the caria

hi , i was wondering if anyone has been to the caria hotel and what they thought of it, i have been looking at some reviews and am bit worried about food, restaurant and the russians/germans, there are 8 of us going on the 31st july, also is it best to take lira or pounds or do we need a mixture of both?? thanks very much for anyone who can reply, karen x

Hi Karen

We have just returned from the Caria and my views are as follows:-

Food - There is a good variety if you eat almost anything, they do not serve English food, mainly European. Breakfast - you wont get your usual full english breakfast, no bacon, fried eggs etc, we mainly ate bread and jam, sometimes a boiled egg but that was hit and miss either hard boiled or undercooked. There are cereals, hams, cheese, meatballs, chips & Sprouts!!!!
Lunch & Dinner- a variety again but only if you like what they serve, they do not serve chips very often, we did go to the beach one day as we were told they served burgers, chips etc which they did but they werent very nice so never returned.

We went into the town a couple of times to eat at the "Karaoke Bar"..the food there was lovely and it was cheap. There were 7 of us 2 adults 5 kids (17,16,15,14,13) the kids had kids meals and we made do with cheaper options - pizza, omlette, all had water, soft drinks and a bottle of beer...cost approx £27 for us all...good value and I definitely recommend

Hotel - it isnt the German people but the Russian people that caused issues, especially all the youngsters that were there, they were boistrous and pushed in all the time.

Bars at hotel- if you're going with kids they get overlooked at the bars, and everyone pushes infront of you...in the end even if I wasn't next in the queue I put my order of drinks in (if there was a child or English person before me I did let them go first). Also they often ran out of fanta, my hubby thinks they also water down the beer????

The animation team were ace, they certainly kept you entertained.

Rooms - we had two rooms on the 7th floor...238 steps up from the pool, it was tiring and never got any easier as the days went by, we did find a quicker way...less steps (150ish) but quite steep on the right hand side... Rooms were very basic and not as I have come to expect 4* or 5* hotels rooms to be. But all we did was sleep & shower in them so we werent too bothered about them. The beds had a bottom sheet and just a blanket to cover yourself up with, only 1 pillow per person. The air conditioning in the rooms were very good though.


Excursions - book with Oz at Sarigerme tours, they also do hotel tranfers and can take up to 14 people. It cost us 110 Turkish Lira ( £50) for both cabs to Caria from the airport, going back we booked with Oz and he only charged £30 for all 7 of us.

You are better off taking English money...they seem to prefer it in the town and especially the market on a Sunday...that is an experience itself. Make sure you barter though, they sell cheap fake tshirts 7 for £10, handbags we got 3 fakes for approx £15 each. Do not buy from the stalls that are in the Hotel once a week, he sells t shirts 5 for £20. A cab to the town cost 10 lira each way (approx £4). there is a shuttle bus that leaves the hotel at 9pm into the town but unless you are staying in town untill about 11ish you will need to get a cab back.

We never had an issue with mosquitos at all.

It was very hot when we were there last week 45 degrees in the shade on some days...lots of suncream needed!!!

At the end of the day we had a nice relaxing holiday, I would not return to the Caria but a holiday is what you make of it. I am definately going back to Sarigerme though, the people there are nice and friendly and as it is cheap to eat out i will consider self catering next year.

Hope this helps

Karen

hi karen
thanks very much for the info, looking forward to it but a bit worried about the food and the russians pushing and shoving, we will soon find this out....lol

hope your recovering from the heat, and hope you enjoyed yourselves
karen