First Choice Holiday Village Turkey - Anyone been?

[hockeypuck]

Following on from the other All-Inclusive post, I started looking at all the First Choice villages.

Has anyon been to Turkey? It's £600 cheaper for all inclusive than the Egypt one that was recommended in that thread. I looked on tripadvisor and the reviews are mixed so wondered what a mumsnet person would make of it?

Also, It's only £100 more than standard to have a room with a kids den, so they'd be seperate which seems like a good deal, the standard room looked a bit cramped with 2 kids on a sofa bed and me and DH on a small-ish double. Has anyone stayed in one? was it good?

Hi Hockeypuck
I'm going there a week sat for 2 weeks, and like u the reveiws are mixed but majority are positive!
So will report back in a few weeks

Great, thanks Hammy - I'll look forward to your report, brochure looks great

stayed in one in Eygpt and we really enjoyed it, although people there at the same time as us hated it! Horses for courses I say!

Thank you everyone.

Any more?

Hi there, i am thinking of booking the holiday village in sarigerme, turkey for next sept. My friend went last year and loved it x

What did she say about it scratchet?

What is the food like?
Are the rooms really small or ok?

Hi hockeypuck, sorry late reply. She said rooms were decent size and v clean. She went with her dp, ds10 and ds2. They loved it and are looking to return this year. Apparantly some of the reviews were not great but i think you get that with everywhere. Not sure on the food but will ask her and get back to you. She also said the resort was that big that there was plenty going on if you wanted it or just left alone if this is your preference. When are you thinking of going? I am definately considering booking for next year, just waiting for the prices to come out x

Thanks scratchet. We're looking at going in mid-September. Was just trying to decide between resorts and prices etc before confirming. It does look good but I was worried about how restrictive it was with regard to having to fight to queue up with the kids for free ice cream in only a half hour slot etc - a lot of the reviews say it's a bit regimented, so it's good to hear from someone who's been there

hi - i have been twice. the ice-creams are a big con and the queue is madness as you say its only for half an hour. you do get ice-cream a couple of times a week with your dinner.

we were there last august when they had a massive sickness bug on site. literally 100's of people in reception screaming at the reps. the pools were closed every couple hours people poohing in them. literally everything went right through you. tmi sorry.

the year before we were there was fine. i have heard great reviews about egypt HV.

the main proboem with turkey hv is you can't really go off site. you can get a taxi into the nearest town that has about 10 shops and a market on a sunday.

we stayed in the jacussi rooms which were lovely.
any questions just ask?

thank you for that kyles. You don't paint a great picture about it but that's just the kind of information I needed to make my mind up because I have heard better reports about their other holiday villages where you can go off-site.

The jacussi rooms look amazing, but they're already full for the week we want so that's another reason to look elsewhere, particularly as one of the pictures of the standard rooms looks tiny and you have no way of knowing which type you'll be in in advance.

To me being able to walk around the area easily is pretty important so I'm leaning towards another holiday village or the Letoonia resort in Fethiye instead.

Thank you for the information.

tbh the jacussi is just a bath with a few bubbles - it was so funny it smelt like a washing machine with the bubble bath etc going through pumps. in the end i used to put my dirty washing in there. lol.
but you do get a separate bedroom/bathroom which you dont in standard rooms.

it is more the fact that there is now where to walk when you go out of complex.

i have never heard a bad word said about egypt hv though.

i looked at the letoonia resort when i couldn't afford lykia last year (before booking hv).

have you looked at hotel titanic meant to be great and wasnt coming in much more expensive than letoonia.

good luck.

i must say honeypuck the double bed is not small. it was massive. it is also a very large room. telly on a 360 angle in middle. bed one end, sofa , table etc the other.

it was only ds7 and me so we had lots of room but do understand with four of you might be a stuggle.

spoke to lots of people and no-one ever mentioned it.

Thanks for that info and those suggestions - will get looking at them now

Hi Everyone,

I've been to the Turkish one twice (speaks for itself) and also went to the Egypt one in February.

We had a fabulous time at both resorts, both of them had points that were better than the others.

The rooms at the Egypt one are much nicer, but then we did have a swim up room which was fabulous. We had both a normal room and a Jacuzzi room at Turkey and they were nice rooms. We had 3 adults plus child in standard room in Turkey which was fine, bit tight, but fine.

The food in Turkey was far superior than Egypt on our first visit. On our second visit I'd say it was about the same as Egypt. Put it this way I still managed to put on over half a stone each time.

In Egypt we never really left the resort, as most of the excursions were quite far away and we didn't really want to do Cairo on that occasion. Also it felt we got LOADS of hassle outside the resort.

In Sarigerme (the turkish hv) we felt much safer going out and about on our own, we're very used to Turkey and the hassle was much less than in say Marmaris etc. There is loads of excursions you can do from this area too.

Both are about 20 mins transfers from their respective airports. The beach at Egypt is far superior to Turkey, but the main beach at Sarigerme town is beautiful too.

Sarigerme has a lovely little village that is well worth a visit with a couple of nice little bars and restaurants. The market here is worth a visit too although like anywhere in Turkey you get lots of hassle but lots of banter too.

The layout of the Turkish one is much better than the Egypt one, you can wander about a different pool every day and not get fed up, additionally there are loads more slides etc.

I think I preferred Egypt overall because our swim up room was AMAZING. We were also treated like royalty by the lads in the bar at the heated pool who were running up and down to our swim up pool with drinks etc for us, they were fabulous.

But I would go back to Turkey in a minute. I should also point out that my son and I got sick while we were in Turkey HV too, but it was definitely a virus.

As for poo-ing in the pool, well thats really down to the parents not putting swim nappies on their children. That also seemed to happen at the HV in Costa Del Sol where the pools were regularly shut.

BTW both Egypt and Turkey HV's are far superior to the Costa Del Sol one.

Please feel free to ask any questions at all and I'll try and answer.

the poo-ing in the pool was nothing to do with the swim nappies. it was the last 2 weeks in august when they stopped sending quests to the hotel because of the stomach bug/virus. the food was just going straight through everyone. at one stage every pool on the tropical side was closed for same areaon.

there wa also an heartbreaking accident when a fahter was killed on the buggy excursion staying in our hotel. as much as you try not to let if affect you cant help it.

a swim up room sound fantastic - how does it work?

in the eygpt hv what was the evening entertainment like? when we went last year the reps did all the entertainment which became slightly repetitive. the year before they had lots of acts coming into the ampitheatre making it more intersteding.

they did fly andy scott lee out to sing to us though!

Just got back from two weeks at the HV in Sarigerme and would thoroughly recommend it!
Food was lovely, enough choice to please everyone (pancakes with chocolate sauce and almonds were gorgoeus!!), we never got round to eating in the pre-bookable restaurants but it didn't matter tbh.
The choice of all inclusive alcohol was limited but we don't drink much so it was fine for us.
The day and night entertainment, particularly for the children was fantastic and my 2 yr old loved seeing Bob the Builder!
The pools and slides were great..hours were spent playing!
Our room was very cramped but then there was 3 adults, a 5 yr old, a 2yr old and a 1 yr old sharing! Tbh, we didn't spend much time in the room anyway.
The staff and the reps are amazing, nothing is too much trouble and they work long hours to ensure we have a lovely holiday.
We stayed on the blue side but the village as a whole is set in stunningly well maintained gardens.
Mosquitos are rife but we bought a plugin thing for our room and sprayed plenty of repellent on which kept them at bay.
There are plenty of sunbeds but we would be up early because of kids so finding a sunbed at half 8 wasn't too bad but I think some people must've been reserving them at 6am!!!
All in all a fantastic place to take the family on holiday, lovely hot weather (plenty of shaded areas for kids tho!)fantastic place and amazing people...would thoroughly recommend it!
And the Chocolate Song that they played constantly is strangely addictive and the kids love it!
Any questions, just ask!

sort of all right but not as good as say lykia world, have you looked at it there are now 2 resorts one in Antalya area and one in Olu Deniz, if that's too much cash (bit pricey but yummy food etc try palm wings near Altinkum you can get a great price here!