“The only person we would recommend this hotel to, is the Executive Producer from the TV programme, ‘Holidays from Hell’.”
We booked this Hotel through Thomson and having visited, felt that the information and photos presented on their website, did not in any way reflect this establishment. Thomson call this Hotel ‘Mels’ on their website, but on arrival, the local name for it is ‘Chinese Mels’. Wonder why the name change?.....
During our stay, we encountered many problems, which are detailed below, and can honestly say that the standard does not come near other Eastern Med 2* budget establishments we have come across. We were not expecting 5* luxury, only 2* budget, but this Hotel fell way of even this mark.
On arrival, our first impressions of the reception area were of filth and dust everywhere as though there had been no cleaning all season; this remained throughout our stay. On arrival staff were smoking in the hotel reception, despite signs relating to 69TL fines. ( Turkish smoking ban July 2009 )
Safe deposit boxes didn’t feel safe – the master key was just left floating among the boxes without any management by staff – unlike other hotels we have stayed in Turkey. Anyone finding our slave key could easily have gained access to the safes, which were in a very public place – almost on the public street. Reception was often unmanned adding further to the problem of security. ( There were only 30 or so safes, which would have taken a thief no time to try ). Removal of our key from the Hotel name tag was the only way to provide some reassurance, but as this Hotel was on the beach front, it wouldn’t take a genius to have a rummage in your beach bag for the key when both of you go for a swim. In fact one day, an old Turkish woman was sniffing around bags on the beach and was asking for money and cigarettes ( even though we don’t smoke ).
Air con often turned itself off and we awoke a few nights due to the heat and had to reset it. It also blew out a black sooty substance, which got onto the beds and then onto our clothes. We reported this to staff on a few occasions, but they just said ‘sorry, it’s ok’ in broken English.
Breakfast – never started at 8am as stated. ( We needed an 8am breakfast for trip days ). Almost 9am start most mornings. We had to miss a few breakfasts on trip days due to the laziness of staff – we felt that they must have thought they were giving us a freebie – we paid for breakfast so should have had this available at the times stated. Staff started their breakfast before making sure breakfast was available for guests. They then sat around the staff table smoking – despite the hotel ban. Even at 9am starts, we had to ask staff for bread and ‘English tea bags’ most mornings. The hot water urn was broken throughout our stay – it leaked Turkish tea leaves into the hot water supply – so English tea and coffee were tainted with a taste of Turkish tea all the time. When we complained, the waiters English became worse and we were just fobbed off all the time – he could speak good English to the single ladies on the beach we noticed. Plates were dirty with dried on food. Bread was not hygienically served – guests were left to cut their own ( lazy staff – unlike other hotel practises on this matter ). Guests held the bread with hands to cut a few slices – easy to spread germs ( Swine Flu cautions ). Tables were not cleared quickly – previous guests dirty plates were just left around – causing an attraction of flies. Staff continued to sit at their table and smoke – not as if they were busy doing other hotel tasks – just pure laziness. Table cloths were dirty from the restaurant the night before. ( We never ate at the hotel in the evenings )
Further evidence of the un-friendly lazy staff became apparent throughout our stay – didn’t clean up promptly the terrace area after rainfall – unlike nearby hotel staff – area very slippery and dirty. No drinks service at the beach – unless you were female, about 18 and on holiday for the first time without your parents. Not responding to requests to sort broken items – see below. Not cleaning the beach area like nearby hotel staff – making it worse in fact as we witnessed an ash tray been emptied and buried in the sand to save a walk to the bar to empty it. We witnessed staff sat at their table most times smoking, and on a few occasions, the male hotel receptionist was watching movies on the hotel computer.
The maid service was very poor – sometimes room bins were not emptied and we had to ask for fresh towels twice during our stay. Linen was not changed every 3 days as stated on the Thomson website. When you book a holiday that states something, you should not have to chase around to get things sorted – it eats into valuable holiday time having to find the right people. The shower ‘tray’ and balcony were never cleaned during our stay. Underneath the beds was filthy – years of hairs and dust ( who knows what was living in that mess ).
The Pool area was filthy and dangerous. No evidence of either pool or surround pool cleaning while we were there ( lazy staff again ). Plastic insets broken at pool edge which could prove dangerous to children. Pool wall lights broken and wires exposed – dangerous to children. Some sun beds broken. Pool bar full of rubbish. Area was not as represented on the Thomson website. There is no swim up bar and no pool seats.
Despite the new Turkish smoking ban ( July 2009 ), ash trays were provided in the rooms. As non-smokers, we noticed the stale smell of smoke on arrival to our room. Signs around the hotel clearly state a 69TL fine for anyone smoking in a public place within the hotel. Maybe this is a smoke screen ( no pun intended ) for the hotel management to avoid hefty fines from the Government?
Our balcony was virtually unusable due to an overgrown palm tree protruding and almost coming in the door. A simple pruning could have rectified the problem, but the hotel staff said nothing could be done. We had to take turns using the balcony due to the size of it. Once we hung a towel on it, we could not get out at all.
Sink plug was missing - hard to wash a few essential clothes. Reported to hotel, but staff didn’t understand the problem. They just went on about ‘sink work ok’ in their broken English.
Roof of our room leaked after 1 hour of rain and made the single bed wet and unusable to ‘store’ clothes or suit cases. Staff said crack would ‘go away after rain’ – how poor a Customer Service is that? Bed took 3 days to dry out after just an hours worth of rain.
Dangerous power socket, which was loose on the wall – unusable and potentially dangerous to children.
Shower did not provide constant hot water - often running cold. Any shower after 7pm was stone cold. Had to cut short our beach time in order to get a descent shower to remove the sun cream. No hotel back up at all. We had one day with overcast skies and the shower was cold at 5pm.
Some of the floor tiles were loose and could have cracked causing injury.
Poor lighting – hallway light and balcony light didn’t work. Reported twice but never fixed. The lights that did work were energy saving types that were underrated and not fit for purpose. The room took on a camping feel after dark.
All drawers were filthy, stained and unusable.
The electric card slot at entrance of room was loose and we had to hold it to the wall when inserting and removing the card.
The toilet seat was broken and did not securely fit on top of the toilet. We reported this twice but it never got fixed.
The beach was filthy – all the other hotels staff cleaned their areas of the beach daily, but no one from Mels attempted to do anything. Most of the beach sun beds were broken and had filthy mattresses. There were many cigarette butts around the sunbeds and once we noticed a pile of dog poo next to a nearby sunbed. We did see stray dogs sleeping on the sunbeds at night – other hotels piled their beds up, probably for this reason and to assist in making room to clean up their area of the beach. We also saw a used tampon near one bed, which was totally gross.
On ‘change-over’ days we asked the maid to accompany us in rooms vacated ready for new guests, to ‘look at the view from other balconies’. What we really wanted to see was the standard of the other rooms – of the 3 rooms viewed, all were of an equally bad standard.
Before booking this Hotel, please see the photos we have attached to this report, and make your own mind up. Take careful note of the lack of contributions from those visitors claiming that this Hotel is ‘Fantastic’ and ‘take no notice of other reviews’. I do not see any photo contributions from them, do you?….. Anyone who returns to this Hotel needs their heads testing…… the camp site over the road is cleaner……
The only person we would recommend this hotel to, is the Executive Producer from the TV programme, ‘Holidays from Hell’.
On a positive note, Gumbet / Bodrum are excellent places and well worth a visit. There are many Hotels to choose from, but in our opinion, ‘Mels’ is not one of them.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
