Salamis Bay Conti Hotel — Hotel in Yeniboğaziçi Belediyesi

Firstly the animation team deserves a huge thank you for entertaining us all, and making the kids feel so welcome, and happy. The shows are all great and their hard work and dedication truly shows. They create the vibe, and are the life and soul of the hotel. They are always smiling and happy.

This is a modern, clean and well maintained hotel with an army of staff working tirelessly to keep the hotel running at all times. Unfortunately some staff work too hard to muster a smile, and a few even seem unapproachable. This is especially true of catering and waiting staff in the main restaurant.

The rooms are modern, and clean, and if you have a view of the sea from your balcony, its a wonderful sight to wake up to. This is because the hotel is in a great location. The beds arent of a high quality, the mattresses too soft, and housekeeping need training on making up beds to hotel standard. I would expect the dressing of the beds to be a 5* level but unfortunately this isnt the case. However the staff work very hard to keep up with the demands of the hotel.

The pool with water slides is great for the kids.....and the adults too. The lifeguards are on point and ensure safe and proper use of the slides, and protects the safety of the children at all times. It does get busy fast, so early arrival will ensure you find loungers to relax on. The snackbar at this pool is serving chicken doner and burgers throughout the day alongside cold snacks, ice creams, drinks and other refreshments.

The beach is beautiful golden sand, and stretches far down towards the south, so you can stray quite far away from the hotel crowd.

The Selcuk restaurant where breakfast lunch and dinner is served is huge. Mealtimes can feel like a battle, as the huge number of guests at any one point surge to get food at the same time. This can be challenging. I appreciate the difficulty in catering for 1500+ guests, but i feel this is one area where huge improvements can be made. There is no consideration for intolerances, allergies, diet preference and food trends. I think the hotel are vulnerable to huge liabilities as a result of this. The offerings are not in any way authentic Cypriot cuisine, nor reflect the culture of the visiting guests. Yet the army of staff continue to pump out tray after tray of foods, that quite frankly are not always up to par with the rating of the hotel. A simple margherita request was a step too far for the pizza maker. Chicken and fish are the only option. But most kids want a plain pizza. I had to raise this, so it would be interesting to see if this has been taken on-board. No mercimek? Staple of Turkish cuisine. No Firin Makarna, no Fasulye, no Firin Kebab. The response may be that one should make requests, but this is almost impossible when the staff are run off their feet trying to keep up with the demand. My perfect analogy - The Beef wellington was well pastried, but no duxelle, and i think this sums it up for me, they try to present mediocrity as high end. And to the unseasoned eye this might slip past them, but to somebody who understands hospitality, high end catering and service delivery this just isnt good enough.

This hotel could transition from good, to great. But unless they seriously take on board some of the glaring issues, some of which i have raised, i feel that other offerings on the island will take a share of the market that Salamis Bay Conti have worked so hard to achieve over the last few decades.

To return to my opening remarks, the visibility of staff continually hard at work is part of the biggest problem i have with this hotel. There is no "swan theory" in play. Instead we see the mad splash of flappers continually, which disrupts the guest experience and removes the illusion of seamless service delivery.

To end on a high note, the guest relations team are fantastic. They go above and beyond to address all concerns, issues and help with your needs whilst you stay there. Thank...

We spent one week in Salamis Bay Conti hotel. It was amazing holiday. We arrived to the hotel at 2am but the staff opened the restaurant for us so we could have late dinner or early breakfast  Everything was prepared in advance, staff took care about our luggage, we really didin´t have to care about anything, the only thing we did was check-in. This was very comfortable for us especially at night. The hotel has two buildings, we got a room in the second building which was finished few months ago. The room was very nice, clean, comfortable, with LCD tv, mini bar for free and we also had a view to the sea. Rooms were cleaned every day (new towels, soap, shampoo, condicioner, ect.). Beach was tiny and small and you have to get up at 6:30 if you want to lay on sunbeds in the first line (there are three lines of sunbeds on the beach). Water was clean but be aware of big stones and clils. Beach was next to the beach so you can have drinks from 10am untill 5pm all inclusive. The big advantage is that if you want water, you get a bottle of water (0,3ml or 0,5ml). If you want some priváte, go to the south by the beach. There are not so many people and the water is great too but it is little bit far away from the hotel bars. The hotel has 4 bars (by the pool, inside the reception, outside the reception and beach bar) where you can also get snacks several times several times a day and night. There are two places where you can have some breakfast. First and the bigger one is in the main building and the second one in the new building. Lunch and dinner is provided only in the main building. You can always choose from 5 main meals (fish, meat, boiler or fried vegetables) with rice, potatoes, fries, fried potatoes and pasta. There is also large selection of salads, sweets, cakes ect. The food is a little bit heavy so we recommend to eat a lot of salads. Drinks are free in restaurant, beach bar and bar outside the reception but inside the main building there are some paid coctails and drinks. There are not many things to see around the hotel – no bars, no discos, pubs ect. If you want to go sightseeing, you can buy a ticket at the reception to the hotel bus which will take you to Famagusta. Famagusta is nice historical down with few shops which has mostly fake products. All shops in Famagusta close at 5pm and then there is nothing else to do. We went for a trip to Nicosia and it was worth it if you want to buy something not fake. There is a possibility to cross the border from North Cyprus to South Cyprus where is a wide selection of quality European products. There are two very nice photographers, they make beautiful pictures and they are very funny. We enjoyed this holiday very much and we have nothing to complain about but we understand the comments below about the loud air conditioning – that is the true in the main building if you have balcony on the south side. You can try to change the room but the hotel is big and crowded. We believe you will enjoy this hotel the same...

First of all, this is not a 5-star hotel. It has some advantages, but quality of facilities and service is in some instances shockingly low, even comparing to other hotels in Northern Cyprus. Quantity over quality.

Most of the staff I came across barely speaks English and they speak Turkish even if they see that you don't understand them. Even high-level manager had communication problems and needed help of her team to deal with a simple conversation regarding room change. Only reception and "guest relation" workers can communicate in English fluently. Many meals are of poor quality (watch out for bone fragments in some stews waiting to break your teeth or "adventures" such as raw meat in kebab booth near swimming pools) and they are all very similar, after 3 days you know all the dishes available. Even if in theory there is variety and choice, in practice e.g. all soups taste the same (very sour) and all desserts are bland and taste like whipped cream. Almost no seafood in the offer. Ordering drinks is like playing a lottery - even tough they serve simple cocktails with no fancy extras, some bartenders still have problems with making them drinkable. Whole place is overcrowded, chaotic and extremely loud. The music from main stage is dominating the whole huge area around it, even in places where it shouldn't - there is a nice and cosy cafeteria with a lovely sea view, but it is located directly behind the stage and several times a day it shakes from the basses and noise from the main stage, making it impossible to enjoy anything. The activities and shows are repetitive each day (live music in the evening is the same songs almost every day, same goes for the kids programme). Kids-dedicated activities are also super loud and boring (one evening a guy in the amphitheatre was just blowing bubbles for 30 minutes with deafening techno music in the background) Playroom for kids has no AC and is located in a stinky basement The beach is very nice and usually it is the only quiet place during the day where you can actually relax

The main problem of our stay was the room. It was supposed to be a "double bedroom villa", great for families. In reality it was a nightmare, exposed directly to the main stage, where super loud music from evening shows made it impossible to fall asleep until midnight every day - a huge problem since we were on holidays with an infant and older people. It was impossible to change the room, the only solution that the management provided us with was moving us to another "villa" in the exactly same area... For 3 days we were being told that they will make everything possible to help us, but then the empty promises just stopped and we ended up spending whole holidays in the same room, earplugged...