A.I. – it’s what everyone’s talking about. I mean all-inclusive, obviously. We’d never leant round the door of this type of holiday, likening the essential wristband to an ankle tag. That fear of being part of a herd, land-locked in a campus resort, and joining in with Agadoo. I have never pushed a pineapple and am not about to start now.
But as they say, it was different times. The A.I. holiday has raised its game and, by the time you’ve reverse-engineered the cost, can represent significantly good value.
Architecturally, the hotel isn’t short of merit thought the interiors of the public spaces were slightly less consistent. Rooms, all with balconies, are very well-finished and equipped, and housekeeping is second to none. Ours was on the top floor complete with a Jacuzzi and sun terrace though I won’t enlarge on why we avoid using the former. Each to their own.
There is a large main pool and it has its own beach with loungers and parasols, where waiters regularly pass should you feel ‘thirsty’. The pool team whizz about on rollerblades, ensuring swift service and there is a DJ playing gentle beats from around midday.
As spas go this is very generously designed. We went for a couple’s body scrub and massage, well priced at €59 pp. You lie on a vast hot marble slab while two practitioners scrub, soap and rub you to sleep. It lasted an hour and set us up for the week.
If you fill a cat’s bowl with kibbles it quickly becomes ambivalent towards food. So it is with the A.I. offer – you can have what you want whenever you want. So you don’t. Well, at least not after day one because I bloody love a buffet! It’s that opportunity to put on one plate foods that should never meet each other. Rules are there to be broken and this buffet is almighty.
For the subsequent three evenings we booked into the à la carte restaurants, which are also on site. One is Turkish, another has an international menu and there’s an Italian. And they were all great. House wine is served in each though if you’d like something a bit better they have a list of wines that you can pay for.
Currently, 90 per cent of their guests are German, so the staff greets you with that logical assumption. We quickly fell in line, replying ‘Morgen!’ though we don’t speak the language. No, loungers were not hard-fought and yes, our fellow guests proved to be charming and gracious company. The other benefit is that we were oblivious to the conversations around us. Had they been Brits it would have been harder to tune out when reading a book. It did, however, influence the nature of the entertainment, which for the most part we side-stepped. There were guests of all ages here, mostly couples and they do have a children’s pool for families, though we were out of season so only pre-schools were there during our stay.
There is a small town nearby that you can get to for €8 in a taxi, called Side. It’s well worth a visit though be warned, it is both sublime and ridiculous. The Roman ruins of the old town are some of the best in Turkey including a theatre that would have seated 20,000, a Temple to Apollo and remains of a colonnaded street. Then the flip side, the main road to the port has been completely rebuilt with stone-veneered rows of shops exclusively selling knock-off designer handbags and shoes, and the salesmen in the doorways cast no shadow. Worth noting, if someone calls you ‘my friend’ invariably they are not… That said, go early, as from about 11am the coaches of tourists arrive in their hoards, plus it’s easier ‘to culture’ before it gets too hot.
If Seaden Quality is a fair example we are now firm converts to all-inclusive holidays, and this one is well worth considering. We travelled in late April and booked through secretescapes.com as part of a package including three days in Istanbul, all flights and transfers included.
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