to launch it like a rugby ball at least 25 feet up in the air and straight into the deep end of the pool. Having ventured into the pool at the start of the holiday I know that the temperature of the water was probably well below freezing as you could barely draw breath if you jumped into it! Obviously being a family of animal lovers I made my opinion clear in a string of swear words (which I wouldn't normally use) my children were in hysterics screaming and crying and the staff just laughed at us. We immediately stopped playing our pool game and went straight back to our apartment having made our feelings clear. My son was so distressed over the incident that he wet the bed during the night. The next day we spoke to a few other holiday makers and according to them this was a daily routine by the staff. As we spent most days out and about we hadn't witnessed this behaviour up until this point but I can say that from the start of the week until the last day the number of cats depleted quite rapidly as we left the day before the end of the holiday season and in my opinion they might have been "doing away" with the cats so that they weren't overrun by next season. Lots of the cats were blind in one or sometimes both eyes and a couple had no tails (apparently staff were seen stamping on cats tails according to other holidaymakers). I have visited Turkey on 6 previous occasions over the years but I was and still am so angry at what I witnessed and what seems to be going on behind the scenes that I will not be holidaying in the country again.
- Hotel Paloma Apartments
