Your rating of this hotel:
3.0
from 10
Hotel ratings by criteria:
Travelers three adults direct booking on the hotel website, no travel agency. We rest in high-rated hotels in Turkey on a regular basis 3-4 times a year, so I understand what I am writing about. We liked the Barut chain in March 2019, when we spent a wonderful vacation in the city hotel Akra Barut. Being in Akra Barut, in search of a sea hotel, we visited Lara Barut in parallel for 2 days.
As of March 2019, the hotel suited us in many ways: warm rooms, an excellent restaurant, quiet Europeans on vacation and a few calm families of compatriots, polite, very helpful English-speaking staff. In the area itself there is no such beauty of nature reserves and clean water as in Kemer, but in winter - spring, the service is more valuable, and we booked Lara Barut Collection for the New Year holidays, recommended the hotel to friends / acquaintances.
Since April 2019, as stated on the website, the hotel "welcomes all its guests in a completely new concept of individual and exclusive holidays. " Let's analyze the opportunity to have a good rest in the conditions of changing the concept:
1. Transfer - rating 1
We paid for the transfer in advance on the Hotel's website, immediately upon booking, in the form provided with data on passengers and flights of both arrivals and departures. We received an email confirmation from the hotel that a driver with a sign will be waiting for us.
However, the driver was not present, while the flight arrived on schedule. With a huge amount of luggage, we several times passed along all the drivers who met the guests, but did not find the one who met us. Waited 10 minutes. Then the hotel called and was informed that there was no transfer.
The girl who answered the call on behalf of the hotel from the beginning tried to blame the travel agency - when they said that we were without a travel agency, direct booking - put all the blame for the lack of a car on the transfer contractor firm and asked to wait another 10 minutes.
As a result, the driver showed up 25 minutes after we left the airport. All this time we were standing on the street and holding heavy bags in our hands, my mother after the operation, and we didn’t plan in any way, having paid for an individual transfer, run around the airport and look for a car that doesn’t exist, call and fight off taxi drivers, besides, the driver who arrived did not knew which hotel to take us to.
Thus, Lara Barut Collection only takes money for the transfer, but does not check whether the car has left, does not instruct the company where to take the guests.
They apologized for this only after the publication of a triple review on a well-known site, and then until the last moment they indicated to us that the Hotel is not responsible for the work of its contractor, does not control the performance of their services - they publicly write this in black and white. Yes, and in principle, the hotel took the money, not aware that there is still a return paid transfer.
2. Check-in - grade 3
The driver unloaded our suitcases on the road, but there was no bellboy, looked at the reception and was not there, put the bags on a bench, rolled the suitcases under the roof of the hotel - only after that an employee appeared. At the reception, we were upset that they changed our room category - we specifically examined different types of rooms in March in order to choose the type of room we needed. The hotel, instead of a room with 2 single beds and a view of the pool, prepared a room with one bed and a view of the neighboring hotel Caravanserai, in which there is also no possibility to install an extra bed.
bed for the third guest.
In the words of the hotel employee who accommodated us: "this side, in her opinion, and the opinion of other guests is better ... ", but the fact that we consciously chose and paid for exactly the type of room that we need, and we just want to have each personal bed - the hotel that declared the concept of "individual ...rest" does not take into account even at the elementary level, if there are free rooms of this category.
As a result, we were given a room of a paid category, we were warned that the room was not ready, but it would be ready by the evening - excellent, we could well accommodate and take a walk by the sea. At the same time, I separately asked that they bring everything for the third guest. By night, the room was partially staffed, I had to write a list and take it to the reception, so that they would bring a soap - soap, a mug and so on. This is not a service when money is taken for 3 adults, but you need to beg for typical consumables and equipment.
At the same time, Guest relations believes that it is only necessary to say and we will provide everything, but how many times you need to say and even write in a list ...Exclusive.
3. Room - rating 3
The room is warm, this is its main plus, it was one of the factors for choosing a hotel and this category, since it is very cold in the rooms of a non-main building in winter - spring, the guests of these rooms complained to us about the flow of cold air from under the doors, in addition to the Spa and the restaurant they have to walk through cold, street-like lobbies. Excellent bathroom with a separate toilet and a comfortable shower. New good quality mattresses, pillow menu. There is an ironing board, iron, mini bar and kettle with accessories.
During a long stay, we noticed that the curtains in the room are of insufficient density, not blackout, everything is in spools - it is strange to see savings on the quality of textiles, usually in Turkish hotels 5 stars curtains are made of quality fabrics, the required level of protection from light, multi-layered, and here tulle and single-layer curtain that shines through. The lamps are stylish, but in a dense layer of dust, the floor mat near the chair is an unreal dust collector that the maid puts on both the chair and the table - so after cleaning the room, wipe the table and cover the chair - exclusively...
The handle on the closet door was unscrewed, the bolt in the lock of the front door of the room fell out and did not allow the front door to be closed normally - they called for repairs and fixed it, after a day of stay the safe broke down - they fixed it too, the dryer on the balcony was also broken - there was no longer enough enthusiasm to repair, rest in fact not when all you do is call the reception and wait for repairmen. Guest relations claim that the rooms are checked before check-in, but they are not convinced. As shown by the rather high occupancy of the hotel by guests for the New Year holidays, there is simply no soundproofing of the rooms, you can hear the steps of the neighbors, their conversations, landline phone calls from the side numbers, from above.
4. Housekeeping and mini bar - rating 3
Considering that we left a tip to the maid every day: we fully washed the floor only the next day after our communication with Guest relations.
Before that, it had never occurred to her to collect fragments, dust and hair, to fully give out (without a note with a request) a shower cap, body lotion began only after a triple review on the site. Mini bar in the room: on January 3, in principle, they didn’t replenish it, on January 4 we already “caught” an employee delivering drinks for the mini bar, but he turned out to be “Only beer” and there is no water either in glass or in plastic to take water you have to go to the lobby bar - again exclusive. Turkey, like Russia, does not belong to countries where WHO is allowed to drink tap water, therefore, the assurances of the hotel that you can drink water from their tap must at least be confirmed by a public demonstration of regular analysis of this water. Otherwise, you need to ensure the supply of bottled. Moreover, the daily replenishment of the mini bar is included in the concept.
5. Territory - score 4
Neat, large enough guarded, on video cameras, excellent lawn, two walking / jogging paths along the perimeter of the hotel, a good recreation area by the sea, sun loungers are installed both on the beach and by the pool for the winter period, a bar is open on the beach from 10 am to 5 pm. There is a tennis court, mini golf, cat house. But the New Year's lights were not installed correctly - the wires were thrown over the footpaths and not put into cable channels for the safety of running children. A critical drawback is a small number of toilet cabins on the beach and in the establishments adjacent to it.
In winter, I encountered queues in women's cabins, and this despite the fact that especially brave ladies used free men's bathrooms, which will be in the high season, one can only guess. The main problem with the bathroom is that both the sinks and the toilet itself are combined and the visitor (nice) will not finish, so to speak, “a full cycle of procedures with washing hands, fixing makeup, etc.
n" the others are waiting. If earlier the hotel was filled with Europeans who are indifferent to the sea and prefer pools and m. it was normal, but the reorientation of the hotel to Russian-speaking tourists ...we, for the most part, prefer the sea / beach and the hotel is clearly not ready for this, in terms of c / a.
6. Spa area - rating 4
There is an excellent sauna, with a separate area for women, a Thalasso pool - for 10-15 Euros you can warm up perfectly after the metropolis. The main pool with sea water heated to 28 degrees and an external part entering the street. If only the staff made sure that visitors in street shoes enter the pool area without shoe covers ...Drafts at the entrance / exit to the Spa, the locker room is in the same place - far from the saunas, strong drafts in winter, so they changed into the shower room so as not to get sick "exclusively" .
7. New Year Gala Party - score 2
The cost of the party is 50 Euro per person, in total we paid 150 for three - quite normal, not at all critical.
The beginning of the party consisted of the sounds of a mournful violin, glasses of Turkish sparkling wine, sliced carrots, cucumbers, chips and pistachios as appetizers. After that, an hour later, we got into the banquet hall in complete silence, no entertainer, no background music. On the tables there is water from carafes, two buns of bread, local drinks for free / wine list for an extra charge - nothing else, no snacks, no fruits - just a candle as decor and paper tablecloths with a New Year's pattern.
The first on the menu was a salad of marinated octopus, fish carpaccio and half a teaspoon of red caviar - inedible due to over-marinated fish and bitter caviar. As we found out, the next dish will be served in an hour. The waiter stubbornly refused to take away the fish salad, the smell of which was already sickening, after an urgent demand he took it away, and we ended up essentially at an empty table, which is why he did not want to take away the salad.
The musical accompaniment was absolutely like an on-duty performance on a weekday evening: a keyboard player on a synthesizer and a singer. The guests of the next table went to the main restaurant, took butter from the buffet to eat at least something ...at this point we decided to leave the event and go for a walk to the sea and celebrate already on the balcony of our room to our music, we didn’t do any tragedy and would have already forgotten about it.
But Guest relations decided that we shouldn’t just leave the Gala Party and Saida’s employee asked what she could do for us to “feel good” I frankly said that I would return the money because even the salad that we touched was not edible and decent establishments change a spoiled dish, they didn’t replace us here - there is no alternative, we are leaving - the format is completely not ours, in fact, the festive organization is zero. Saida promised to discuss our return with management the next day.
The next day, of course, they didn’t return the money to us, they wasted our time on another circle of explanations, what didn’t suit us and why we didn’t rejoice at their Gala Party ? ! in the end: "the hotel policy does not provide for a refund" - for which they then said that they would discuss and come up. We would have calmly left the party and then, the next day, would have walked in the sun instead of impartial communication with Guest relations, who assured us that when paying, they familiarized themselves with the program and menu at the hotel counters, as much as 5 (!
) Russian-speaking employees - and we don’t understand anything like that ...Saida simply didn’t know that we paid for the Gala Party back in early December, when we received a letter from the Hotel confirming the notorious transfer and didn’t receive any links to the menu program and description, but arrived to the hotel at the counters already on December 28, and it was the Russian-speaking staff that misled us with the choice of a banquet hall, it was not clear on the menu that the listed dishes would be served one hour at a time and other standard parameters were not indicated. At the same time, we are more than fluent in English and I consider it completely unacceptable the disparaging tone of communication in Guest relations, indicating that they say they explained to you Russian in Russian.
I would be happy to read the documents with the parameters of the party in English, discuss the nuances with the staff by phone in early December, I can even translate from Turkish if I understand writing from the document, after several years of travel, and Google will help me. But to make it official, on the website, the program, as Akra Barut does, publish it in the public domain, send a link with a description by e-mail when they offer a paid service - no, this is not provided for by Lara Barut. It is only intended to take money and then demand irrepressible joy from guests, imitate service and feedback.
8. Main restaurant - rating 3
A clear plus is the division into a zone for adults, without the right to use a telephone, and a separate family zone with children. The food is not bad if you don’t know how they fed in March and don’t pay attention to the nuances ...
and 5 stars in any case does not work, due to the secondary use of dishes and cooks sneezing on the food they cook - this is in any case not acceptable in public catering. Hotel guests, both adults and children, lick common appliances (spoons on sauces, spatulas for meat and side dishes), and at this time, instead of keeping order, the staff gathers in 3-4 people chatting cheerfully and looking at phones, is it really impossible to pick up and to seize cutlery, to help children so that they do not drop food on the floor and do not lick the cutlery.
In general, you need to come to breakfast / lunch / dinner in the forefront simply because of sanitation (you can use clean appliances), and in principle it is better not to take sauces, or take hot sauces. March 2019
there was a full serving on the tables, at every dinner there was strawberries and whipped cream, and when ordering two glasses of wine, they brought us a bottle of wine and opened it in front of us and then put it in a bucket of ice - now this is not there, only glasses brought from around the corner from pre-opened bottles.
Now there is also no bottled water, they bring water like "spring" in stained, muddy jugs. Previously, there were just cakes, full-fledged and very high quality, not cut biscuits, exhibited for two days in a row. Now this is not the case, despite the hotel's high occupancy for winter and quite a decent price tag. Most likely, the hotel administration believes that, having refocused on the Russian-speaking segment, it is possible to lower the bar - guests from the CIS countries will do so ....
One way or another, strawberries are now only on cakes and some mini-cakes, the set of fruits is very limited, only tangerines, oranges, persimmons, grapes, apples, bananas, there are no pineapples, or rather, there are as decor on the chef's table. Once in 9 days of staying at the Hotel, they set up a table with pineapple slices - after my mother's negative review on the site, indicating precisely these nuances.
The only thing that the waiters do without being reminded is to offer alcohol. At the same time, they do not change cloth napkins - tablecloths on tables, if they do not have pronounced stains, do not put cutlery after previous guests. When you sit down at the table and ask for forks and knives in English/Russian, you are simply ignored. They only know one word "drinks". And if you do not drink, the waiters lose all interest in you, only when mountains of dirty plates accumulate, they take them away. This is where the service ends.
I would like the waiters to know that their duty is not only to drink the guests unconscious, but also to lay tables and clean dirty dishes. We talked about this Guest relations, after the review, the Hotel corrected the work: the waiters began to change napkins and sweep crumbs and leftover food from the tables with their hands (! ) onto the floor and chairs ... , we were forced to wipe the chairs from pieces of food with napkins every time, exclusively ...5 stars...The tables are very close to the walls, the waiters cannot approach them from different sides, they take the dirty dishes from one side, risking turning the rest of the food on the guests' clothes. What will happen in the summer, in the season when there will be 100% load, one can only guess.
9. Lobby Bar - score 4
Stylish, spacious, bad ventilation in winter - the room is stuffy, the smell of smoking comes from the terrace and it’s hard for me to stay in such a room for a long time, in fact it’s better to go to a bar by the sea, even though the coffee cools down quickly, but the air is definitely fresh.
The lobby bar saved us in terms of water - non-carbonated water in a factory glass bottle was only available in this bar in winter conditions. For which many thanks.
10. Alcohol - score 3
Sparkling local wine is absolutely unacceptably of poor quality, quiet local wines are now served on bottling from pre-opened bottles - you can’t drink it. From alcohol, you can definitely drink Maloneys cream liqueur, in a bar by the sea for coffee - original Irish, we didn’t try other drinks, we didn’t check the bottles.
11. DU DU MANGO - rating 1
This is a novelty in the hotel services, a night disco until 2 a. m. , after which excited young people roam around the hotel, yelling, laughing, brawling without letting the rest of the guests sleep, neither the reception nor the security are able to calm down the spree guests, whose party with moving furniture, shouting and music in the room next to us continued until 5:30 in the morning, and the next day it resumed and until 2:30 at night we did not sleep because of these party people. I would like the Hotel to understand that in addition to good mattresses for guests to relax, at least elementary standards for silence are required, and with this mode of operation of the disco, the Hotel does not control the flow of irrepressible revelers at all. DU DU MANGO has attracted a certain proportion of guests to the previously quiet hotel - who prefer to party in the style of Ibiza.
12. Sea
I didn’t like the water in the sea in the Lara area at all: not far from the beach, a river flows into the stink and brings it into the sea ...we walked along the coastline until the river flows into the sea, starting from the Dolphin there are heaps of algae and garbage, further on the Titanic beach there are fewer algae and the most extreme one of them is Lara beach, the distance is basically small and it turns out that the water is not just muddy from the sand, but is actually diluted with the water of the river passing through the village.
13. Guest relations - this is a separate topic, which in fact crosses out everything that was even in the asset of the Hotel. Problems and questions may arise, jambs are everywhere and for everyone, but the question is how this service reacts to guests, how work is done on requests and what the hotel is doing to correct the situation.
Having set 5 stars and positioning yourself as a worthy hotel chain with a claim to the concept, you need to understand that when communicating with guests, elementary courtesy and respect are required, aggression and attacks on national, gender grounds are not allowed.
If in Akra Barut we were surrounded by courtesy and care, then you don’t even remember that there were some moments there too - they corrected, apologized, made a nice compliment and you don’t even remember for what reason.
And in Lara Barut Collection, Guest relations employees literally fight with a guest who makes elementary demands for the execution of paid services, sanitation, and silence.
The management of this service is not familiar with the rules of business communication ethics, nor the hospitality and cordiality traditional for Turkey in relation to guests, nor respect for the older generation - they are well aware of the guests' birthdays and at least mother could be treated with at least a minimum level of compliance decency - not to turn away at a meeting, not to write completely incorrect phrases in response to mom's review on the site - outright misinformation.
Having made obvious miscalculations in the provision of services, the head of Guest relations in writing, instead of just an apology, began to prove the normality of such work, without delving into business processes, into the work of its employees, into what the hotel sends in writing to the consumer. This is a guest control service, and it has achieved its success - I strongly do not recommend the hotel, I will not return. The hotel is clearly overrated in terms of rating and price.
As of March 2019, the hotel suited us in many ways: warm rooms, an excellent restaurant, quiet Europeans on vacation and a few calm families of compatriots, polite, very helpful English-speaking staff. In the area itself there is no such beauty of nature reserves and clean water as in Kemer, but in winter - spring, the service is more valuable, and we booked Lara Barut Collection for the New Year holidays, recommended the hotel to friends / acquaintances.
Since April 2019, as stated on the website, the hotel "welcomes all its guests in a completely new concept of individual and exclusive holidays. " Let's analyze the opportunity to have a good rest in the conditions of changing the concept:
1. Transfer - rating 1
We paid for the transfer in advance on the Hotel's website, immediately upon booking, in the form provided with data on passengers and flights of both arrivals and departures. We received an email confirmation from the hotel that a driver with a sign will be waiting for us.
However, the driver was not present, while the flight arrived on schedule. With a huge amount of luggage, we several times passed along all the drivers who met the guests, but did not find the one who met us. Waited 10 minutes. Then the hotel called and was informed that there was no transfer.
The girl who answered the call on behalf of the hotel from the beginning tried to blame the travel agency - when they said that we were without a travel agency, direct booking - put all the blame for the lack of a car on the transfer contractor firm and asked to wait another 10 minutes.
As a result, the driver showed up 25 minutes after we left the airport. All this time we were standing on the street and holding heavy bags in our hands, my mother after the operation, and we didn’t plan in any way, having paid for an individual transfer, run around the airport and look for a car that doesn’t exist, call and fight off taxi drivers, besides, the driver who arrived did not knew which hotel to take us to.
Thus, Lara Barut Collection only takes money for the transfer, but does not check whether the car has left, does not instruct the company where to take the guests.
They apologized for this only after the publication of a triple review on a well-known site, and then until the last moment they indicated to us that the Hotel is not responsible for the work of its contractor, does not control the performance of their services - they publicly write this in black and white. Yes, and in principle, the hotel took the money, not aware that there is still a return paid transfer.
2. Check-in - grade 3
The driver unloaded our suitcases on the road, but there was no bellboy, looked at the reception and was not there, put the bags on a bench, rolled the suitcases under the roof of the hotel - only after that an employee appeared. At the reception, we were upset that they changed our room category - we specifically examined different types of rooms in March in order to choose the type of room we needed. The hotel, instead of a room with 2 single beds and a view of the pool, prepared a room with one bed and a view of the neighboring hotel Caravanserai, in which there is also no possibility to install an extra bed.
bed for the third guest.
In the words of the hotel employee who accommodated us: "this side, in her opinion, and the opinion of other guests is better ... ", but the fact that we consciously chose and paid for exactly the type of room that we need, and we just want to have each personal bed - the hotel that declared the concept of "individual ...rest" does not take into account even at the elementary level, if there are free rooms of this category.
As a result, we were given a room of a paid category, we were warned that the room was not ready, but it would be ready by the evening - excellent, we could well accommodate and take a walk by the sea. At the same time, I separately asked that they bring everything for the third guest. By night, the room was partially staffed, I had to write a list and take it to the reception, so that they would bring a soap - soap, a mug and so on. This is not a service when money is taken for 3 adults, but you need to beg for typical consumables and equipment.
At the same time, Guest relations believes that it is only necessary to say and we will provide everything, but how many times you need to say and even write in a list ...Exclusive.
3. Room - rating 3
The room is warm, this is its main plus, it was one of the factors for choosing a hotel and this category, since it is very cold in the rooms of a non-main building in winter - spring, the guests of these rooms complained to us about the flow of cold air from under the doors, in addition to the Spa and the restaurant they have to walk through cold, street-like lobbies. Excellent bathroom with a separate toilet and a comfortable shower. New good quality mattresses, pillow menu. There is an ironing board, iron, mini bar and kettle with accessories.
During a long stay, we noticed that the curtains in the room are of insufficient density, not blackout, everything is in spools - it is strange to see savings on the quality of textiles, usually in Turkish hotels 5 stars curtains are made of quality fabrics, the required level of protection from light, multi-layered, and here tulle and single-layer curtain that shines through. The lamps are stylish, but in a dense layer of dust, the floor mat near the chair is an unreal dust collector that the maid puts on both the chair and the table - so after cleaning the room, wipe the table and cover the chair - exclusively...
The handle on the closet door was unscrewed, the bolt in the lock of the front door of the room fell out and did not allow the front door to be closed normally - they called for repairs and fixed it, after a day of stay the safe broke down - they fixed it too, the dryer on the balcony was also broken - there was no longer enough enthusiasm to repair, rest in fact not when all you do is call the reception and wait for repairmen. Guest relations claim that the rooms are checked before check-in, but they are not convinced. As shown by the rather high occupancy of the hotel by guests for the New Year holidays, there is simply no soundproofing of the rooms, you can hear the steps of the neighbors, their conversations, landline phone calls from the side numbers, from above.
4. Housekeeping and mini bar - rating 3
Considering that we left a tip to the maid every day: we fully washed the floor only the next day after our communication with Guest relations.
Before that, it had never occurred to her to collect fragments, dust and hair, to fully give out (without a note with a request) a shower cap, body lotion began only after a triple review on the site. Mini bar in the room: on January 3, in principle, they didn’t replenish it, on January 4 we already “caught” an employee delivering drinks for the mini bar, but he turned out to be “Only beer” and there is no water either in glass or in plastic to take water you have to go to the lobby bar - again exclusive. Turkey, like Russia, does not belong to countries where WHO is allowed to drink tap water, therefore, the assurances of the hotel that you can drink water from their tap must at least be confirmed by a public demonstration of regular analysis of this water. Otherwise, you need to ensure the supply of bottled. Moreover, the daily replenishment of the mini bar is included in the concept.
5. Territory - score 4
Neat, large enough guarded, on video cameras, excellent lawn, two walking / jogging paths along the perimeter of the hotel, a good recreation area by the sea, sun loungers are installed both on the beach and by the pool for the winter period, a bar is open on the beach from 10 am to 5 pm. There is a tennis court, mini golf, cat house. But the New Year's lights were not installed correctly - the wires were thrown over the footpaths and not put into cable channels for the safety of running children. A critical drawback is a small number of toilet cabins on the beach and in the establishments adjacent to it.
In winter, I encountered queues in women's cabins, and this despite the fact that especially brave ladies used free men's bathrooms, which will be in the high season, one can only guess. The main problem with the bathroom is that both the sinks and the toilet itself are combined and the visitor (nice) will not finish, so to speak, “a full cycle of procedures with washing hands, fixing makeup, etc.
n" the others are waiting. If earlier the hotel was filled with Europeans who are indifferent to the sea and prefer pools and m. it was normal, but the reorientation of the hotel to Russian-speaking tourists ...we, for the most part, prefer the sea / beach and the hotel is clearly not ready for this, in terms of c / a.
6. Spa area - rating 4
There is an excellent sauna, with a separate area for women, a Thalasso pool - for 10-15 Euros you can warm up perfectly after the metropolis. The main pool with sea water heated to 28 degrees and an external part entering the street. If only the staff made sure that visitors in street shoes enter the pool area without shoe covers ...Drafts at the entrance / exit to the Spa, the locker room is in the same place - far from the saunas, strong drafts in winter, so they changed into the shower room so as not to get sick "exclusively" .
7. New Year Gala Party - score 2
The cost of the party is 50 Euro per person, in total we paid 150 for three - quite normal, not at all critical.
The beginning of the party consisted of the sounds of a mournful violin, glasses of Turkish sparkling wine, sliced carrots, cucumbers, chips and pistachios as appetizers. After that, an hour later, we got into the banquet hall in complete silence, no entertainer, no background music. On the tables there is water from carafes, two buns of bread, local drinks for free / wine list for an extra charge - nothing else, no snacks, no fruits - just a candle as decor and paper tablecloths with a New Year's pattern.
The first on the menu was a salad of marinated octopus, fish carpaccio and half a teaspoon of red caviar - inedible due to over-marinated fish and bitter caviar. As we found out, the next dish will be served in an hour. The waiter stubbornly refused to take away the fish salad, the smell of which was already sickening, after an urgent demand he took it away, and we ended up essentially at an empty table, which is why he did not want to take away the salad.
The musical accompaniment was absolutely like an on-duty performance on a weekday evening: a keyboard player on a synthesizer and a singer. The guests of the next table went to the main restaurant, took butter from the buffet to eat at least something ...at this point we decided to leave the event and go for a walk to the sea and celebrate already on the balcony of our room to our music, we didn’t do any tragedy and would have already forgotten about it.
But Guest relations decided that we shouldn’t just leave the Gala Party and Saida’s employee asked what she could do for us to “feel good” I frankly said that I would return the money because even the salad that we touched was not edible and decent establishments change a spoiled dish, they didn’t replace us here - there is no alternative, we are leaving - the format is completely not ours, in fact, the festive organization is zero. Saida promised to discuss our return with management the next day.
The next day, of course, they didn’t return the money to us, they wasted our time on another circle of explanations, what didn’t suit us and why we didn’t rejoice at their Gala Party ? ! in the end: "the hotel policy does not provide for a refund" - for which they then said that they would discuss and come up. We would have calmly left the party and then, the next day, would have walked in the sun instead of impartial communication with Guest relations, who assured us that when paying, they familiarized themselves with the program and menu at the hotel counters, as much as 5 (!
) Russian-speaking employees - and we don’t understand anything like that ...Saida simply didn’t know that we paid for the Gala Party back in early December, when we received a letter from the Hotel confirming the notorious transfer and didn’t receive any links to the menu program and description, but arrived to the hotel at the counters already on December 28, and it was the Russian-speaking staff that misled us with the choice of a banquet hall, it was not clear on the menu that the listed dishes would be served one hour at a time and other standard parameters were not indicated. At the same time, we are more than fluent in English and I consider it completely unacceptable the disparaging tone of communication in Guest relations, indicating that they say they explained to you Russian in Russian.
I would be happy to read the documents with the parameters of the party in English, discuss the nuances with the staff by phone in early December, I can even translate from Turkish if I understand writing from the document, after several years of travel, and Google will help me. But to make it official, on the website, the program, as Akra Barut does, publish it in the public domain, send a link with a description by e-mail when they offer a paid service - no, this is not provided for by Lara Barut. It is only intended to take money and then demand irrepressible joy from guests, imitate service and feedback.
8. Main restaurant - rating 3
A clear plus is the division into a zone for adults, without the right to use a telephone, and a separate family zone with children. The food is not bad if you don’t know how they fed in March and don’t pay attention to the nuances ...
and 5 stars in any case does not work, due to the secondary use of dishes and cooks sneezing on the food they cook - this is in any case not acceptable in public catering. Hotel guests, both adults and children, lick common appliances (spoons on sauces, spatulas for meat and side dishes), and at this time, instead of keeping order, the staff gathers in 3-4 people chatting cheerfully and looking at phones, is it really impossible to pick up and to seize cutlery, to help children so that they do not drop food on the floor and do not lick the cutlery.
In general, you need to come to breakfast / lunch / dinner in the forefront simply because of sanitation (you can use clean appliances), and in principle it is better not to take sauces, or take hot sauces. March 2019
there was a full serving on the tables, at every dinner there was strawberries and whipped cream, and when ordering two glasses of wine, they brought us a bottle of wine and opened it in front of us and then put it in a bucket of ice - now this is not there, only glasses brought from around the corner from pre-opened bottles.
Now there is also no bottled water, they bring water like "spring" in stained, muddy jugs. Previously, there were just cakes, full-fledged and very high quality, not cut biscuits, exhibited for two days in a row. Now this is not the case, despite the hotel's high occupancy for winter and quite a decent price tag. Most likely, the hotel administration believes that, having refocused on the Russian-speaking segment, it is possible to lower the bar - guests from the CIS countries will do so ....
One way or another, strawberries are now only on cakes and some mini-cakes, the set of fruits is very limited, only tangerines, oranges, persimmons, grapes, apples, bananas, there are no pineapples, or rather, there are as decor on the chef's table. Once in 9 days of staying at the Hotel, they set up a table with pineapple slices - after my mother's negative review on the site, indicating precisely these nuances.
The only thing that the waiters do without being reminded is to offer alcohol. At the same time, they do not change cloth napkins - tablecloths on tables, if they do not have pronounced stains, do not put cutlery after previous guests. When you sit down at the table and ask for forks and knives in English/Russian, you are simply ignored. They only know one word "drinks". And if you do not drink, the waiters lose all interest in you, only when mountains of dirty plates accumulate, they take them away. This is where the service ends.
I would like the waiters to know that their duty is not only to drink the guests unconscious, but also to lay tables and clean dirty dishes. We talked about this Guest relations, after the review, the Hotel corrected the work: the waiters began to change napkins and sweep crumbs and leftover food from the tables with their hands (! ) onto the floor and chairs ... , we were forced to wipe the chairs from pieces of food with napkins every time, exclusively ...5 stars...The tables are very close to the walls, the waiters cannot approach them from different sides, they take the dirty dishes from one side, risking turning the rest of the food on the guests' clothes. What will happen in the summer, in the season when there will be 100% load, one can only guess.
9. Lobby Bar - score 4
Stylish, spacious, bad ventilation in winter - the room is stuffy, the smell of smoking comes from the terrace and it’s hard for me to stay in such a room for a long time, in fact it’s better to go to a bar by the sea, even though the coffee cools down quickly, but the air is definitely fresh.
The lobby bar saved us in terms of water - non-carbonated water in a factory glass bottle was only available in this bar in winter conditions. For which many thanks.
10. Alcohol - score 3
Sparkling local wine is absolutely unacceptably of poor quality, quiet local wines are now served on bottling from pre-opened bottles - you can’t drink it. From alcohol, you can definitely drink Maloneys cream liqueur, in a bar by the sea for coffee - original Irish, we didn’t try other drinks, we didn’t check the bottles.
11. DU DU MANGO - rating 1
This is a novelty in the hotel services, a night disco until 2 a. m. , after which excited young people roam around the hotel, yelling, laughing, brawling without letting the rest of the guests sleep, neither the reception nor the security are able to calm down the spree guests, whose party with moving furniture, shouting and music in the room next to us continued until 5:30 in the morning, and the next day it resumed and until 2:30 at night we did not sleep because of these party people. I would like the Hotel to understand that in addition to good mattresses for guests to relax, at least elementary standards for silence are required, and with this mode of operation of the disco, the Hotel does not control the flow of irrepressible revelers at all. DU DU MANGO has attracted a certain proportion of guests to the previously quiet hotel - who prefer to party in the style of Ibiza.
12. Sea
I didn’t like the water in the sea in the Lara area at all: not far from the beach, a river flows into the stink and brings it into the sea ...we walked along the coastline until the river flows into the sea, starting from the Dolphin there are heaps of algae and garbage, further on the Titanic beach there are fewer algae and the most extreme one of them is Lara beach, the distance is basically small and it turns out that the water is not just muddy from the sand, but is actually diluted with the water of the river passing through the village.
13. Guest relations - this is a separate topic, which in fact crosses out everything that was even in the asset of the Hotel. Problems and questions may arise, jambs are everywhere and for everyone, but the question is how this service reacts to guests, how work is done on requests and what the hotel is doing to correct the situation.
Having set 5 stars and positioning yourself as a worthy hotel chain with a claim to the concept, you need to understand that when communicating with guests, elementary courtesy and respect are required, aggression and attacks on national, gender grounds are not allowed.
If in Akra Barut we were surrounded by courtesy and care, then you don’t even remember that there were some moments there too - they corrected, apologized, made a nice compliment and you don’t even remember for what reason.
And in Lara Barut Collection, Guest relations employees literally fight with a guest who makes elementary demands for the execution of paid services, sanitation, and silence.
The management of this service is not familiar with the rules of business communication ethics, nor the hospitality and cordiality traditional for Turkey in relation to guests, nor respect for the older generation - they are well aware of the guests' birthdays and at least mother could be treated with at least a minimum level of compliance decency - not to turn away at a meeting, not to write completely incorrect phrases in response to mom's review on the site - outright misinformation.
Having made obvious miscalculations in the provision of services, the head of Guest relations in writing, instead of just an apology, began to prove the normality of such work, without delving into business processes, into the work of its employees, into what the hotel sends in writing to the consumer. This is a guest control service, and it has achieved its success - I strongly do not recommend the hotel, I will not return. The hotel is clearly overrated in terms of rating and price.
Translated automatically from Russian. View original
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