Adam EZG
hotel service focused only on German customers and for tips. the waiters were not friendly, just like the gentlemen from the reception. great location, beach, bazaars, public transport. food.... I will say this: yes, a lot of pickled vegetables. great bread. overall 6/10 and the overall rating of the hotel? 5/10 5 and not 4 because cleanliness is great.
Jayne Austin
Just had a week at Gardenia beach hotel with my boyfriend. The hotel lovely and clean the food was amazing and the staff very helpful couldn't fault it at all. Would love to go back.
Loop
Probably one of the best hotels I’ve stayed at. The room was lovely and the hotel itself was absolutely beautiful and in a stunning location on the beach. The food was amazing and the staff were very friendly. I would 100% come again.
Nigel Webb
First time in Turkey and love it, friendly and very clean hotel. The food is really good quality and healthy. The deserts are so good, a lot of care goes into the food here. There's a bazaar 10 minutes walk away and an outlet. You feel safe walking around outside the hotel even at night. The people in the bazaar can seem pushy sometimes but smile and be friendly and walk away, it's fine. Only reason I gave the location 4 stars is it's not in aain town but the bus to Alanya costs roughly 2 Euro each and that's an hour away (lots of things are priced in euro, you can pay in Lira) (the AA01 bus service is not a private bus company that says Alanya on the front running every 10 minutes). The hotel is on the beach and has a lifeguard and lounges. The entertainment is spot on and all the staff. This hotel is one of the best all inclusives I've ever stayed at.
Vlad A.
We stayed here for the whole month of May.
Let's start with the good.
They have some beautifully kept grounds (although their beach property is rather narrow compared to other hotels)
The food is very decent, it's renewed on days they expect a new batch of tourists, then the food that is uneaten is reused in other dishes for the next couple of days, but don't get me wrong most of the time it's very tasty and they have a large variety of vegan/vegetarian options. Some items like seafood cocktails are only available for 1 day a week when they expect a batch of German tourists. Hallways are upkept, paths are always impeccably clean. Regarding bottled water, you'll only have 1 little bottle per person per day delivered to your room with room service, however I've been told you can find a water dispenser on the main floor where reception is, I haven't checked personally because I always used to take some bottled water from the maid's carts (which when you're really thirsty at night you can find on the upper floors stowed away at the end of the hall in some of the buildings). Basic alcohol is free up to midnight if I'm not mistaken. You get free ice cream between 3-4pm on the beach. The kids loved it. Also the children's animation is pretty good, they love kids and it shows they genuinely love what they do. But the evening animation for kids the same same every night which gets boring pretty quickly.
Pools are super clean, no complaints there. At one point my wife went to get some coffee from one of the coffee machines during non-meal hours while wearing her bikini but she was turned away by the staff, which seemed ridiculous because there is a pool with people tanning right next to the dining area... an unpleasant surprise.
The beach is a pebble beach. Sometimes algae and garbage would wash ashore but it was usually cleaned up by the next day. The beach staff is great, they'll get you a lounge chair or umbrella if you ever needed one.
Now for the bad.
We were staying at the building adjacent to the pool and water slides, but there were a lot of mosquitoes in the evening, and no nets on the windows! We had to chase down 10-15 mosquitoes every night before going to bed. The blood splatter on the walls is a testament to that. We asked about getting some window nets from the staff but just got a blank stare from them in response.
No one speaks English except a couple of people at reception. Literally. However, because most tourists are Germans, some of the staff speak German (we don't). On the dining terrace there are napkin dispensers which have a sticker that shows non-smoking hours during meals, but some people still smoke, which bothered us. When we approached the staff about this, they simply told us to go tell the smokers ourselves, which believe me I did but I find that this wasn't a very professional manner to handle the situation (the staff should have approached the smokers on our behalf). On the beach there are no rules regarding smoking. So a lot of people smoke, which was a bother for the kids. We had to get into a spat with some people because they were smoking next to our kids incessantly and without any consideration. Not exactly kids friendly.
At one point, because of the length of our stay, we had to get some laundry done, we just had one load but it ended up costing us 60 euros, for one load! Not to mention that the clothes stank of detergent afterwards and had lost all their color, black shirts were now grey, had to argue about it at reception on the day of our checkout but they refused to do anything about it, so that left a sour taste about the whole situation. Honestly we won't be back, we'll try another hotel property next time.
In summary this place is popular with German singles who want to come here to get drunk for a few nights and smoke on the beach. That's all.
Oh I also should mention, people smoke in their rooms and the smoke smell will seep into your room because of how the ventilation works, and if someone is making love in one of the adjacent rooms you'll be listening to it all night long.