On Holiday and hate it!

[Ilovemycatalot]

Was just after some moral support am on holiday with my daughter in a shit all inclusive in turkey horrible place and horrible hotel. We are here until Monday 😭honestly been in tears and just want to come home. Any words of wisdom to keep us going. They want £650 for an earlier flight home that I just can’t afford.

It's so rotten when a holiday ends up being such a let down. You have my sympathy OP.

I will say we've just got back from Antalya and had a great holiday. If you're anywhere near Side go to the ancient city. Easy on buses, land train down to the town which is gorgeous to wonder round.
Keep going to the marina and Apollo's temple. Loads of bars / restaurants & scenery to explore. Can recommend Twins restaurant down there for decent food and kid friendly service.
Cost €1.3 each from our hotel on bus (~20 min trip) + land train and free to see everything other than the amphitheater, so ridiculously cheap day out.

Look at excursions. We did a cheap one with Jet 2 (sure other operators will do the same) that went to Manavgat waterfall and a river cruise. Was £28 for an adult, £14 for kids including lunch, visit to Mosque, Bazaar, textile outlet for some shopping, cruise with a couple of hours for swimming, and lots of gorgeous scenery.

If you happen to be anywhere near the Adalya resorts the beach down there has wild turtle you can see on a morning if you walk along to the bridge. Kids loved this little outing.

Go for a Turkish bath, they catered to the kids too and they loved it. Think most resorts had an excursion of some sort if no spa on sight.

Keep trying with both the staff and travel company re complaints, take lots of photos for evidence to support your complaint, but try to make the most of what's left of your holiday. We were in a hotel that's mainly for German / Russian tourists but still found some staff had great English so keep trying for some help with your complaints.

I'd go back in a heartbeat for anyone fretting about upcoming trips. Beautiful area, lots to see, gorgeous beaches with water warm enough for the kids to be in all day, and only met friendly helpful locals - no harassment or overt interest / perving on my teenage daughter or younger blonde one (something my DM remembers from taking us as kids). All inclusive food a bit samey but I've never been to an AI that wasn't.

Hope you mange to salvage something of your holiday.

@ Ilovemycatalot not long to go my lovely, a lesson learned xx

I had an all inclusive holiday to a supposedly 5* hotel in Turkey. Hotel was AWFUL. It was heavily catered towards the Russian tourists and could tell they were ignoring us. Other guests seemed to be having a great time despite there being ants all over the room and in the bed. I still managed to enjoy myself with the awful food and fake all inclusive (had to pay for everything g including safe and bottled water!) try to go out and explore other areas. Do you have an itenary? Do as many things as you can outside the hotel. What area are you in, I'll see if I can make any recommendations.

My suggestion if you don’t like staying in the hotel is to fill up at breakfast. If you have something that you can put food in (Tupperware box or similar), grab some food from the breakfast buffet that you could eat for lunch (bread, meats, cheese, salad) and a few cartons of water (or go to a local shop and grab drinks), then head to the beach.
If we know what area you are in, then we could suggest things for you to do. A lot of German and Dutch people visit Turkey as well. Yes, a lot of the Turkish men can be leery and slimy, but not all of them (my step dad is Turkish). If a Turk is being leery at you, just tell them Hayir (pronounced ha-ear), this means no.
I can assure you that not all of Turkey is like that. I am going to Side for the 13th time in October, it’s absolutely stunning there.

Re language barrier; Translation apps have come on in leaps and bounds recently. I frequently use them in medical consultations as they are much easier than our usual phone translation service and are free.

Bell end of the thread 👏

And yet, I have been three times and haven't had an iota of hassle. Beautiful, quiet hotel with incredible staff. Spent days alone at beach clubs too - was treated with huge respect and the staff looked out for me. Wonderful country.

Actually ai found more personnel in resorts speak German than English. Just came back from Italy (Bibione) where German was definitely a lot more widespread. I found that in Turkey too - German and often Russian.

Eat out for lunch and dinner.

Do day trips that keep you out most of the day.

Spend days at beach.

Go to spas and massages out of the hotel.

Men were hitting on me in front of my boyfriend. It was very uncomfortable

Actually ai found more personnel in resorts speak German than English. Just came back from Italy (Bibione) where German was definitely a lot more widespread. I found that in Turkey too - German and often Russian.
We were in Italy this year too and very few staff spoke English, and yes, mostly German. When we did activities there was one lady who could help but other than that both we and the staff had to just muddle by. It made me realise how presumptuous we are assuming everyone speaks it, and how tough people have it when they come to Ireland with no English.

Have to say this has been my experience in Turkey too.
We had several holidays in Turkey as a family group with kids.
Despite being with my OH I was propositioned many times. Even a staff member asked me if I would " like to go for a fuck in the gents".
There is much to love about Turkey, including wonderful people, but there does seem a very toxic masculinity there, which includes seeing western women as "free and easy".
I found Morrocco to have a similar vibe.
DD ( 22 and stunning) and I are off on holiday next week. we did discuss visiting Turkey but she said " God no- creepy men".
We have booked the Canaries instead because we will feel safer.

I’ve seen you are in Antalya. You could go:
White water rafting, quad biking, zip lining at the Köprülü National Park, The Land of Legends water park, you could ride the Tunektepe Teleferik cable car, visit the Manavgat waterfalls, the Manavgat bazar, Side Old Town ruins, jeep safari, boat trips, the Duden waterfalls, jet skiing, parasailing, go diving, submarine excursion, paragliding, a 3 day tour (so you’re not in the hotel) of Cappadocia fairy chimneys, rock cut churches and underground cities (breakfast, dinner and 2 nights accommodation included). There are so many things you could do to explore Turkey and not base the whole of the place on one hotel you’ve visited.

Rude. Depends where you go in Turkey

I was replying to the person who said it was a mistake booking Turkey

You are a bit. You are one blessed to have a daughter. Two,having children and going on holiday is always in my experience tiring and stressful. We went on holiday to show our sons a bit of Greek culture but all they wanted was a drink of coca cola! My son who is Autistic will no longer travel anywhere these days so I can't either. Be blessed and just try a bit harder 🤔

👍

I can’t believe the fucking victim blaming on this thread, some people are really nasty.
it’s not the OPs fault she’s having a shit time because she chose Turkey, or because she chose an inexpensive hotel.

hope you’re okay @Ilovemycatalot I would definitely tweet Hays Travel, I think it’s your best option.

TBH this may sound harsh but you're lucky to have the opportunity to go away on holiday! If I were you I'd get out to a nice beach, find things to do and see. I'm sorry you're having a rotten time.

I see why people are suggesting eating out and lots of day trips but unless you know the financial situation this isn't always a solution. Many people , some without much spare cash , go on these last minute £400 for a week type deals all inclusive as a treat and don't have spare cash to spend hundreds and hundreds on other stuff if it's a bit shit. I've only been AI once and it was so shit (food and drink wise and we all got Ill (Egypt) that unless I can allow for the fact I may not eat there much or hover round Hotel all day just so I can get 'free' drinks, I won't bother- but I am lucky enough to be able to factor that in. I do see why people do it, especially with a couple of kids, but it is a risk and I would rather book a lovely hotel just B&B or even a nice apartment complex and factor in the £1000 you can often save for food and drinks out- if somewhere a bit ropey, you don't go again- that's not possible on an AI if you don't have loads of spare cash

Antayla

Complain to wherever you bought this holiday from immediately.. otherwise they won’t reimburse you or anything

A lot of people don’t know they can do this .. and once the holiday is over the company don’t have to act

You won't get reimbursement for not enjoying your holiday. Other drunk people, lecherous locals etc are not under the control of the holiday company.

That's not strictly true, but it's a lot harder to act after the event in any meaningful way.

For example if a client calls me having arrived at their hotel and the food is inedible (or even if they just don't like it) then there's a good chance I can downgrade their booking to bed & breakfast only or self-catering and refund the difference they'd paid for half board so they can use the money to eat out. I can't do that once they've got home and as far as the hotel is concerned has used the service.

If a client arrives having booked a seaview and receives a view of the bins I can fix that while they're still there, but not once they're home.

Once the holiday has been completed all we can really do is offer some token financial compensation and pass feedback to the hotel, and after the event everything becomes he said-she said so it's much harder to get an accurate idea of what was fact and what was opinion. Lots of hotels won't respond to things that haven't been brought up while the client was staying.

As a Tour Operator (and in a position of authority when it comes to making decisions regarding complaints) nothing grinds my gears more than someone coming with a giant complaint after they get home when our chance to make amends is gone. Honestly it leaves me thinking that they're only trying it on to get some money back, and I probably take the complaint less seriously. See also coming via public social media first, when we have a 24 hour emergency phone line exactly for that purpose.

A PP is correct though; the behaviour of other guests and anything that happens outside of the hotel is largely out of anyone's control, unless it's a case of anti-social behaviour overnight which a good hotel should be on top of.