Хороший отдых Good vacation

We rested in Cilicia from 13 to 22 June.
I want to note right away that you need to go on vacation only with a good mood. Otherwise, your hotel will become a “triple with a stretch” instead of a “five” and in general everything will be disgusting. In everything you need to look for, if possible, positive aspects, and do not pay attention to the little things.
Now specifically for the rest.
My wife works in tourism, so the hotel was chosen carefully. To be more precise, I chose more carefully, as my wife said, if such a client came to her and started to find fault with everything, she would hang herself : -). My requirements for the hotel were simple, but from the outside they seemed picky:
1) price in the region of 60-70 thousand. If possible, less.
2) a 5 * hotel with a good, large and fairly green area, many pools or one, but huge and deep, BUT so that the number of vacationers does not go off scale for 500-700 people
3) mainbuilding, not bungalows and villas

4) the hotel is not older than 10 years
5) the first line, the distance from the beach is not great
6) Preferably a safe in the room and a free minibar.
7) a la carte restaurants are free by reservation (the more the better)
8) more free services
9) if possible, water slides
10) next to the hotel, something from the commercial infrastructure (shops, centers), so that you can take a walk, buy souvenirs. I did not want the hotel to be alone in the desert, and I had to take a bus or taxi to the nearest center.

We chose this way: first, we looked through all the catalogs of hotels and wrote out those that we liked (although my wife immediately said that these were expensive, these sucked, etc. ).
After sampling, we looked at the prices for these hotels from different operators and after that the list was reduced. The latest listing was used to review reviews for these hotels. By the way, Cilicia was not included in this list because of its high cost.
I want to note that any hotel had a review like: the food sucks, the room is small and they generally clean it once a week, the waiters are lazy and angry, they are rude at the reception, well, etc. You understand that such reviews should be skipped (read above what I wrote at the beginning of the review). The reviews sometimes reached the point of absurdity: people are resting at the same time, and the reviews are written diametrically opposite.
As a result, the choice fell on Queen`s Park, Venezia Palace and Saphir Resort & SPA. I wanted to go to Venezia, my wife to Queen`s Park. We monitored prices almost every day. When did the special offer for Cilicia that falls within our price range, we began to read reviews on this hotel. With each review, we liked it more and more. In the end, we decided to book it. Of course, we were afraid that everything would be as described in the negative reviews, but, as it turned out later, we were worried in vain.

Now about the trip:
We flew to Turkey on IL-86. We had a departure at 07:45, we got to the hotel around 12-13 hours.

It seems to me that this is the ideal time of arrival, as it falls during check-in, and the whole day is at your disposal. Settled quickly in the right wing. All rooms have a sea view, so we were satisfied. Our room had a double bed and another single bed. The double bed seemed small to us, because in the room opposite we saw one bed and it was bigger (and at home we have a bigger bed, even if it was made by special order). After dinner, we went down to the reception and asked to change the room, to which we were told that it was a French-bed and there were no other rooms available. No, it's not, and, not very upset, we went to the beach. It rained occasionally for the first two days. More precisely, we didn’t really have time to sunbathe on the first day, and on the second day it was sunny in the first half, but we went to the hammam, and when we returned, clouds came up and it started to rain again. The rest of the days were sunny and cloudless.
A Turkish bath (hamam) with all services (sauna, peeling, soap massage, aroma oil massage) at the hotel is expensive ($ 55), so we took it at another hotel for $ 15.
On food: Do not believe some who write that there is no food. The food was full. If it seems that it is not enough, remember how you eat at home, and everything will fall into place. New arrivals can be easily recognized by their white skin and the large number of plates on the table. Over time, the desire to grab everything goes away and you start taking only what you actually eat and in not so large quantities. About the attendants: they rush about like crazy, you will not have time to set aside a plate, they will definitely run up and ask - finish? If you didn’t come right away, then most likely you didn’t see it corny. We never once asked and did not put the plates on the floor to be removed, everything was done on time. You can always find a place in the dining room.
The food itself is organized as follows:
7:00-10:00 breakfast
10:00-10:30 late breakfast
Why they separated these two breakfasts, I don’t know, since everything happens in the same restaurant anyway.
12:00-16:00 Snack bar
12:30-14:00 Lunch at the main restaurant
It is also not clear why they did this. In both, you can eat normally. In the snack, the choice of dishes is much less, but you will not stay hungry.
19:00-22:00 dinner in the main restaurant
In addition to everything there is a lobby bar - around the clock, there any drinks are free
There is a bar by the pool, it is open from 10:00 to 24:00 there are also drinks for free
Cookies are also taken out to the pool at 16-17 o'clock so that you can refresh yourself.
There are also flat cakes (gozleme) from 11:00 to 16:00. Delicious if you ask to make what you like.
In terms of nutrition, probably everything, although not, there is also room-service at night from 00:00 to 7:00 (free of charge), that is, you can order food to your room, but we never used it - we slept at that time : -).

Now the negative aspects of nutrition. In my opinion, the food schedule is inconveniently built.
There are times when you want something to eat, but nowhere. This is the time interval 11:00-12:00 and 16:00-19:00.
If in the first interval you can go to eat a cake, then in the second there is simply nowhere.
Now about the positive aspects of nutrition:
The food is delicious no matter what anyone says. Always available chicken, some meat and fish. For breakfast, sausages and sausage are added. Heaps of vegetables. I always took cucumbers sometimes tomatoes and something else for taste. There were also fruits: peaches, apples, watermelons, oranges, melons, apricots, cherries, strawberries and much more every day. My wife constantly picked up a whole plate of fruits, replacing them with lunch or dinner. I liked strawberries with cream, I ate this dessert almost every day. From the sweet table, it can be noted that there was almost always a very large pile of cookies, buns, various sweets (I don’t even know such names) and cakes.
The most amazing thing for dinner and lunch was three different cakes, cut as much as you like and eat. Of the soups, the choice is smaller, usually for lunch and dinner there was a choice of one or two soups. Basically they have mashed soups, but a couple of times there was a Russian soup (borscht), potatoes and other vegetables floated there. There is a lot more to say about nutrition, but I'm already tired of writing.
Everything is very delicious. Some complain about the queue. This is how much you need to be pampered in order to take 5-7 people for a long line. It never bothered me, and even such queues were very few. He himself always let the children go ahead, so as not to crowd.
Alcoholic drinks are good, although he did not drink. The beer was not diluted, there were strong ones: good vodka, tequila, Napoleon cognac, whiskey, a lot of liquors. My wife constantly took Baileys with ice first, then Baileys with milk. There was a lot of Fanta, Pepsi, Sprite, soda - everything is to our taste, you can't distinguish it from ours.

The indicator of good food is my stomach. If I eat something stale, then in a couple of hours I will go to the toilet. Oddly enough, I never went to the toilet for this reason.
For a change, we visited all three a la carte restaurants: Mexican, Italian and fish. They ate in each. “Finish” in the main restaurant after that, as some write, did not go. Most of all I liked the Mexican. Recommend.

Service: cleaned the room well, every day. The bed was changed every other day. Towels were hung on request. Replenished the bar every time without problems. We did not leave any tips, but a couple of times they sculpted swans and flowers on the bed for us. We did not understand the cleaning time of the room. For several days they cleaned in the first half of the day (after lunch, when we came to the room, it was cleaned), then they began to clean in the afternoon. At that time we went to the relaxation room. This is cool.
Imagine a large room, along the edges of which are anatomically shaped loungers, the light is so subdued that a pleasant twilight is created. The room is cool and unobtrusive quiet music plays. In short, come, take a towel and lie down. There is also a Russian steam room and a Turkish bath, a jacuzzi and an indoor pool in the hotel. All this is free if you do everything yourself (peeling and massages are for a fee). The water in the jacuzzi is cool, or rather cold, so you can’t soak it up there. We also went to the gym, played tennis every morning (all for free). But billiards turned out to be paid : -(.

Animation. Unobtrusive, constantly called somewhere to play, if you refuse, then they will not pester. I played boccia, darts, water polo. I wanted to play beach volleyball, but I was afraid to burn out in the sun. In the evening there is always some kind of performance (after the children's disco).
The service staff will always understand you if you speak Russian, there was no language barrier at all (neither in bars, nor at the reception, nor in the SPA).
But in stores, they completely forgot how to bargain. Almost everyone there speaks Russian, but they don’t want to reduce prices, and the prices there are not cheap.

Calling to Russia is better with a payphone card. Moreover, it is more profitable to call a landline phone, a mobile phone is more expensive. We bought the card twice, once for $4, the second for $3. I took cards with one denomination of 50 circuits. Approximately, 1 circuit = 40 seconds, plus something is taken for the connection. As a result, the card is enough for half an hour (4-5 rubles a minute). It is not profitable to buy a SIM card there.
The beach is good, the sea is quite transparent. There are, of course, stones, but they are mainly concentrated at the pier and can be seen. You can always find sun loungers by the beach, you need to borrow by the pool in the morning, closer to dinner it is difficult to find a good place there.
The slides are ordinary, without a drive, but enough to ride.
The pool is excellent. The depth at the deepest point is 2 meters, at the shallowest point 1.40 cm.
All tired of writing. In short, the rest was a success, only more would be : -).
Russian in the hotel was the majority, in my opinion 80%. Drunk and fighting did not notice, everything was cultural.
Recommend.