Side Star Elegance Hotel 

This hotel boasts a nice modern, tasteful and comfortable design. The Vogue & Time Out bars are popular places for guests to chat with a drink before and after your evening meal and play cards. The background music playlists in the bars and restaurants are varied and tasteful. The toilets around the hotel are well cared for by the cleaners and the nice smelling Olive liquid soap is the best we've ever experienced in a hotel. There's a good atmosphere, especially in the restaurants and bars, due to a positive cheerful attentive, hard working considerate and efficient waiting team. The animators Selim, Victoria, Celine, Ozan and Ilhan are friendly, but not pushy. The cleaners are cheerful when you greet them. The staff on the whole, appear to have a good rapor with one another. Some waiters are heard singing as they work, which helps guests to feel happier. A special thanks to Esra, Eylul, Irem, Ozlem, Raziye, Burak, Ramazam, Hakan, Mert, Volkan, Serhat, Sefer, Atai, Bilal, Samet, Mustafa, Yasin, supervisor Ferhat and Baris, (who was sadly laid off for 3 months during our stay). Theyre a real credit to the hotel. The catering team work very hard and the salad and dessert selection is probably the best we have encountered in the many 5* hotels we have stayed in. We found most days the hot food was okay, but some nights were better than others with respect to quality of fish meat and vegetable choice. During a conference they excell and the buffett displays are a real beautiful work of art! The Reception team, particularly Mustafa, Burak and Zaynap, with whom we spoke, are pleasant and efficient. Ibrahim and Kemel on guest relations were approachable, friendly and showed a willingness to resolve minor issues that arose with the rooms. The gardeners keep the grounds tidy without detracting from the natural growth and appearance, and their fruit trees are all organic. The grassy areas aren't manicured looking like some nearby hotels, which I guess encourages the insect life. I got bitten by mosquitoes 10 times in one day while sitting in the darts and non smoking eating area. So be prepared with repellant! The Duden Bar unfortunately doesn’t have a non smoking outdoor area. But, its an otherwise attractive and relaxing area, with its waterfall, view of the sea and modern Italian design layout. Also it offers creative activities for a small group of guests, at 3pm 6 days a week. Nice idea. The Patisserie although a spacious room with plenty of nice coloured uphostered seats, is what I'd call a dead zone. No music, no atmosphere, no people, other than those mistakenly exiting the lifts and waiting to get in back in them when realising they weren't on -4. When the weather is wet, the desk by the window and lift is manned by an animator who can loan board games to occupy guests. A La Cartes. The Fish had a decent meze starter and 3 main options of Sea Bream, Lemon Sole and Salmon . The waiter Sefer, nicknamed Speedy Gonzales helped make it an enjoyable time. Moreso when the occupancy is greater. The Asian and Italian A la Cartes were disappointing. The service and rooms were fine, but the meals were not authentically Asian and Italian. The spring roll and prawn crackers on the Asian menu were okay and the Italian mushroom soup and Tiramasu was nice. The mains sauces were not mushroom as stated on the menu. We didnt get to try the Turkish and Fondue A la Cartes as you are only allocated 3 per stay. Guests should be mindful that there are a lot of outdoor steps and an incredibly slow funicular lift from the lowest floor of -4, which some of the internal lifts will take you down to. The funicular will take you down near to the outdoor pools, snack bars and beach. Unfortunately the funicular doesn't work after heavy rain and some of the internal lifts only take you to level -2, where the main restaurants are. Not what I call an easy access hotel as such, but there were guests with sticks and wheelchairs etc, so some areas of the hotel obviously can cater for them with some steep ramps. The layout of the hotel takes everyone a while to navigate. Despite this, we met guests with mobility issues that had been returning to the hotel for 10 and 20 years! Female guests particularly also need to be aware that regardless of how high the weather temperature is, the hotel centrally controlled air con gets switched off on 29th Oct. The hotel does not have room fans for those roasting in a sea view room. The duvets are thick winter ones and the pillows are very thick. If like me you have neck and spinal issues, take your own and maybe a top sheet to lie under. Wish I had done so. Earplugs are good too. At 06.10 theres a call to prayer from a local mosque and at 7.10 there are noisy generators or whatever they are in the grounds which start up. Both disturbing what would be the tranquillity of birdsong and surf. On floor -4 there's a spa here which we didnt wish to use,mainly due to a pushy guy diagnosing my husband at first sight and trying to persuade him he can fix problem which he would not have been able to. There's also a pushy woman who's obviously on commission for the hair salon there, who almost orders you into there after insulting your eyebrows, to sit under the scrutiny of a younger guy while a flat capped mature gent draws white eyebrow outlines on you making you look like a clown while a man behind you gets a shave and a young girl gets her hair dyed at the side of you. I asked what he used to do the microblading. He showed me a bladed ink pen (casing looked similar to a fountain pen and not clinical looking) that he keeps in a slim pencil case tin with syringes, creams and other paraphernalia. Therefore you would be subjected to an unhygienic blade used on others, cutting into your skin, surrounded by hair, dyes, hairspray and soiled clothing particals as you sit in the salon chair. Hence to say I wasnt keen to risk infection and worse sepsis, which travel medical insurance would certainly cover. Despite the few mentioned negatives, the hotel on the whole ticks enough boxes for many guests to return year after year, and is better value than some of the more expensive hotels nearby that we have stayed in. We enjoyed our stay, mainly due to the staff, who we hope to see again soon.