Club Dorado - Marmaris - Turkey

The Club Dorado hotel was formally known as ‘The Ares’.

The manager/owner is a really lovely woman, she mingles with the guests all throughout the day & night. There is also a really nice photographer there but you dont get hassled to purchase the pictures he takes. He also joined in when the kids were up dancing & in general just mingled about as well speaking to the guests.

Reception is 24 hours & once again the staff there are fantastic, you can change money no matter what time of the day or night it is.

The maids do a fantastic job of keeping your rooms & the hotel clean and once again this could not be faulted.

If you have booked this hotel you’ll have a fantastic time, we booked it with ScotTravel & the rep was there all the time & mingled with the guests. I normally book with other well known travel agents & seldom see the rep.

We did a last minute deal & paid very little for it, so I wasn’t expecting much with it being a 3 star hotel, but I was pleasantly surprised by the cleanliness & friendliness off all the staff there. 

This is the first year Club Dorado has been All-Inclusive & according to the hotel owner it will be the last, as they reckon they are losing too much money doing AI. I can only assume that they are losing the money on the drink as the food was largely terrible although the salad bar was lovely & the soup was quite nice as well, although what was served at lunch was re-invented for the evening with the addition of some vegetables or herbs to turn it into a different evening meal.

Although they advertise it as buffet meals, it’s only breakfast & the salad bar that is self serve buffet. At lunch & dinner the chef (who was really lovely) served you your food - at lunch time there are 3 dishes, one is some form of vegetable the other is either cheesey puffs, pasta or what I can only describe as slop stew & the other is chips.

For dinner there are 4 dishes: rice or pasta, chips or potato wedges, vegetables & once a week either chicken, meat balls, spag balls (spot the mince), fish, cheese straws or stew. I felt really sorry for the chefs because on the Sunday evening when they did serve chicken everyone wanted it but if you asked for a 2nd piece he had to say no (obviously under instruction from management).

On the up-side, it takes you nearly a week to realise the food is so awful if you enjoy the benefits of the All-Inclusive drink Oh & the food was always piping hot so that was a bonus. The people that clear your table always do so with a big smile on their faces & were always very friendly.

The bar itself stops serving All-Inclusive at 22. 30 & if you have any plans for trying to line up drink before then, you are wasting your time and you’ll be told you already have enough drink on your table. The bar staff are really friendly though, especially Murat & Mustaffa, they have the tolerance of saints when it comes to dealing with drunks, so hats off to them.

The hotel is on a main bus route but the walk into Marmaris only takes about 15 mins. If you leave the hotel and walk straight to the bottom of the road, take your first left then your first right, you come to a sort of Y-shaped road. Bear right & that brings you onto the main drag. Just before the main drag (on the left hand side) you’ll pass about 6 shops, we bought most of our things (t, shirts, purses, sandals, handbags etc) from there as they have prices in the shop so you don’t get hassled or need to haggle.

There is plenty of places for eating & drinking within less than two minutes from the hotel. We tried breakfast at Sarah’s bar (owned by Sarah who is also the manager of Club Dorado) and also an evening meal there, both of which were excellent. We also used a little cafe/bar just across the road & to the left of the hotel (the Apex bar) for an evening meal & that too was lovely. We used another cafe/bar for breakfast & evening meal called Cousin’s bar, opposite the Apex bar, that was also really good. We ate in Marmaris itself & all of the steak houses are really good, or you could just get plainer food if you wanted. Also in Marmaris you get Burger King, McDonalds etc, so if you have got fussy kids you’ll be ok. Breakfast on average works out about £8 for two people.

I have tried to give a really honest opinion of the Club Dorado hotel, seeing as it’s the first review under it’s new name, so to summarise, its a family run hotel & apart from the food, this hotel is absolutely fantastic for a 3 star. It’s exceptionally clean wand the staff are outstanding, oh & there is a lovely wee cat & tortoise that live there also!

Marmaris Video Slideshow