Rixos Premium Bodrum — Hotel in Bodrum

As a frequent traveler who spends 7-8 months of the year traveling and has stayed at 34 hotels in the past year alone, I have enough experience in the hospitality. ||||First of all, I would like to mention reception desk. ||Everything works efficiently. I must especially mention Aida - she provided exceptional assistance throughout my stay, promptly resolving any issues and maintaining excellent communication. Thanks to her helpfulness, I decided to extend my stay. Of all the staff, I'd especially like to mention her.||||The staff throughout the hotel were generally friendly, contributing to a positive atmosphere. Everyone tried to assist you in any way they could. However, some waiters had limited English skills, which occasionally made ordering drinks challenging. Room service will bring a corkscrew or glasses to your room for free, even at night, that’s perfect.||||Evelina from guest relations department helped us by making calls to restaurants and luxury boutiques in Yalikavak for us, she stayed connected in WhatsApp 24/7, thank her for that. ||||About the hotel’s building I can mention recently undergone renovation, with all public spaces being updated. The villas and some rooms have also been renovated. I stayed in a renovated Executive room (90 square meters), which was spacious and aesthetically pleasing overall. However, there were some quality issues with the renovation - the mini bar was old, the shower drainage was poorly designed, and handles in both the bathroom and the room were loose or falling off. Despite these minor issues, the room was generally attractive.||||The newly renovated lobby is beautiful, and the sauna, hamam, and gym facilities have been nicely updated as well.||||The hotel grounds are extensive and beautiful. Even staying close to reception, I walked about 5,000 steps daily just moving between my room, the pool, beach, and restaurants, that’s a nice benefit for health. You can always request a buggy service just in case. ||||The peaceful island area is perfect for relaxation. Once we enjoyed symphony classic concert there.||||The beach quality is excellent - fine sand without pebbles, a gradual entrance to the water, and calm conditions due to its protected bay location.||||Food quality at Turquoise restaurant was generally good with diverse options. However, the dining experience at People's restaurant was less satisfactory in terms of taste. We can’t talk anything about others a-la-carte restaurants. Availability of seafood is limited. Mussels and shrimp were rarely served, which was disappointing considering that other hotels, including other Rixos properties, offer these items daily. In general everything was fresh and tasty. Anyway, remember, that you are in Turkey) The staff also does a good job. ||||||The wine is terrible - they only have local wines available without extra charge, and I think calling this stuff 'wine' is a joke. A wine list is also available, but the selection is small and very expensive compared to prices in Europe or even restaurants in Turkey. For example, Hugel Gewürztraminer costs about 110 euros here, while the same bottle costs 70 euros at a Michelin-mentioned restaurant in Bodrum, 40 euros in a shop in Bodrum, and only 15 euros in Europe. Other hotels offer free of charge often at least basic cheap wine from Italy for example.||||On a negative note, I lost my headphones on the property. Despite my Apple Locator confirming they remained within the hotel premises, staff were unable to locate them. They were likely left in a bathrobe pocket and discarded during cleaning. The hotel said they found nothing, but the headphones never left the hotel. ||||The spa facilities are excellent - the new sauna is particularly good and heats up to 100 degrees Celsius. However, extending sauna hours until 9:00 or 10:00 PM (ideally 24/7) would allow guests to relax after dinner.||||My girlfriend particularly enjoyed the variety of sports and wellness activities, for example yoga, pilates, and sound healing sessions, along with several other fitness classes. I think that she will write her personal review. Every day you will get timetable for sport activities.||||Overall, based on my experience with other hotels in Turkey and others parts of world, I have a positive assessment of this hotel and would possibly return here in the future. In general I can star the...

Rooms are great. We stayed in a superior suite garden view, all inclusive for two weeks. But has a lot of negatives, that outweigh positives.

The room was excellent, very spacious. If you’re lucky enough to get the room on the ground floor then you will have a huge balcony, which is showed on the 360 view on the website, as well as the balcony for the main room. Amenities are stocked up everyday and consist of nail file, toothbrush and toothpaste, shaving kit, shower cap and more. The shampoo, conditioner, shower gel and body lotion are all from the Anjana spa and smell lovely.

The food from the peoples restaurant is delicious especially the Levrek fish, light and filling with a salad. The buffalo wings and cheeseburger is also a go to. The buffet food from the turquoise restaurant is basically the same everyday breakfast, lunch and dinner. Which I don’t mind for breakfast and lunch (which we would usually eat at peoples restaurant as it’s close to beach) but it got a bit boring for dinner. We also tried to book the other restaurants available like the teppanyaki, however we were ignored by our assistant on WhatsApp. We also did mention the food is the same every and it’s getting a bit boring but that didn’t change either. However the food is good and another thing I realised is that they don’t use salt in their foods which is very good. The desserts are also the same everyday, a variety of cakes, baclava, ice cream, soufflé, sutlac, creme brûlée and there’s always a selection of fruit and salads. There’s also a pasta station. There’s always something for children to eat and do.

Near the pool there is a Starbucks which I visited everyday to get a caramel iced latte.

The Spa had hammam, steam room and sauna facilities for free, and changing rooms. Very clean and well maintained. Also there’s a hairdresser. I didn’t try any of the services due to the very extortionate price. €100 for a wash and blowdry.

The service needs a little work. Waiting up to 40mins for a golf cart to take you somewhere is ridiculous. Also for it to not even turn up is what happened 99% of the time. So most of the time we would walk. Also the room cleaning, I may suggest maybe a vacuum, especially for all the hair on the floor. But In general the lovely ladies do an amazing job at changing the sheets and making up the bed, refreshing towels etc. Another thing we came to realise very quickly during our third day there, is that the hotel was somewhat understaffed, especially at the beach, therefore made the service very very slow. It would be one or two people in the hot sun looking after 150+ running back and forth. I can’t fault them as they’re lovely hardworking people but can fault the management, as there would be ten waiters in the peoples restaurant (which is where the drinks and food would come out from right next to the beach) standing around doing nothing, and the two people or even one person somedays, running around looking after everyone on the beach.

Another downside is that there’s no animation or entertainment apart from a show by a band or a singer at the stage close to the beach. Which I came to realise was repeating the same band every few days. That was the only entertainment. Some days the other restaurants which are not free, would occasionally have a live pianist or the Greek restaurant may have something going on but other than that there wasn’t anything else.

Another major issue was the security, doors to your rooms are easily opened, slide a card through the gap and your can open the door. Again this was ignored when we told the reception desk. Also you can get into the hotel by saying your name, room number and showing you have a card. All these details aren’t always checked so technically anyone can enter and you could sneak people in.

Overall I wouldn’t come here again, as there’s not much going on, It gets boring. It’s like going to Harrods and being greeted with Brent Cross shopping centre or Wood Green mall. The name Rixos has a reputation and standards and this hotel doesn’t...

We stayed 6 nights at Rixos Premium Bodrum. Check in was basic and poor no information was given to us during our check in and the agent said he was really tired and he would WhatsApp us - what an absolute joke and such a poor start. We booked an executive suite and arrived about 15 minutes before 2pm we were told to have lunch and the suite would be ready shortly very nice of them - the suite was well appointed spacious 2 bedrooms 2 bathrooms. Ample closet / storage space. The suites are new but are already showing signs of ageing. The shower in the main bathroom on arrival didn’t work properly but in fairness they changed the head pretty quickly. What concerned me most was the mould in the shower and even though I brought this to the attention of management after the first day nothing was done about it. The smaller shower overflows and leaks into the bathroom. The website advertises blackout curtains in the bedrooms but again these curtains aren’t large enough for the windows - even though I told management / the team about this their offer of a resolution was to install a curtain too short followed by taping the curtain up which meant you couldn’t use the balcony. The sound proofing isn’t great and we could hear our neighbours above us constantly - move a chair heard them, housekeeping cleaning can hear them. Trying to sleep hear the neighbours walking around. Our iron wasn’t working depositing white particles all over my clothing, the next iron we were given just spilled water everywhere. For a luxury premium product this was all too basic. The effort from management and their responses fell well short of expectations and quality. Murat Gokmen’s email response to me was rude and dismissive of my concerns and even claimed I complained for an upgrade. I was happy with the suite just wanted what was promised which is black out curtains and working room amenities is that too much to ask for. The management do not care - they ask you to WhatsApp them on the group (they set up a chat on arrival) but nothing is ever done. I sent countless WhatsApp’s and emails but got no response or offered awful solutions to the issues. Up until our penultimate day we were offered to move to another suite too little too late. Surely management / maintenance and housekeeping should be checking rooms / suites before checking guests in. Management need to be on top of things and they are clearly not. On one of our evenings we couldn’t even back to our suite after dinner as a VIP was in situ and they closed off the walkways - maybe it’s indicative of how the hotel operates special treatment for some and not others. There are 2 pools at the hotel plus the beach and the kids club. The main pool is absolutely stunning with lots of sun loungers but the water is freezing and not heated. Even with high 20 degree weather it’s always empty. The other pool which is heated is indoor/outdoor and lovely but the area to sit by it is small. The beach and ocean are spectacular. The kids club slides are great for younger children but again the water is not heated so your little ones will feel cold. Breakfast at turquoise is lovely and the best meal of the day with fresh eggs / waffles / crepes / pancakes among the other lovely offerings. You’re better off having lunch at people restaurant as it’s a sit down meal and fresh to order whereas turquoise is a buffet and a bit same same every day. Dinner at turquoise doesn’t change much so if you are here for a few days you will be eating pretty much the same dinner every evening as unfortunately the a la carte restaurants only open in May. The views of Aegean and mountains are stunning. The grounds are vast and the island is a nice walking spot. It was an ok stay but could have and should have been a lot better. Let down by poor management who don’t care about their...