Hotel Kalif — Hotel in Ayvalık

We needed a place to stay in Ayvalik and seeing it was the low season we could not find too many hotels that were open, and that could be booked online. An important point to note - this hotel claims to be Ayvalik on trivago.com but is in fact in Sarimsakli, 7km out of Ayvalik.||||Sarimsakli is a derelict, run-down dump with stray animals everywhere. I suspect it would be a much more interesting place in the summer/high season, but in December it felt like a ghost town. ||||We had a hard time finding the Kalif hotel, this could be partly due to it looking nothing like the pictures portrayed it to be. The exterior paint is in nowhere near as good condition as the the photos claim and the pool was empty (closed for the season).||||On checkin we asked to see the room and were very nearly ready to forfeit our money and find somewhere else. The room was extremely cold, the furniture tired and antiquated. The TV looked like it was from the 70's - we didn't even bother trying to turn it on. There was virtually no sound isolation from the door (you could fit a folded newspaper between the floor-door gap) and the walls did not seem much better. Wifi was available but was slow, intermittent and kept requiring you to re-login. ||||We had asked (based on other reviews) for a high floor room, this request was ignored and we were placed on the first floor. Reluctantly we accepted the room despite finding black hair stuck to the wall of the bathroom. Additionally, the bathroom was really cold - the stone floor made it very uncomfortable to spend any long time in there. ||||When turning on the heatpump to try and warm the room it made a loud, continuous tick-tick-tick noise so we asked for another room. The "new" room was on the same floor, equally as cold, twice as small and it seemed the heatpump didn't work at all. In the end, we opted for the original room and tried to make the best of it.||||"Dinner" was included in our reservation; don't get too excited - it was nothing special. A salad bar, rice and some shriveled meat which I never did work out what it was. Same story with breakfast the next morning. We were down by 0930 and the breakfast had finished, but the manager was good enough to put aside an (albeit unexciting) breakfast plate for us.||||Which brings me onto my next point - the manager(s). They were friendly, were reasonable when we asked to change room (and then back again) and were probably the best part of this hotel. Kalif hotel is the best in the area it seems, but that is not saying much. If you plan to stay in Sarimsakli know what to expect - this place was OK for one night but we were both glad we were moving on...

First bad hotel (town) experience in Turkey.||So.. we love traveling through Turkey by car and so far we’ve never had a bad experience with staying in any certain town or hotel, but… we arrived to sarimsakli town and.. spent an hour finding a parking space. Why? Because In this town none of the hotels, apartments, air bnb’s have a parking lot, so everyone here arriving by car has to park on the street. Resulting in absolutely jammed streets with cars in the whole town. Ok now we’re past that, found a parking spot 1km from the hotel, but at least we found something. Next..||Hotel is 6 floors with about 100 rooms. Tiny pool with lots of loungers, but no actual ground to put them on..next.. check into the hotel, go up to the room.. shocking! But we’re only here 1 night so we’ll survive..until.. we go down to the pool, so to escape the room..we come back to the room at 6 pm, because the hotel staff just gestures us to get up from the pool area😬anyway.. room. Straight to shower and… no water!!! No water in the shower, sink, toilet.. nothing!! Go to complain.. we’re told: “ oh yes, we’ve had 10 more complaints like this, we’re working on it, will be fixed in 15 minutes.. spoke to a neighboring room guests it it was our whole block of 36 rooms with no water. it is now 1 hour past and we still have no running water.||I won’t even mention the food, cos it’s terrible, even eggs could not be cooked properly.||I’ve never stayed in a hotel like this in my entire life ( and I’ve stayed in poorly rated hotels before). The whole town is not right for people traveling by car at all. So!|| If you’re traveling through Turkey by car, for your own sake.. please! Avoid this Sarimsakli town of Ayvalik, and...

We have visited Kalif 4 years ago in September. This year we have spent there 11 nights/HB which we payed 280€ and once again we had great time there. Hotel is in quiet street, it has own beach only 100m far. Our room was at 5th floor so we had great view. Room was cleaned every day: clean towels, new soap, toilet paper... Every room has AC, minibar, bathroom, tv, hairdryer and phone. Hotel also has 2 elevators, restaurant, pool, WiFi, ping-pong and modest fitness room. ||We had breakfast and dinner: between 15 and 20 meals every day. Breakfast: eggs, different types of cheese, salads, olives, salami, jam, honey, cornflakes, tea cookies, bread, tea, milk, coffee... Dinner: every night chef served Turkish specialities. Food was different, from cold appetizers, soups, salads, fruits, pastas and of course sweets. No one will leave restaurant hungry. ||Stuff is friendly, some of them are speaking Englih, some German, some Serbian. They are always ready to help.||Naighborhood is peacefull and quiet. Also safe. Main street is closed every night from 20h to 8h next morning. There you will find a lot of bazaars which work till late night. ||Go to City Market across the post office.||You can also visit Ayvalik. Mini bus goes every 15 minutes and costs 2,50TYL (1€-2,2TYL). There is no need to go to the bus station, you can stop the bus everywhere you want just raise your hand. ||I can also recommend day trip to Lesvos (Greece). Return boat ticket costs 30€. Boats leave Ayvalik port every morning at 9h and leaving Lesvos at 19:15h. ||Be carefull, temperature is high, it was between 45 and 50°C. Sea is extreme salty, clean, full with fish and...