Garden of Sun Hotel - Altinkum - Turkey

Here is the epic tale of our package holiday to the Garden of Sun hotel in Altinkum. 12 of us stayed for 14 nights from 10th August 2009. We were 8 Adults (21 to 49), one teenager, & 3 & 4 year olds. We arrived at around 5am to find cookies & juice in reception for us - not great but better than nothing. We checked in without
any problems then headed for the lobby bar (24 hours) to await the rest of our party who had booked the transfer with Sunwings (called at a number of hotels first). Handy Tip - You can get a transfer from £15.00 per person rather than the £30 that the travel company charged. Chances are it will be a quicker transfer too, or you can pay a little more for private transfers. We used Mariya tours - couldn’t fault them both ways.

Anyway - back to the lobby bar. Very pricey at 5tl for a small beer & the beer is dreadfull - “Pera” & very weak. The rest of our party arrrived & got checked in, so around 6am we had a look around the pool as dawn was breaking and people were out putting towels on sunbeds! Needless to say we joined in, & this was to be the pattern for the week. As we wanted 8 beds together with parasols for the kids, near the play area & kids pool - any later than 6.30 & you have no chance. You could get a bed anytime but you might be away from the pool on the grass & with no chance of a parasol.

Food at the hotel was a talking point among our group. About half loved it & the rest lived off chip butties. Personally, I thought the food was excellent but I love trying something different. The food was not British but well cooked local and fresh ingredients - spinach, aubegine, peppers, potatoes in various combinations, heavy on the chicken served in various guises, fresh cooked fish outside on a few nights but for the die-hards, it’s not Cod in Batter! And they don’t do Chips at every meal (hooray from me!).

There was a great selection of salads & great desserts. Chicken nuggets & chicken burgers appear now & again but no bacon or sausage at breakfast. Loads of pastries, cereals & fruit then outside you could get an omelette or fried eggs cooked to order. The bread has to get a mention - I believe it was freshly baked at the hotel each day and it was great! It’s all self-service including the bar in the restaurant.

The Turkish night was great, with plenty of dishes cooked outside - chicken donner, onion rings, jackets spuds, spicey kebab mix in freshly baked flat bread & even doughnuts! Snacks are available between 2pm & 5pm near the pool - burgers, chips & pizza (or shoud I say “Pide”, which is the Turkish version), fresh dough, rolled & folded with various fillings - I loved ‘em.

Despite being dreadful, we did drink the beer & found it was better from the restaurant (until 9.00pm). There is a limited choice of spirits - Gin, Brandy, Vodka & Raki. The vodka was not watered down but served in smallish measures until the bar staff got fed up with you asking for more! Cheap plonk was on free-flow, self-service pumps - again better wine from the restaurant until it closed. The chiller on the dispenser at the bar was not working so it was warm from there. Weak juice drinks were on self service too but made from powder not cordial, though the lemon/lime was quite refreshing. Water was on self-service too as was the tea & coffee. Tea was fine but the coffee was a bit weak - I needed to add an extra black coffee to bring it up to strength.

The Garden Of Sun hotel itself is a nice hotel with decent facilities. Not 5* by most standards - more a good 3* - a good guide is the tour operators ratings. We had 3 people in the room & had plenty of space but limited storage space which would be easy to sort out. It has a huge main pool but only one depth (1.50m), a kids pool & a couple of slides for under 12’s for 3 hours a day. We ended up with a corner room with pool & sea view (1140) by just sending an email to enquire about an upgrade to sea view - bit of a result there.

There is some noise from the bars across the road in certain rooms (worse on the lower floors). We experienced some noise from a Turkish wedding & a party in the disco organised by the entertainments team. Talking of which…

On the whole, the etertainments team were a nice bunch of people. They organise a few things around the pool area during the day which we joined in with but very much the same each day. Evening entertainment was pretty hit & miss. Some good professional acts are brought in like a water ballet, Russian dancers, belly dancer, Turkish dancers etc, who were all fine. When the entertainments team are in charge - expect run-of-the-mill fare. The kids disco is on each night for 30 minutes around 9.15pm.

Most entertainment finished around 11.00pm when the free bar closes! They did try some late entertainment after 11.00 but I was not paying for THAT beer so we headed 10yds across the road to the Moonshine bar where Efes was only 3.50tl a pint. You will get a nice welcome & good service from ‘H’ & the guys there. There was a Dreamgirls show in the club on Tuesdays - never saw it was but reported to be excellent. £16. 00 to get in & not part of your All-Inclusive in there. Turkish night also means market stalls around the gardens & camel rides around the pool for kids (10tl).

To staff,  I should start with the management which needs some sorting out. I had two real bugbears. Firstly, they were filming for Skytravel while we were there & basically they had the run of the hotel. Late restaurant opening - ‘because they were filming’, towels removed from your balcony - ‘because they were filming’, not allowed around the pool early morning - ‘because they were filming’. You get the idea. We were paying for this hotel & felt treated like 2nd class citizens for the 4 or 5 days it went on. There are also restrictions as to where you could go when a wedding was on as well. A nice letter expaining all this in advance would have been a good move I think.

Then there were Dragon Turizm people. They are trying to sell timeshares to Turkish people & seem to think they had the right to do want they want while they had prospective clients in tow for the day. We heard ’stories’ of them moving towels off sunbeds & taking other people’s inflatables so client’s kids could use them although we never experienced that sort of thing, just arrogance & bad manners from them. Again, management should have this under control.

Most of the ‘lower’ level staff seemed scared of the management and vodka measures certainly dropped when they were about. Most of the staff appeared quiet & withdrawn but a few “please” & “thank you’s” did get them to loosen up a bit. To be honest, the way some of the prediminately British guests talked to them was disgraceful.

Ah, security, nearly forgot about them. You are not allowed to bring food & drink into the hotel from outside the hotel. They expect you to buy it from the more expensive hotel shop. So a handy tip - walk around the hotel to the car park area & go into the pool area by the nightclub & avoid security.

The Garden Of Sun is a little bit out of the way, being a 15min walk to Dolphin Sq or 5 minutes & 1.50tl on the Dolmus. The Dolmus runs every few minutes from outside the back entrance of the hotel. There are a couple of bars just outside the entrance to the hotel. The Moonshine bar getting the vote for service, prices & reasonable food.

We did a couple of ‘trips’ which we booked with Oracle tours just across the road from the back entrance. They have a lovely ‘Geordie’ lady who is very helpful & full of good advice. We all went to Didim waterpark. At £12 for adults, £8. 00 for kids, 3 & under free it was a cracking day out for everyone. You can’t take in drinks or food & it’s a little pricey inside but not outrageously so. Be aware that there is also a waterpark at Kusadasi (”Adaland”) which is 90 minutes away but does have more rides & an aquarrium & dolphins for an extra charge.

The jeep safari from Oracle was also great & IMHO pretty safe having seen some reports from others. But pepare to get wet. A full day incl. lunch in an isolated beach restaurant was £17. 00. Have a chat with the lady in Oracle, it;s worth it. One of the other blokes & myself jumped on the Dolmus & went up to the Temple of Apollo. A very impressive site but it was very hot while we were there. A quick Efes followed & then a mini bar crawl as we jumped of the Dolmus & decided to walk most of the way down Ataturk Bvd with a few refreshment stops along the way!

We did the obligatory trip to Didim market on a saturday - 1.50tl on the Dolmus. Too much hassle (not particularly aggressive) for me but her indoors went both weeks. The funfair, is a 5 min walk away with a good range of rides to suit everyone. All one price at 3tl a ride. Altinkum & the Dolphin Square area was very busy & lively at night but we didn’t venture out there too much - bit too lively. We had a good meal at Pinnochio’s one night - nice fuss made for a 21st birthday that one of us was celebrating.

So would we return? 50% split on that - mainly because of the food - but I would return like a shot and everybody liked the hotel itself. I think we had a good value two weeks considering we paid £654 per adult for 14 nights All-Inclusive in peak season.

John.