Thanks for all the reads, rates and comments .::The new pic is from Hallowe'en, just incase you thou...
Thanks for all the reads, rates and comments .::The new pic is from Hallowe'en, just incase you thought I always dress like that!::.
Member since:13.01.2009
Reviews:75
Members who trust:18
I booked up with Thomson to go to Turkey from London Stansted to Dalaman and to stay at Samira Deluxe Apartment with my other half. It cost us about £750 altogether for one week at the end of June, which I think is OK for a holiday these days.
The apartments are 2 hours drive away from Dalaman airport, which some people think is quite a long time; but it didn't seem too long because we were just so tired as we landed at about 1am. We got to the apartments at about 3am. Walking into the reception; it was horrible. Everywhere was covered in moths because they kept all the doors open and all the lights on. They were absolutely everywhere. We were shown to our room and found that we had twin beds that couldn't be moved together and we were both too tired to complain about it, so we both went to bed.
Waking up, we went to our extremely small balcony and tried to find the sea from our 'sea view room', which we could, but we weren't facing out onto the sea. It was a really beautiful view though. We decided to go to the pool for the day as we were too tired to head down to the beach.
The pool is a standard rectange, with a bit sectioned off for children. There are lots of loungers around the pool, with sunbrellas (I can't remember the proper name for that...). There is also a pool bar and the restaurant at the pool.
The staff at the apartments are extremely helpful, all very friendly. Especially George! They take the time to learn your names, although, we got called 'the cute Scottish couple' for our time there, lol. They chat to you and make sure you've got everything you need.
The food at the restaurant is all pretty basic, nothing that stands out. They have a mix of American and European food, not a lot of Turkish cuisine though. It is all edible, but it's not exactly 5 star food. They tend to put any drinks or food you order on a tab which you pay at the end of your holiday. It's all very cheap; we brought 700 lira each (which is about £300) and we paid 300 lira in all for all our food, drinks, etc that we had bought at the apartments. So we went home with about £200 each, which was great.
The Samira Deluxe Apartments are near the village of Kalkan, which is about a 15 minute walk down from the apartments. Samira Deluxe also offer a minibus service which runs about 6 times a day. Earliest bus is about 9am, latest bus comes back at 10pm. If you decide to walk down, definitely get the bus back up. It's a horrible, horrible walk back up. The hill up from the beach is so steep and in the heat, it's impossible to get up there without being pushed up.
The beach at Kalkan is a stony beach, but there are minibuses (dolmus) that take you to other sandy beaches and you can get a boat to take you to a nice beach. There are lots of restaurants and bars down at Kalkan, so you really are spoiled for choice.
The apartments all have cooking facilities; although don't expect to be able to make gourmet food in there. There's a fridge, pots, pans, cooker and kettle.
What I really didn't like was the state of the bathroom facilities. The shower was falling apart and was really small. It also leaked so the floor was soaking after you'd showered. The toilet always stank and you're not allowed to put toilet tissue down it, so you had to put it in a bin.
The apartments gets cleaned out every day, including all the bins being emptied.
They have a couple of entertainment nights a week and when we were there, they had a Turkish night. There was a set menu of Turkish food; traditional Turkish dancing and even a belly dancer. This was a great night, it was wonderful. I would really recommend going to this. They also have barbeque nights and film nights (they were showing Australia when we were there).
Overall; they are basic, cheap apartments. They're great if you're just looking for a base to explore Kalkan from, but if you're used to something more high class - this isn't for you.
Oh, and all the moths had disappeared by the morning.
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