Starlight Resort Hotel — Hotel in Manavgat

The hotel is excellent: rooms are good (at least bungalows, which were some of the last to be renovated), the area is bombastic green, the beach is clean, the sea is very clean and despite October it was still very warm (perhaps the biggest pleasant surprise), children's towns, hammocks, swings. It was our first time in a hotel with a stable, a 24-hour fully-functional restaurant, and show program that surprised every day (it is repeated only once every 14 days and includes only guest artists: Todes, circuses, motorcyclists, etc.). No one, as some complain in comments, needs to be extra paid for anything, tips are voluntary. Extra room items, 24-hour coffee in the bar, refillable in-room minibar, beach towels change, bottled water etc. – everything is unlimited, included and there was no problem with anything. I don't fully understand those comments on the lack of food: every day there are at least two kinds of grilled fish, lots of vegetables and fruits, Turkish sweets every time, always french fries, pizza, Turkish and other bagels for young picky eaters. During the day, right at the beach, unlimited fruits, ice cream, waffles, fries and hot dogs are waiting for you. We visited three a la carte restaurants. Two of them were free of charge (4 free restaurants all in all, and only once a week), and the other was a prepayment fish one. The last one at the seaside we liked most of all, the Turkish one (on the lawn) was also of a good level, the Mexican we liked little less. Yes, food is constantly repeated, and you can only find huge shrimps and all sorts of seafood in the prepaid a la carte, but during your stay you never get tired of variety of the main table, which is much larger than at home. In case of birthday, the hotel provides you with a birthday cake with a candle, no matter where you have your dinner (you have to inform Guest Relation Service in advance).||- The hotel shares its area with the Sunrise Hotel, and everyone can use both properties. There's a train, travelling through the territory, stopping about once every half hour at each stop. But kids jump into it on the move. By the way, actively and by foot, we could reach quickly any point of both hotels, although at first glance the territory may seem vast.||- We made our own way to the greenhouses. There's nothing outstanding about them, but they are nice, and there was a gardener on the spot, he tried to talk about his plants (suits us better than joining hotel tour).||- Pools are beautiful, in October they were cold, for some reason only Starlight pools don’t have a chlorine smell, and there is no heated pool.||- Waterpark is not extreme, but excellent, for all ages: a cute sand pool for babies, a "king of the mountain" ball for teenagers, the scariest slide-toilet:) and others.||- There is a high-level spa center, with many chill-out zones, hammam of no charge.||- There is a be-paid-for water sports center on the beach. Jet ski, banana, pill, ski, motorcycle, windsurfing. We only tried parachute. The only unpleasant impression came from here. Fed-up, not-so-welcome beach dealers who gave almost equal price for both videos-photos and the flight itself, not letting us to take at least one our own picture to remember. Anyway, we were not ready for that and denied to buy photo services.||- At the beach there's also a small river with a bridge. It is clean, no smell, no mosquitoes.||- There's also a pier with sunbeds and stairs to the deep sea. You can snorkel under it, especially if you have some bread for the fish with you.||- All promised animals were found onsite: a hedgehog, a turtle, peacocks (including albinos), ducks, river fish, crabs, rooster and chickens, cats.||- The stable has nine horses and a nice horse keeper. Fee-based. My sister-in-law was excited that, instead of her usual once a week training, she was able to practice every other day. She practiced show jumping for the first time there) Three of us took a two-hour ride to the beach. Harshness of the village we passed through to get to the seaside was a bit depressing. But riding on horseback through sea waves makes it worth enduring.||- Pleasant yoga classes (again, if not expect professional trainers, but enjoy morning practice outdoors or night meditation on the sea pier).||- Also included: water polo, fitness center, cross-fit, stretching, face yoga, pilates, chess (floor-type), bocce, water gymnastics (including with exercise equipment, but there are so many those wishing to, you need to come in advance whenever equipment is used), beach volleyball, darts, table tennis, tabata in place of aerobics. We haven't made it to mini-football and basketball. There's also an extra-pay mini-golf.||As for disadvantages, I only want to complain about animation chart. Lists of activities differ everywhere, some don't match the time. Of the stated here and there a cinema, a skating ring, squash, foam parties, pool games, dancing, including club-dance, kangoo jumps, cardio, tibet, archery, skating, badminton and canoeing are missing, although some of the listed are on the schedule. No one comes to cross-fit because coach doesn't invite anyone and seems to hide. The Play Station Teenage Club is not open at all (apparently due to lack of popularity among teenagers), and the rock-climbing wall is closed. Our teenagers weren't rushing in, and we don't really need all these activities, but it is better to take anything irrelevant off the schedule and to warn about the closed ones. Otherwise, one spends some of his priceless vacation time trying to figure out what works and what doesn't (because you want to try everything available). Teenage club’s location is even hard to be found (and in the end it is useless).||Same thing with the play center of the main building (pool, gaming machines, etc.). A Guest Relation lady informed us some activities are included, but it wasn't so.||The same lady said that the hotel service application (called Guestranet) had never been launched. However, when I addressed reception through Guestranet, my request was processed. But on the whole the app is really dead.||Water park slides for adults are open between 12 and 4 pm, being located at the far end of the hotel - all such information should be compiled in one brochure so that there are no unreasonable expectations.||In general, negative side is following: there is lack of an updated schedule and of informing guests on all the entertainment and everything to enjoy “all inclusive”. Tip: go straight to animation team and ask what is relevant and what is not, don't trust beautiful posters.||Also, it turned out to be funny that despite the fact that this hotel unusually states it “does not check in men unaccompanied by women”, entire football teams (within a business-cup) and also Turkish male officials (within a huge team retreat) checked in at one time. And yes, companies come to the meetings. But personally, they didn't bother us any more than other guests.||Closure. We love intimate type of vacation, and we didn’t buy all-inclusive in a while. We’d been a little bit afraid of crowding, but wanted to go to such an entertainment-oriented hotel because of the kids. As a result, the scope of Starlight pleasures outweighed the crowding - we didn't have time to notice others.||Have a nice trip! :))||Oleg and Liza||P.S. Please pass this request on to the management! The hotel possesses a lot of tennis-courts, the outermost being a bit abandoned. They could serve a great pasture area for your horses! Your stable with wonderful horse keeper is what we and many others choose this hotel for. Horses only have a training area, and the court that directly borders this training area is already overgrown - it would be a great grassland, tasty and to be cut down by animals. There is only city infrastructure and all those courts around – find some more places for your horses to walk, show even more humane attitude towards...

We arrived on 9th May (10 night stay) and for the first 4/5 days the hotel was so quiet, and service was excellent. By the 14th/15th May, the hotel suddenly quadrupled in business. I assume this was the beginning of ‘peak season’. However, as a general, the hotel just does not appear to cope at full capacity. My advice if you wish to visit, come out of season. ||The positives:|- The grounds/gardens are large and beautiful. Plenty of pools and bars for during the day. One or two good bars for the evening. |- Adult only pool is above the waterfall restaurant and pool and has a beautiful view of the grounds and beach. Genuinely stunning. |- Good location. Beachfront, and close to lots of shopping malls. About 15 minutes from Manavgat and Side. About an hour away from Alanya and Antalya cities. |- Spa is fabulous! Such high quality services and a really beautiful space. Slightly pricey though. |- Free coffee hut. As well as free fast food/dessert huts. |- Authentic Turkish Cuisine for all three meals, all cooked well and very tasty! |- Turkish A la carte is absolutely phenomenal. Brilliant food, brilliant service.|- Waiters on roller skates are a speedy way to have drinks delivered, and great entertainment. |- Most staff are friendly and helpful, if you can communicate with them. Some speak Turkish, some speak English and Turkish, some only speak Russian?|- 24/7 bistro restaurant is an a la carte that you can visit as many times as you wish. It’s really quiet, rarely busy.||The negatives:|- Hotel advertises an ‘adults only’ pool, bar and buffet. However, the bar was the only place we did not see a child in these spaces. Lifeguard tried to ask a family with a child to leave the adults pool area, and was met with a brick wall, so he gave up. Adults buffet also has a ‘children’s buffet’ inside of it, so that contradicts the claim that it’s an adults only space.|- Lots of amazing meats offered at the buffets, but no appropriate Turkish Style bread to accompany it. Only bread rolls. |- Only allowed one a la carte included per 7-10 night stay, and it is €15 per person to book any more.|- Mongolian a la carte was an absolute shambles. The style was interesting, but executed poorly. You were to prepare a bowl of raw meats and veg from a buffet and have the chef cook it for you on demand. However, chef was not ready and the whole restaurant’s raw food bowls were sat out for 5-10 minutes before anyone began cooking. Food was slightly lack lustre. |- ‘Club rooms’ don’t feel as though they’ve been updated since the 90s. Air conditioning in our room is rubbish. We complained as we didn’t think it was working, but after it was ‘fixed’, the room was still warmer than the outside. The TV is described as ‘flat screen’ and whilst the screen is flat, it’s approx 20” and 3 meters away from the bed, making it a very small screen to watch.|- Bathroom in the ‘club room’ is very dated. Tiles are stained and old, shower isn’t the greatest either. Just very disappointing for a 5* rated hotel. |- There is a nightclub that on various nights of the week will play ridiculously loud music into the early hours, and as the AC is bad, we needed our balcony door open to keep the room cool, meaning we could hear the music as if we were on the dance floor ourselves. This wouldn’t really have been an issue if the door had been closed, though. |- Eating in the buffets feels like an extreme sport. Nowhere near enough tables for the amount of customers staying in the hotel. Staff do not clear tables quickly enough. Not enough staff to deal with demand. No clear queuing systems, people will push you out of the way to get to the food, not sure this is the hotel’s fault though. |- Hotel advertises a water park with slides, however, half the slides are closed and even though it claims to be open 10am-5pm… will often shut the slides by 4?|- The 24/7 bistro has a very limited American style menu, and changes to their ‘breakfast’ menu at 10pm. We found this a bit bizarre when we’d gone out hoping for a late evening pizza. They do have a breakfast pizza on the menu but this is 2 slices of cold vegetable pizza that we assume is left over from the dinner buffet. Additionally, they accost you within 10 seconds of entering the restaurant, and are then confused and annoyed you haven’t decided what you’d like to eat before you’ve even sat down.||Not sure if a positive or a negative BUT, there are a lot of dark and unused spaces/rooms/corridors in the hotel. There is a whole game centre that we could not use as there was no staff there to exchange cash for tokens etc. If you take one wrong turn, you end up in a dark corridor, or on a floor with no people or lights, gives very eery vibes. Also frustrating that there is so much wasted space when the buffet areas are so overcrowded! ||This may seem like an overly negative review, but the holiday overall has been wonderful. Our grievances may not be yours, but we were quite disappointed given the 4.5* on tripadvisor and the official 5* rating of the hotel. ||Would we come back to Turkey? Absolutely! ||Would we come back to Starlight?...

This is our second time in Turkey , last years hotel had a lot to live up to . |The hotel and garden rooms are good the grounds are amazing, set in beautiful gardens with an abundance of trees and flowers plus tortoises , hedgehogs, peacocks and bats flying about to . The areas are beautifully clean with no rubbish . Lots of pools to choose from that are very clean with a beautiful beach to choose from too . The animation team work hard to offer things to do . |We found their love for hardcore house music a bit too much especially when laying around the pools . We would have preferred different music and would have been happier if they varied the music at the events it seemed just for those that liked just that style of music , which we didn’t so we felt singled out , we did ask them to play something different but it was only a couple of songs .|We found the food hit and miss especially in the starlight restaurant so we mainly went to sunrise which was hotter and more variety and less chaotic.|Certain nationalities were very rude and pushy in the main restaurant so we chose to go to the other one and avoid the stress |English visitors are a minority here so if this bothers you don’t come here .|I was disappointed at the swim up pool bars as they had very little choice of alcohol and this was also an issue at the starlight restaurant so I had to go to other bars which was much further to walk and preferred to eat in sunrise as a well equipped bar right next to restaurants was perfect and toilets next to the restaurant too .|The patisserie was pointless and not in a nice location , we had a situation where my husband felt unwell so slept in the room which was locked and a do not disturb sign on the door , he had the balcony door open , we were on the ground floor and a male cleaner jumped over the balcony and into the room 😱 made my husband jump he then went back out if this was myself or my three daughters in another ground floor room it would of terrified them . I reported this but was shocked that they thought it ok to do .|One small thing was that there was insufficient signs for anything so you spent a while looking for things that should have been signposted better.|The garden rooms were tricky as each path looked the same after 10 days I still got lost going to my room if they could coordinated the blocks it would be soo much easier to find them .||UNFORTUNATELY 🐎 🐎🐴🐴😭😭😡😡 I would not return due to checking on the horses that the hotel advertise for horse riding and they were extremely thin and covered in sores . I complained to my tour operator and the hotel . The hotel have denied being involved with them stating it’s an outside company , even though they Advertise all over the hotel and it’s on all the signposts and as we checked in we were told about it .. It was extremely upsetting to see how bad they were being treated . |If you are there now or due to go please raise your concerns through your tour operators , if holiday makers don’t speak up animals will continue being ill treated and nothing will change for these poor animals in the future .|To provide them with sufficient food water and shade is a basic requirement plus saddles that fit them correctly so as not to cause painful sores .|You can easily walk and see them as they are just behind the water park .|I have reported it to animal welfare agents but if more people speak up something may be done . I was disappointed in the way the hotel shunned any responsibility and don’t seem interested that they promote this level of cruelty and think it’s ok to send guests to ride horses that are soo badly...