I need help and advice.
Next year, 2025, Debs and I have been married for 30 years so we wanted to book somewhere in the sun and go all-inclusive. The idea was it was just going to be the two of us but now the kids and their partners and the 3 year old grandson may well be joining us.
I have looked on the LoveHolidays website (does anyone have any recommendations for using them or for not using them as the case may be?) and I found a couple of nice AI holidays in Alanya in Turkey and the Canaries.
I have put in the filters that I would like a 5* hotel with great TripAdvisor reviews and must be good for kids with water slides and the like and be good for disabled people.
There are 2 main places that have come up inside everyone's budget.
Have never been to Turkey but 2005 and all that, so that is one destination and the other is Lanzarote.
Ane recommendations and/or horror stories please?
We had a spate of going to Turkey between about 2010 and 2015 - and all the hotels we stayed in were at Lara Beach, near Antalya
Lara Beach is a purpose-built resort that's still growing (AFAIK). The first phase was building a strip of hotels fronting onto the beach, and that was finished in the 00's. Subsequent phases have built landwards from there. I'll just talk about the beach-fronting ones cos that's where we stayed.
They range a bit in size, with some 5* and some 4*. The * rating isn't really that accurate in terms of opulence by UK/USA standards (knock perhaps half a * off)
Most have the own small pier, and most of those have a bar on it that's included in the AI, plus water sports (some are included; others like jetski you need to pay for) and the beach is Blue Flag and sand (quite coarse, though). All have great pools & a variety of water slides and fairground rides (usually only open in the evening). All seem great with kids activities. Entertainment on a night is pretty generic and often Eastern European dancing/acting along to a pre-recorded show.
Food is the potential spanner in the works. Standard is the buffet-format. I always found loads I liked (loved the carvery meats) - but Mrs R is more fussy and would probably only give a 6/10. It's a Muslim country, so pig-derived products are out (some did one day a week as 'English breakfast' with proper bacon) All tend to have multiple small outlets through the day serving different things (kebab, sandwiches, pide, jacket spuds, ice cream, etc) and free - but different ones sometimes open at different times.
Antalya is about 30 mins by taxi and has a lot of historical cultural things to sightsee (like Hadrian's Gate). Very convenient for the airport.
When we went, we stayed in either the Royal Wings or Delphin Diva, both of which were good.