Kentia in Side

We have just come back from a week at the Kentia Apartments. Overall the hotel was great! The room was really big with a separate kitchen/lounge. The staff were really friendly, the hotel was very clean, breakfast and lunch was lovely. The dinner option was ok, but it was the same every night with a few different meat or fish options. The local alcohol was like drinking water! After 6 vodka and cokes we never felt like we had been drinking at all, you can pay extra for branded spirits and cocktails, however this defeats the whole 'all inclusive' stay. When you arrive at the hotel you think you are in the middle of nowhere, no shops, bars or other restaurants! If you put into google maps - Side harbour, Side Mall you can walk for a couple of Kilometres and find the beautiful harbour with lots of shops, bars and restaurants! We ate out most nights and it was very reasonably priced - we recommend Thyma restaurant in the harbour. They have a Spa at the hotel, which is definitely worth having a Turkish Bath and massage for about 60 euros.

So, we arrived at 4am after a delayed flight with SunExpress (Berber heard of them before) and where told that the hotel was over booked (a common occurrence apparently) and they would put us in the hotel around the corner, we took one look and refused to stay there. We ended up sitting in the restaurant with another couple from 4.30am, it would also appear that you will only get compensation for this if you book with Tui which we did fortunately. We were told that we would only get our rooms after 10am when other guests had checked out, we ended up getting changed in the toilets so we could at least sit in the sun for a while. Unfortunately, I won’t go into too much detail but a young woman died in room C22, the hotel management weren’t too concerned for the woman’s partner and basically didn’t help him at all. The rooms (C9) are spacious but dated and are meant to be getting a revamp at the end of this season. There was a fridge, not stocked with any drinks, a kettle but you will need to take your own coffee or buy it in the on-site shop. The beds are really hard and uncomfortable but they are clean. The pool area is crowded, they say you can’t put your towels out before midnight so after that is a free for all. The sun only reaches one side of the pool so if you are sun worshiper they you will need to be early. The all inclusive drinks have no alcohol in them. I’m not a big drinker so we tried an experiment and not one of us got “squiffy” in the slightest. If you buy the branded drinks then a double Baileys will set you back about £12 and the cocktails are about £8 each, the all inclusive finishes at 10.30pm. You can’t use the room towels by the pool. The food….awful… it’s cold, the 5 minute boiled eggs were raw still,it would also appear that food is recycled, so left overs from lunch out at dinner time. There is also the danger of cross contamination as myself and another lady witnessed first hand, using knives to cut one thing and then the same knife on something else which unfortunately made her ill. I have a bad food allergy so ended up not eating anything for three days except some crisps from the on-site shop. Even the drinks from the machines are luke warm and the juices very watery. The only real plus side of this place is the staff, they are great and helpful and the place is clean. The WiFi you will have to pay for but we got ours free for the week because of the no room situation… sorry but can’t recommend this place.

This is my honest opinion of kentia hotel. We have just finished our week stay at Kentia, with my two small children. The hotel its self is very clean, tidy and has very good facilities. The staff are always going round cleaning and tidying up. The staff are absolutely perfect! They are all so friendly, always making my little ones smile. They are so helpful. I couldn’t fault the staff what so ever. They all work so long hours but never fail to smile or help you when you need it! I want to do a HUGE HUGE HUGE shout out to the photographer at Kentia, Hamdin. He was just fab! He took photos of my little ones with us whilst in the pool capturing those special moments. We booked in for a photo shoot to get some family pics and omg he did not disappoint. At points he had a hold of my 6 month old in one hand and a big camera in the other. The pictures we have got are honestly amazing! He built up such a lovely professional relationship with both myself and my children throughout the holiday! Outstanding. We had a trip to the spa, had a Turkish bath and full body massage, hot stone and face mask. I would recommend, the staff there are lovely also. The rooms are perfect, we had a room that had a huge living room area with a tv, sink/kitchen. A huge bathroom with bath and shower. A large bedroom with a queen size bed and a travel cot. We had ground floor so had a garden and a patio with 2 sun loungers. Perfect. The cleaners were great and came in every day and replaced linen ever 3 days or sooner if I asked. Fab! One massive downfall of this hotel is the food. We are not picky eaters and we will eat anything but the food was simply not good enough. There wasn’t enough options both for kids and adults and also the options that were there were so bland. There was a lot of repetition, like chicken nuggets that were left over would be put in the fridge/cool but for tea etc. pizza was always cold, the only thing I could recommend is the chips. We ate out after day 2 as I started to get a really sore stomach which lasted for 3 days. (This may not of been because of the food) We did have the pancakes by the lady near the pool bar, she again was amazing. Always chatting to my little one, always had a smile and made fab pancakes! The location is abit out the ways, old town is 10 mins down the road via taxi 500lira. We visited land of legend which is great! Very expensive but deffo recommend. We went to the beach using the free shuttle but you are stuck there until 4/5 pm with no transport to get back as there’s no taxis there. (I wish this was explained before) we visited local shops and restaurants, I don’t reccomend the restaurant/pub as you walk right from the hotel to the end turn left. The food was not nice and expensive for what it is. This hotel great for what we payed for and the only downfall is the food, but everything else was absolutely perfect. I wouldn’t personally return but great for what you pay for. We have had a great holiday