Kremlin Palace — Hotel in Aksu

OVERVIEW:||I stayed at Kremlin Palace for 7 nights (7th June to 15th June in room 3513) with my wife, both 30 y/o and English. Overall, we really enjoyed our holiday but there are definitely areas for improvement or things to be aware of before booking this resort.||PROS:||- Lots of bars all around the resort, spoilt for choice. Bar tenders will make you pretty much any drink if they understand what you are asking for. The iced coffees and mojitos are very nice!|- Lots of fridges around the resort near the bars with bottles of water than you can easily quickly grab and go.|- Good sized pool and activities in the pool throughout the day, yoga/water polo, foam party etc.|- Staff on rollerskates offering pool side drinks service |- Kids evening entertainment looked good|- Very good standard of food in the A la cartes (they have Turkish, Italian, Indian, Fish and BBQ).|- Food corner for lunch was good with plenty of choice to quickly grab (Pizza, burgers, chips, wraps, fruit, ice cream, waffles)|- Turkish (Pasha) for lunch was a big bonus, basically an A la carte for lunch (for free), with extensive menu everything freshly cooked |- Room was clean and spacious, aircon worked, mini bar stocked up. |- The resort in general was kept in a very clean condition, staff constantly clearing away rubbish and cleaning|- Good sized private beach with loads of sun loungers and a long pier to walk along|- Cabanas on the pier available to book, which included drinks and lunch service||CONS:||- SMOKERS ... it seems every single russian/turkish adult smokes. Whether that be people sat next to you by the pool/sun loungers or in the outside bars, you cannot get away from it unfortunately. My wife is pregnant so that was quite annoying constantly being around fag smoke. It will be a shock to English visitors as we are used to it being banned in most places, for them it is not. |- There is more of a language barrier for English speakers than anticipated. Some staff understand what you mean, then the next will have no idea. A few times I used google translate on my phone to say what I wanted.|- It was my 30th birthday when we were at Kremlin and my partner emailed ahead to see if she could arrange a little something in the room for my birthday (e.g cake/drink). When we returned after a day at the pool, there was a fruit bowl and a corked bottle of wine (with no bottle opener). My partner emailed back saying thanks but can we have a bottle opener for the wine....the next day they sent another fruit bowl and no bottle opener (we left it). She did email back but no response.|- Guest relations and staff are not openely helpful and are blunt/rude in nature. I don't think this is something they can ever improve, as is just in their nature/how they speak to people in their culture, so try to get used to it quick. I have a long list of examples but I don't want to focus my review solely on it. |- Lack of drinks menus at bars. There should be several on the bars and/or QR codes to scan. I worked out what drinks I could order by observing what other people were ordering. We did see one QR code by the pool but it was outdated.|- POOL. 1 massive part of the pool is very deep (over 6 foot deep) and is barely used/wasted IMO. Same pool music/order everday, change the music!! Lifeguards only cover one side of the pool/bridge, essentially useless, watch your children. They should have a lifeguard tower either side of the bridge. I saved one child from drowning and they had no idea it even happened.|- SUN LOUNGERS. Whilst it looks like there are alot of sun loungers at the pool.....there is not enough sun loungers for the amount of people at the resort. You have to get there early e.g 9-930 ish if you want to get a good one. On our last morning our transfer was at 7am and there was already sun loungers reserved when we walked past at 6:45. There are also so many sun lounge hoggers who will put towels out and not use the sun loungers all day. I don't get why they do it.|- Stolitsa MAIN BUFFET - just don't eat there. Very crowded and hectic. Wasn't impressed with the food choice. Hit and miss whether or not you will get served at the table. This isnt a criticism of the resort food as we ate at an A la carte every night, I understand if you have kids this may be difficult but you will be dissapointed if you go to the main buffet for food.|- ADULT EVENING ENTERTAINMENT. This was terrible, poorest I've seen at a holiday resort. Essentially it was just DJ sets with certain themes, maybe with a dancer on stage. It always started really late aswell between 9:30-10. |- Arrived at hotel past midnight. Bathroom was basically flooded. Had to go back to reception and change rooms, not the best first impression or what you would want after travelling all day.||TIPS AND HELPFUL INFO:||- Don't book tours through the hotel or holiday reps. Try to rip you off/charge double. Our 'holiday rep' Gabriel who we met on day 2 tried to charge us £95 per person for Antalya day tour. Tried to knock off 15% and take off the bogus insurance to reduce it to £70 ish. Kept pressuring me to book it so I stood up and left. Looked on FOUR SPRINGS TRAVEL and booked the exact tour for £40 per person. All turkish vendors people will try rip you off and see how much money they can get out of you, be warned.|- A la cartes cost 10 euro per person extra|- There is no Mexican, it has been changed to an Indian (No signs for indian and some hotel staff still believe Mexican is open.|- Book the fish restaurant just for the seafront setting|- The BBQ A la carte is only open once a week on Wednesdays and they need 15 people reserved for it to open|- Eat at Terram 24/7 for breakfast NOT the main buffet, very quiet and relaxing.|- Book a beach cabana, drinks and lunch service included. They are numbered, no.1 is at the end of the pier, no. 10 is closest to the beach. They cost 50 euros for the day.|- Can get most cocktails with and without alcohol. I.e my pregnant wife was having mojitos without alcohol.|- Ask for branded alcohol with mixers or will get the cheaper stuff|- Sit on the sun loungers at night at the end of the beach pier and you can hear the hotel next door (Swandor) evening live singers which is much better than Kremlins entertainment.|- Queue for bars on the right hand side to get served. One time (maybe 2nd day) I went up to a bar on the left hand side and there was 1 other person already being served. I waited and waited, as other people approached the bar after me and kept getting served, with myself looking at the staff wondering why Im not getting served. The staff will not be helpful in anyway and will point blank refuse your existance if you are not stood in the right place. Again, it's their culture and it's not something they will ever change so be aware.||.....||None of the cons or tips would stop me from recommending the resort as we did have a really good time and relaxing week. Just manage your expectations and be aware. I think 7 nights was the perfect amount of time. And for the price we paid for the amount you get/huge resort, can't really complain!! This cost us 1.1k each, and for the same in Spain/Greece it would be 2-3k plus...

This review is slightly critical and has been edited after some compensation by the hotel manager Firuze.

Staff - unhappy, not smiling, no customer focus, seems like they do not want to be there and are being forced to work. The only people who are fantastic are the photographers from Batman (Sefa) and his brothers. They have been great. Anastasia (the blonde one) from the animation is also fantastic and a great person. Altay and Sevda from the spa was also fabulous.

Rooms - our room was at the other end of the hotel (far away from the lobby/canteen. We have a 2 year old child and my wife has back problems. *WE FOUND UNATTENDED PILLS/MEDICATION UNDER OUR MATTRESS WHICH WAS NOT OURS. SO DANGEROUS AND COULD HAVE TURNED INTO A DISASTER IF MY CHILD FOUND THEM *. My child’s bed was missing a leg which we did not know about. My wife then fell and hurt her back. We told the staff this however they tried to compensate us through free room service!? Like a joke!? To add to this, they replaced my child's bed with a FLOOR BED!? Our room was moved closer to the lobby by Firuze the guest relations manager who was helpful when considering this.

My only concern is that the new room was infested with beetles and ants.

Food - was OK nothing special, cooked on mass and was tasteless. Cakes look good but all taste the same.

The hotel provides a patisserie service which has some very helpful and friendly staff and very tasty sandwiches, pastries and cakes with juice, tea or coffee.

A LA CART:

The hotel provides food to all inclusive through the canteen and as an extra everybody can dine at the à la cart restaurant at an extra fee. This was gifted to us by the hotel manager Firuze for the downfall in service and our experiences.

Mexican: The staff were friendly and helpful however the food was not the best. Very salty and not so tasty. I would definitely recommend the churros for dessert as this was amazing.

Fish (Greek concept): this was amazing, me and my family really enjoyed it. We had some fish and fish side dishes with live Greek music performance at the beach which was very refreshing and tasty.

Italian: Italian was okay. They had some nice dishes however the food was very salty and average. The dessert was fantastic I fully recommend the chocolate soufflé which is served with ice cream in a traditional pan.

Turkish: The Turkish food was amazing.

So much to eat starters, warm sides and main dish and a salad with a desert.

Snack bar - STAY AWAY. AVOID AVOID AVOID. My wife and child was food poisoned and in a really bad way. Our whole day was spoilt and we were let down massively resulting in us missing some good animation and shows

The hotel provides some activities which is managed by the animation team who are all amazing, live music, live performances for example Brazilian samba and Russian dance groups. We really did enjoy this concept and couldn’t have enough.

These are held in either the Colosseum or the main stage. Once the shows and live music is finished at about 11:30 pm the disco starts till 1 am which is also enjoyable.

This place is not 5 stars, it should be 3 or 4. At first when we arrived, we did come across some bad things however after complaining to the manager Firuze, she did compensate as well with free à la carte menus, free massages, a change of room which lead to a better experience at the hotel. The hotel really do care about their reputation so please do read through all Of the reviews.

Could I come back to this hotel?

I usually answer either:

Definitely, Maybe, or Impossible.

For this hotel, I MAY come back. I am basing this on the fact that we were compensated well and to be honest the hotel does have a very special...

This was our 4th stay at the Kremlin Palace in the past two year’s and it didn’t disappoint. Yet again we had a fabulous time.|On arrival when we checked in, we were taken to our room by a really friendly bellboy but we had an issue with the room which was soon resolved really quickly by the manager of the hotel. We were given a room in the newer block on the second floor, this is where the rooms have been renovated, however on opening the door the bathroom had an awful smell of raw sewage, so we went back to reception to complain and the manager gave us a different room on the 5th floor which was fine. The rooms are very modern with a flat screen TV on the wall, mini fridge which was stocked with water, juices and Efes Beer, a safe to put all your valuables in, a kettle and a range of teas and coffees. The bathroom had a lovely walk-in shower and the room was cleaned every day and fresh towels were left. On check in we were given two room cards and two towel cards.|You can get your towels from 8am near the main pool. There were always plenty of sunbeds available both around the pool and on the beach and jetty. We always managed to find our favourite spot around the main pool every day. We only used the pool at the new block once as we found it was in the shade for a lot of the day and very quiet. We preferred the main pool as there was more going on around there with the entertainment team and music playing and we love to sit in the sun most of the day. The two bars near the main pool do the most amazing iced coffees, they are to die for! You must try them. Both the pool area and the beach are lovely, be careful though of the sea, it can get a little choppy. We swam from the end of the jetty back to the beach and it was hard going, the best time to swim is early in the morning when the sea is calmer. During the day they have water polo and aqua gym in the pool and on a Friday there is a foam party in the pool. |We chose to eat at the 24 hour restaurant rather than the main buffet restaurant as it was a lot quieter whereas the main restaurant was a nightmare, it was like a cattle market! But the couple of times we did venture in there I have to say there was a lot more choice than that at the 24 hour one. At lunchtimes we ate at the food corner. There is a large variety of food choices so you will never go hungry. |The entertainment at night was good, we went to the amphitheatre a couple of times to watch the shows and the DJ shows at the other stage are great with themed music nights.|If you want to venture into town to have a walk around the shops there is a bus stop opposite the front entrance of the hotel where you can hop on a bus, it costs just 61p each way using your debit card and takes just a few minutes to get into town. However there are always taxi’s outside if you prefer.|I have to say that all the staff are so friendly and accommodating and if any of the other reviews tell you something different don’t listen to them, they are probably the rude guests who have no manners themselves, there were quite a lot of them there when we stayed. There is no excuse for being rude, the staff work really hard to make your holiday special and it costs nothing to say please and thankyou! |Thank you to everyone at the Kremlin for a wonderful stay yet again, we would definitely recommend this...