Regnum Carya Golf & Spa Resort — Hotel in Serik

I visited the Regnum Carya in October 2025 for a week with my family (2 children of 6 and 8, and 2 adults). We normally stay at another high quality resort in the Belek area just a few miles down the road but given we were there in July 2025 we thought we'd try somewhere different this time around (you can see what the resort is if you check my other reviews). This turned out to be a mistake as the resort we normally visit is far superior to the Regnum in a number of ways. Our normal resport, whilst very much in the same class of hotels, is often a bit cheaper that the Regnum.||I'll start with what was good and either on a par of better than the resort we normally visit. The Regnum Crown pool area (you get use of the Crown facilities when staying at the Carya and vice versa) is excellent and we spent most of our days at the cave pool at least in the morning. The pools were heated and had plenty of interesting areas for the kids to explore. The cave pool was excellent and the cave was very picturesque. The food areas around The Crown pool are also very handy and the food is of a good standard. There are little shops serving pizzas, fries & jacket potatoes, doner and chicken wraps, noodles and rice, fruit, and ice cream. There is also an excellent French style bistro called Tartine, which has excellent patisserie items. ||The water park (Aqualantis) is very good and has a range of pool areas and slides to keep kids of all ages, and adults, entertained. Many of the pool areas in here are heated but not all (the wave pool was not heated for example). However, this does not negatively impact the fun. All of the slides are great fun and there are some good areas for the smaller kids to have fun on their own whilst the adults relax. One warning though, the floors get so so slippy throughout the day. We saw so many kids and adults slip over. They either need more of the matting down, or to somehow chnage the flooring as it does feel dangerous to have such slippery flooring at a waterpark. Overall though this was a big highlight for our stay.||Now onto the bits which were underwhelming. Firstly, the service overall was very lacking for a resort of this cost and with this reputation. In some areas it felt there were nowhere near enough staff, which led to long wait times (for example the Carya main pool had one person overing the whole pool for drinks, both rollerskating around and then appearing to have to make them all too). In others the staff just didn't appear bothered by customers waiting. A lot of chatting to each other and ignoring customers or messing around with their phones whilst people waited. Equally, when asking for things at times it felt like it was a bit too much trouble. Even at check out, no "how was your stay" or even a smile. Just had stuck out for my room card, followed by the amount I had to settle followed by the receipt thrust in my direction. This is a world away from the resort we normally stay at where you are treated like royalty from start to finish. The lifeguards at the pools also appeared to spend most of their days watching videos on their phones, which is a little worrying. Also, the swim up bar the The Crown was good but a couple of days was left uncleared in the morning. One morning we got into the pool and still saw at around 11am yesterday's empty cups, mugs, and bottles on the bar along with som discarded food from the day before. I asked the barman and he said that the lifeguards had to clear it. Finally was cleared by just before midday.||The WhatsApp service is largely useless. A lot of the time they just direct you to speak to someone else. All feels like you're a hassle to be honest. It is like you are chatting to an AI chat bot most of the time. In fact, that might be better. At our normal resort you have actual WhatsApp assistants assigned to you who actually help and provide a very high level of service to you.||The food is very average for this quality of resort and compared to the resort we usually go to. The buffet is fine but the quality of the food is just not quite what you'd expect. The a la carte restaurants are also fine but nothing great. The Thai is a strange experience in the dark, which I suppose is novel, but not great when trying to go to the loo or anything (a lot of uneven steps in the dark etc). The Italian is quite nice. The Brazilian is the best restaurant we tried and this was the free one - the service and food were very good. It is a strange set up they now have for food as if you don't want buffet (not our cup of tea with 2 kids) or Brazilian you are left having to book a restaurant. I don't mind this as I am used to it, but it's very hard to get a table anywhere so leaves you with few options. They could do with a standard a la carte with a wider menu you can use for free. We did eat at Chubby's Diner but it was dreadful. The food was not nice at all and the service was dreadful. 20 mins to get our drinks. The when the food came the starters were all wrong and then the mains as well. In the end we all had to eat at different times as they had to redo half of our order as they got it wrong. My daughter ended up waiting best part of an hour to get her chicken burger in the end. The service issues with restaurants is common. Our experience in the Italian was very odd. My children randomly received fries meant to be with their mains with the starters. Then they delivered all of the rest of the food at random times throughout the rest of our visit so no one at together. They also missed things off the order. My wife and daughter finally received their pizzas but my son and I had already finished our mains as they had been brought out 15 or so mins earlier. We asked about the food but was again given a response like we were the problem.||The rooms are fine but we found the beds uncomfortable (this is a personal thing so other may like the mattresses). Be careful with the plug sockets though as when pulling our plugs out of the wall the sockets were coming away from the walls. I did find the rooms a little dated compared to our usual resort but appreciate this may be a personal preference thing.||I also found it galling that the arcade and the bowling comes at an extra cost. At our usual resort this is all free, which I think given the cost of the stay should be the case. The arcade games are between 4-5 EUR per play and it's 10 EUR per person per game for bowling. This is below my expectations for a resort of this cost and perceived quality. ||Finally, they have done away with the CIP Meet & Assist service for your return journey, which is a big benefit from staying at these kinds of resorts at Antalya airport can be a real pain. Our usual resort provides this as part of the package and, given the cost of the Regnum and the way it holds itself out as being one of the best, this should be an expectation here too. They can still arrange it for you, but at 150 EUR per person. Another area where the Regnum appears to be squeezing every EUR out of customers already paying a lot to be there.||In summary, we won't be going back to the Regnum Carya. There are better resorts in the area at a slightly lower price which provide much better service, much better food, and overall a more luxury experience. It feels like the Carya is living on its reputation rather than what it is now. There is a small chance that we might try staying the Regnum The Crown as this was a much nicer property and it did feel like the Crown is where they were putting all of their service focus. However, we'd still have to think long and hard to chance it based on our experience at the Carya and the consistently wonderful experiences at our...

Its a wonderful establishment with minor issues i can say. Normally me and my wife choose MaxxRoyal and have stayed in Belek and Kemer resorts. So unintentionally we were comparing everything with MaxxRoyal while we were in Regnum last week.

The booking process was swift ; it took 10 minutes for the booking and payment. There was an issue here tho; we asked the lady on the phone which attractions are not available due to Covid-19 and all she said was 1-2 bars and thats it. The reality wasnt like that; in short; closed sections/areas were as follows: -Mini Golf bar at the entrance -Irish Pub (which was massive ; we checked it out eventhough it was closed) -Adventure Park (its huge and looks alot fun even for adults) -Palm Beach Club (Seaside beach bar/club) -Some Juice Bars -1 Large Pool

So im taking 1 star-off just for this misinformation ; we would still visit Regnum as it was on our list for a while now and we wanted to try ; but it would be much better if the lady on the phone was honest about it.

Coming to the real deal: ROOMS / VILLA: Golf Suit by the Pool

We chose to stay at the suit as we stayed in Laguna Villas in MaxxRoyal as well so wanted to compare the 2. I should give it to Regnum as 1 level planning of the Villa is much better then 2. The pool is like a private pool its very very hard for you to see your neighbor and for them to see you ; the pool is very large and we spent most of our time there. Its cleaner (as less people use it) and its infront of your villa. The room is spacious and you can find everything in your minibar.

HOTEL AMENITIES/ZONES:

Hotel is massive ; comparing it to MaxxRoyal Kemer its easily double the size and i think its the same size or close to Belek. Is it a good thing tho? We certainly dont think so. If you stay at the main building its a very long trip to the beach ; you can certainly walk but it would take you at least 10 minutes. They have little golf cars (shuttles) that ring between the main building and the beach. You can also rent a car which costs 120Euro/day. We didnt choose to do it as 1-its expensive 2-Suits are much closer to the beach then the main building rooms and took us 5 minutes to walk.

In the middle of the hotel they have adventure part; its a massive green field with lots of attractions like a wooden park / rock climbing (tall one) etc...but it was closed ; when we asked they said there is a security issue but we didnt buy it honestly. What kind of security issue may prevent all the attractions to be closed at the same time. Maybe they told the truth i dont know but we really wanted to try them and we couldnt.

The kids zone is big ; i think about the same size as maxxroyal kemers if not bigger. Kids were looking to have fun and the hotel had a calendar of events for them. There is ofcourse kids pool and slides. The slides are mostly for kids ; we didnt see any slides that took our attention hence we didnt try that pool. In that regard i give it to maxxroyal as their slides are a bit too scary for the kiddos but great for adults.

There is a large arcade with bowling lanes. It was free during the pandemic which is nice. We spent some time there and it was super fun.

POOLS/SEASIDE:

They had as far as we could see 1 main pool (kids and adults) ; 1 adult pool (cool place and quiet) and wave pool + slide pool as well as a kids pool. Pools were nice and you could always find a spot easily.

Seaside is meeh....definately not the same as maxxroyal kemer but its to be expected as kemer sea is the best and people choose to go to the seaside more than belek. We went to seaside 2 times during our stay and it was a bit windy ; typical belek.

Rest but not least they have a SPA/Indoor Pool and Gym area which all are good. Service was great and people were attentive.

Comparing the 2 ; you should note that we visited Regnum last week of this review and Maxxroyal last year so it was before Covid. Also Regnum is alot cheaper. So i would say its a solid 5 stay place for...

⚠️ The Worst 5* Experience I’ve Ever Had – Avoid Regnum Carya ⚠️

I have stayed in luxury hotels all over the world, and I can honestly say Regnum Carya is the most dishonest, disappointing, and outright insulting experience I’ve ever had. This is not a 5* luxury resort — it’s a trap to extract as much money from guests as possible while providing the bare minimum of service.

Dishonest & Misleading

We booked directly with the hotel and were promised VIP arrivals service at Antalya airport. After booking, they changed their “concept” and quietly cancelled this. In return, they claimed we would get credit (£100 per adult / £50 per child) but only revealed in the very last email (two weeks before arrival!) that this only applied if you flew directly into Antalya, not via Istanbul. The way they bury important details in endless paragraphs of waffle-filled emails is deliberately sly and misleading.

Hidden Costs Everywhere

This hotel is marketed as all-inclusive, but everything here is an extra charge:

Steakhouse = €40 surcharge to enter, and then no steak included unless you pay another €40+ on top.

A bottle of wine that costs £20 in the UK is priced at €195 here.

Rooftop pool = €100 entry fee.

Shisha = €75.

Birthday cake and balloons for a child = €100.

It’s laughable, insulting, and borderline fraudulent for a hotel of this supposed standard.

Appalling Service & Attitude

The service is cold, insincere, and at times downright rude. They do “welcome drinks and chocolates” because they have to, not because they want to. Ask for anything extra, and it comes with an outrageous price tag. When one of our children had a birthday, I requested something simple — balloons and a cake in the room. The response? €100. At true 5* hotels, this is complimentary without you even asking.

Worse still, when I complained about the cleaning standards, the staff gave me attitude rather than an apology. By day five, the room still wasn’t cleaned. At no point did I feel like they genuinely cared about guest experience.

Cleaning is a Joke

This is where things go from bad to disgraceful. On our first night we had pistachios and drinks in the room. The shells, bottles, and rubbish were left there and not cleaned for FOUR DAYS, despite me complaining daily and showing photos. By the fifth day, our room still wasn’t cleaned at all. The so-called “turn down service” is a joke — often they just take towels (sometimes not even replacing them) and forget basics like shampoo. For a supposed luxury 5* resort, this is unforgivable.

Language Barrier & No Management

Most staff refuse to speak anything but Turkish, which is ridiculous for a resort marketed internationally. You rarely see managers engaging with guests. The overall attitude feels sly, dishonest, and purely money-driven.

The Few Bright Spots

I have to mention Chef Froylan, who went above and beyond every evening at the Mexican and Maia restaurants — without him, the dining experience would have been a disaster. Also, Ali (one of the managers) and Mussa at the front of house were genuinely kind, sincere, and tried to give the level of service you would expect at a true 5* hotel. Sadly, they were the exceptions in a sea of poor service.

Final Verdict

This is not a world-class resort — it’s a money-making scam dressed up as one. The property looks nice, and a few staff tried their best, but the overall experience was one of dishonesty, neglect, and constant disappointment.

If you value your money, your time, and your dignity — AVOID Regnum Carya at all costs. I would never return and strongly advise anyone considering it to look elsewhere.

⭐ 1/5 – and that’s only thanks to Chef Froylan, Ali, and Mussa. Without them, this...