Side Star Resort Hotel — Hotel in Manavgat

Arrived back from a 2 week stay at the end of August at the Side Star Resort Antalya. As a family of 3, with a teenage boy. ||||It was very late / early hours of the morning when we arrived. As soon as we got to the hotel we were greeted by a lovely man on reception who checked us in, another man gave us our bands & the guy on reception suggested we go to the 24hr buffet for a drink & a bite to eat. Much to our sons delight! He told us where we needed to go & off we went, there were probably about 15 other people in there with us so not too busy, there were chips, chicken burgers, onion rings, breads, etc,||a juice machine & the bar was open. We stayed downstairs about half hr then decided to go to our room. We went back to reception where a guy had put our luggage on a trolley & we followed him to our room 5511. He opened the lift & told us to go to floor 5, he followed us put our luggage in our room & told us how to use the air con / where everything was. ||||The rooms:||We found them relatively small, the balcony was very small. Thankfully its just a base to ready for the evening & to sleep so it was sufficient. We just found it small for the 3 of us & our stuff. The shower was piss poor literally felt like it dribbled out, then you would get it to a nice temperature & it would turn red hot or freezing cold so you'd have to move. There were plenty of plugs which is usually an issue when we are charging our things, but there was more than enough. ||||Food:||Although I had informed the hotel we were there to celebrate my husbands 40th, Day 1 was my 41st birthday & we had planned to go out of the resort for the evening to find a restaurant near by but after a day at the pool we got back to our room around 6pm & the hotel had slid a note under the door saying they had booked us a table for 7pm in the main restaurant so my husband went down & asked them if we could change it to 8pm. The manager (He had a Blue shirt on & big curly hair) agreed & said yes come see me I will sort you out. Fast forward to 8pm, we walked in the restaurant my husband found him & shown him the slip of paper & reiterated the conversation they'd had. He denied all knowledge of saying it & said it was too late & we were supposed to be there at 7pm whilst pointed at his watch. At this point we couldn't be bothered arguing, we were tired & hungry so went & found a table & just ate our tea.||Its all inclusive which is the same at every All Inclusive hotel its standard, but the presentation of some of the food was amazing, especially with the deserts stand, the chicken kebab was lovely, they had a donner kebabs night too (Turkish night I think) that was amazing night too. I'm a bit of a fussy eater & dont really eat breakfast, but went down a few times & just had a coffee, there's plenty of choice for breakfast, dinner & tea. We found some of the food was cold though, especially if you got your food first then found a table.||The pool snack bar got very busy at times but the food seemed fresher & warmer than in the main restaurant at dinner time.||The 24 hrs food & drink: When you have a teenage son that loves to eat or pick at food at silly times, this definitely came in handy. He would come in from playing football at 11.30 / midnight & he'd go get himself a drink & a snack. ||You have to move from the lobby when the bar closes to another part, just past the main restaurant. We knew there was a nightclub / disco on site so one night decided to find it. There were no more than 10 people in there while we were in there we only had 2 drinks & then left. It's by the games room. I believe its only open Tues, Thursday & Sunday. But could be wrong. ||||A'la Carte:||As we stayed for 2 weeks we got to use all 3 restaurants. ||||A'la Carte Turkish:||This was the first restaurant we ate in & was for me the nicest out of the 3.||There was already food on the table when we got there, bread, with some dips (absolutely gorgeous) then they brought something else out I can't remember the name of it, but it was absolutely gorgeous, presentation was lovely too, staff were attentive, your glass was never empty. Would definitely recommend booking this. ||||A'la Carte Mexican:||Again there was already food on the table when we got there, tortilla chips with 3 Dips & when they were gone they came with more. ||My husband ordered the fajitas (mixed) & myself & our son ordered the steak all cooked to perfection & had lots of flavour,  again the drinks were always flowing, staff were friendly. We aren't really desert people so we didn't have the desert in any of restaurants. ||||A'la Carte Asian:||This was the last restaurant we ate at & it was on our last full night & again there was already food on the table when we got there. ||||As we'd had a word with the reservations manager regarding the drinks service in the main restaurant when we arrived to this A'la Carte, the table was decorated with a table cloth, flowers etc which was lovely, but felt as though this was because we had made some comments none of the other tables were dressed like ours & non of the other tables seemed to get service like ours, even though we had told them we didn't want a special table or treatment. We got extra food, larger drinks & to be honest the extra food got wasted as it was way too much.||The food was lovely in here too although not my personal favourite, It was the Turkish restaurant that was my favourite. ||||The main restaurant:||We found the food was luke warm in here sometimes & not as fresh as the live cooking station outside. Although by the time you had got a fresh table inside your food had gone cold. ||||Waiting staff: (in the main restaurant)||It is table service only in here, we would usually get a table then I would go get my food & my husband would stay at the table until I was back, then he would go get his. Out of the 8 nights we actually ate in the main restaurant we actually had a drink with our meal was 2. It was a case of we would have either just about eaten all our food or halfway through our food before a waiter had even acknowledged we were there. We like a drink with our meals, whether that be water, a beer, wine, pop just something to wash our meal down. Many times they would just walk past our table. At one point I went up to the bar to ask for a drink as we were that thirsty & was told it was table service only, to which I replied we had been sat at our table 15 mins & nearly finished our meal without a drink. I went to sit back down & a few minutes later a waiter came & took our order, we took a few sips & left. So I would advise taking a bottle of water with you on an an evening. As lunch times (I only ate in there a couple of times but didn't have an issue getting a drink) ||||Cleaners: Our cleaner was so lovely, happy friendly, she was in every day, every morning when she heard our door open she would pop her head out & say good morning. She was always smiling & putting little touches to our beds. She was one of the nicest cleaners we've ever met in another country. ||||Pool:||We went at the back end of August, we would naturally wake around 7.30 / 7.45 & would go down & get a bed for the day. We were told we could leave our bed for 1 hour after 7am. There was always plenty of beds left even by 10am in some good spots too. On our last day I saw a man walk round with a trolley & remove the hotel towels on beds that didn't have anyone on. This was the only time I saw this. Plenty of pool entertainment too if that's what you are in to. ||About 10am every morning (apart from Sunday as this was their day off, I think) the entertainment team would come out round the pool & do the hotel dance there were a couple of different dances they did throughout the day. They had pool parties through the day (on a certain day), all different activities, definitely plenty to do if you enjoy getting involved. ||||Evenings:||We like to go out on an evening & find our own entertainment, & go shopping & have a drink in the bars around we always have. So I can't comment on what the entertainment is like in the hotel as we never saw it.||As there weren't a lot of bars around & our son had made friends he didn't want to really go out as he wanted to be with them. So there was only a few nights we actually went out of the hotel on an evening. We generally stayed in the lobby area and had drinks in there. We did go out & have a look at the 2 big parties they had outside & they had put in so much effort. Around 4.30 / 5.00 I think it was, they ask you to move from the beds (only once a week) so they can set up for the party. It looks absolutely incredible I'm not going to lie, they had inflatables out, red carpet, more tables, a DJ, a dance floor, popcorn stand & so much more. ||||Staff:||We found some staff were really friendly, happy & would go the extra mile. The waiting staff in the lobby area were super friendly one guy behind the bar in the lobby, I asked if he could make me a specific cocktail that wasn't on the menu he was more than happy to play Tom Cruse out of cocktail & give it a go. We had a laugh & a giggle about the name (Screaming Orgasm) I said thank you & i'd be drinking this for the rest of the evening. When I went up again another guy served me, I shown him the same cocktail on my phone & he was quite rude & in an abruptly manor told me we only do them cocktails & pointed at the drinks menu. Had he said it in a different tone it would have been different. ||All the waiting staff in the lobby were super friendly, always said good evening, how are you? Every evening as we walked past any of them, even if they were cleaning a table or busy doing something they would always acknowledge you with a hello or good evening,  how are you.? The lobby waiting staff ALL definitely made us feel welcome. One in particular was Kadeer, very chatty, very welcoming, again as the rest of the waiting staff in the lobby absolutely amazing. I just hope they are appreciated for how welcoming & friendly they are & how they make you feel. Thank you to you all, especially Kadeer. ||||Entertainment off site:||There are loads of shops 10 mins walk from the hotel obviously haggle to get you in & to buy things, we didn't come across many bars, so spent most nights at the hotel. We spent the first few evenings in Side old town. We took the number 5 outside the hotel down to the old town. Wow its absolutely beautiful, very modern but old at the same time. Plenty of very good quality dupes of bags, clothes, belts etc. We stopped off in a bar called The Royal Castle pub & Steakhouse, as my husband was having a bit of banter with the guy outside who tries to get you in, the first time unfortunately we could only have one drink as we had to get the last bus back to the hotel, but he gave us his card & told us to whatsapp him & he would come collect us from our hotel. The following day we messaged & arranged for them to come collect us at 7pm & booked a table to eat. The food was absolutely gorgeous, hubby had steak with Jack Daniels sauce, I had chicken kebabs & our son had spaghetti Bologneise, so much food for the price. The staff are very friendly, chatty & very welcoming, all talking to us like we'd known them years. Unfortunately our son made some friends round the pool the next day so he didn't want to venture out on an evening so we stayed in the hotel for the rest if the holiday. ||||Pool / Beds / Pool bars :||There was what felt like a broken tile in the pool one day as we were playing catch with a ball I stood on it & hurt my foot, not cut, not blood just scraped it. That evening I attempted to report it to reception but the language barrier was too much & he misunderstood what I'd said & asked for photos of my hurt foot. I ended up saying it didn't matter & walked off. I just wanted to make them aware as there were lots of children diving in & going to the bottom of the pool & also playing ball so I didn't want anyone to hurt themselves. ||I saw a young English boy (about 12ish) have a nose bleed in the pool, instead of getting out to clear his nose he kept putting his nose in the water to clean it. Absolutely disgusting. I would have said something to him had he been closer but he was at the other side of the pool.||Mid afternoon the main pool bar ran out of very popular drinks like Disorano & Dark Rum & didn't re stock I have no idea if it was re stocked for the evening as we never sat outside on an evening. ||||Drinks in the main restaurant:||We did report the staff being slow in the restaurant with drinks to the reservations manager, just so they are aware & can make the relevant changes. We have stayed at loads of hotels over the years (some bigger than this) where they have had a self dispenser where you could help your self to soft drinks some even had a beer & wine dispenser this would have been a life saver. Even water on each table or a water dispenser where you could help yourself would have been sufficient. We completely understand & could see the staff were working & they weren't just stood about talking to each other but to have your plate taken away then offered a drink, or for members of staff to walk past your table with no acknowledgment was a bit of a joke. We were offered a 'special table' but we didn't want special treatment we wanted a drink with our meals, which I don't think is too much to ask. ||||Even in the pool bar serving can be slow with drinks. A few times we ordered drinks that never turned up so in the end we just went up and got our own as it was quicker.||||If you vape, we learned whilst out there that they are banned, we were running extremely low on vape juice on the second to last day so nipped to the shop to try get some but the shop keeper told me they are banned in Turkey, you can take them out with you, you just can't buy them out there. Same with Menthol / flavoured cigarettes, having said that you can buy them from 'under the counter' ||||The end of the holiday:||Apparently you can try keep the room on if its available till 3pm as the cleaners finish at 4pm & I heard it was €30. The showers are in the spa & you have to book them the morning you leave. ||||The showers in the spa aren't monitored as in time slots we booked a slot for 5.30 & a big group of Germans jumped the queue, so I didn't get in till 5.50. I was absolutely livid & obviously we argued that they have to book but they were already in the shower room half naked & conveniently as we were trying to argue our point there were no staff & they couldn't understand! ||||We don't usually come back to the same hotel as we like to experience different hotels / areas, if we were to return we would definitely go towards the old town as it was more us. ||||Games Room:||We genuinely thought our son would live in there, but he surprised us & didn't. He spent some time in there but not as much as we thought. Theres pool tables, bowling, arcades loads of games. We went in for an hour one evening & played pool it was...

I'm not the one who usually writes reviews but I genuinely think people need the heads up. This review is genuine and no exaggeration. We stayed here for 7 nights. My 5 months olds first holiday.

Please bare in mind this hotel barely speaks English.. and is full of Russians and Germans. We felt so unwelcomed. We were there for 4 days now and I tried to book some excursion trips as the we hadn't been out the hotel much. I was told to check the board for my travel agent who wasn't even on the board.

We asked several times for beach towels to the room, not once were we ever told the towels needed to be collected by poolside ( as it's not in a very visible location)

The pillows were rock hard and turkey mattress have always been rock hard. Bedrooms were small for a two bedroom room having a baby I feel we should've been given a larger room. We paid for sea view room and we could literally only see a inch of the sea, I rather not have because the pool was just disturbing if we ever wanted a lie in.

We asked for emergency money exchange at the reception and instead of trying to help we were told to go to the local bazaar at 10:00 pm at night full well knowing we had a baby with us! And nobody made us aware there is a bus which takes you there and back so at that point I did not know I got annoyed with the receptionist and only then we were treated a little better with towels to our room, bedroom cleaned better and we were able to book a trip with another travel agent as I don't know where ours was almost all week. Bearing in mind with only 3 days left to our holiday.

This hotel has its own private beach which is nice however the sun beds are so far from the sea your feet literally burn by the time you get to the sea!! The water excursions which are booked right by the this hotels private beach (literally 10/15 metres) is very good with a wide range of water sports. We did parasailing and my husband did fly board. The photo team is separate he was SO rude he told us to get out from his cabin just because we could only afford a couple photos and not a minimum of 6, the rule he made up there and then because he heard me speak to my husband saying we don't have enough money left to buy more than a couple. I asked before and he told me it's 7 euros for each photo he never once said you have to buy a minimum of 6. He deleted our photos infront of us. He was that rude I almost broke into tears. He's male, average height and body build, light skinned. TBH a lot of the Turkish people are very rude and unhelpful and most hotels are full of Russians who are also rude too. My mum who came with us on holiday has only been abroad to Egypt and turkey and even she said in Egypt we felt like royalty and we were so respected. Not saying we needed to be treated as good as that but even half the amount of respect and acknowledgement would've been nice.

I've rated it three stars because although the service in this hotel for British people is poor ( and for me the service is mainly what counts for me) the hotel itself is quite beautiful designed, every night there is entertainment, large pool, kids pool, shaded baby pool. Nice gardens, disco, games room of course as it's 5 star. Food variety was decent, they are very particular with times on serving so don't bother going before hand they won't allow you to eat. The professional photo guy in the hotel is good but again we bought 9 photos which cost £90 and instead of putting the rest of our photos on a cd for us they are all get deleted, in England if you pay a lot of money for a few photos printed you'll get the rest for free on a USB or cd. Because what are the photo team going to do with our photos? Generally the holiday was ideal for us as we are Muslims so everything was halal but unfortunately the people in turkey ruin it and hotel service ruined it. I've been marmaris before I enjoyed it there a...

I’ll start by saying this: if you’re German, I would recommend this hotel, but if you’re Turkish or from another country, I personally wouldn’t. The staff’s priority seems to be Germans — they smile more and treat them differently, while we, as Turkish people in our own country, didn’t receive the same treatment.||When we arrived, the welcome from the women at reception was genuinely kind, and the gentleman who showed us to our room was also very welcoming. We stayed in a family room, which was nice overall, though it was strange that the twin bedroom only had one plug socket. The minibar was a pleasant surprise with more options than I’ve seen in previous hotels. However, I drank a chocolate milk on the first day, and it wasn’t replaced until the very last day of my week-long stay — something they should pay more attention to, especially since it’s supposed to be restocked daily.||The food was one of the highlights. There was a different variety each day, and it never felt repetitive. That said, the chips at breakfast and dinner were always disappointing — they tasted like leftovers. On the other hand, the snack bars were excellent, especially the one by the pool, which had amazing, fresh options and great variety. The man working at the pasta section was kind and friendly. The beach snack bar was good too, though not quite as impressive as the pool one.||The beach itself was one of the best I’ve been to: sandy, clean, and fun, even when the waves got a little strong. The sea temperature was just right, but the pool was always extremely cold. You do get used to it after a while, but it’s still a bit uncomfortable at first. The slides weren’t too exciting, except for the rainbow slide, which was actually really fun.||One thing that surprised me was that the hotel didn’t provide bottled water. At first, I was worried the water machines would taste like tap water, but they turned out to be very refreshing and always ice cold. Drinks at the bar were also great, especially the cocktails and mocktails. Unfortunately, many of the bartenders seemed moody, except for one man with round glasses who worked mornings. A special mention goes to Tayfun — from day one, he served with genuine joy and happiness, and he absolutely deserves recognition (and a raise!). Another great staff member was Günay, who was polite and attentive when serving drinks around the sunbeds.||Not all the bar staff were like that, though. We did encounter a rude bartender who was dismissive towards us, while happily serving Germans and Russians. Sadly, this wasn’t an isolated case; it seemed to be the general attitude of many workers. To be fair, the bar managers handled the situation well and apologized to us.||Entertainment was another mixed point. Halil from the animation team stood out — he’s talented, does his job wonderfully, and speaks excellent English. There were themed events like beach parties, pool parties, and white parties, but they all felt repetitive, as the same songs were played over and over. On top of that, the poolside music during the day was either repetitive or sometimes not played at all, which was disappointing.||On my last day, I had an issue with reception. I needed to call my transfer but didn’t have a Turkish number. I asked the man in the black uniform at reception for help, but he was moody and unhelpful. He pretended to dial, then told me the number wasn’t going through and to come back later. Just two minutes after, my sister called, and it went through immediately. It felt like he simply didn’t want to help.||Overall, while there are positives — such as the beach, snack bars, and a few outstanding staff members — I would not recommend this hotel unless you are German. The feeling of being treated as less of a priority, even as a Turkish guest in Turkey, left a negative impression that overshadowed the good parts...