Good and the bad ( My Hol Review updated)

[robinbhogal]

I'm currenty in Icmeler and its our 4th trip here we last came here 3 years ago. Its hot hot hot...there has been a big change in prices etc ..i will post my hol review when i'm back this weekend..

Well back from icmeler and back safe and sound. Here is my holiday review and please note this is not my first visit to icmeler. My last visit was 3 years ago.
Firstly I would like to say a big thank you to Sharon and john for sorting this holiday in one day. We booked on a Friday 6th and flew out on the following Monday for 10 days. Its a long story but had a holiday planned for the 7th August and we were going to Alicante but it never happened.
Right this write up is my view of icmeler and what I experience if you disagree with my view that’s fine by me but this is my review.
I went to icmeler the mrs and my 4 kids aged 4,5,7,8. Also my sister went with us with her 2 kids aged 7 and 10. My niece also came with us and she is aged 20, thats a total of 10 people in my party and yes I was the only bloke. Poor me I hear you saying...lol.
We had Flights booked with easyjet and we had no real problems getting to Turkey and we also had transfers arranged via Sharon and these were fine too. We all stayed at Kapmar hotel and we had 4 rooms together all on the same floor. The hotel front desk was always manned and they also had a security guard at night so all good there. The rooms did not have a fridge or a kettle so if you have a travel kettle bring it with you if you are booked at this hotel. The pool was very good but the sun beds always had towels on them by 6am-7am we only spent one or two days at the pool because of this. Another reason for this was there was this family for England and this family was so up themselves especially NEVER SAID HELLO TO ANYONE always took floats / balls out of the pool when our kids where playing with them. I just was waiting for her bloke to say something to me but he never did.
There’s always one family who are like this and this family was them. Even the other holiday makers we spoke to where saying the same things about this family to us. This family also had a wheel chair person in their party if you are reading and you are these people no one had good thing to say about you guys...
Ok back to the hotel, the hotel manger is also a right creep; he had no manners, was very rude never said hello morning and kept pestering my niece to buy drinks. I even heard he tried it on with a 14 year old while her borther was with her please watch out for him.
The breakfast is also pretty useless at the hotel and we had breakfast outside a full English for 4-6 lira. Mainly at the Scotia bar and used their pool which was ideal and we also got service with a smile ..
Ok that the hotel pretty much done now icmeler shopping and eating out.
Shopping 3 years ago I was buying t shirts 10 for a £10 and now they are doing deals for 3 for £10 and some places 5 for £10. So it’s not that cheap anymore. But look you need to shop around and walk away if they are not willing to come down on prices. I bought back about 25 t shirts and 3 pairs of trainers, 10 belts, fags about 150 packs of West Silver packs. But it’s not like 3 years ago when you could get better deals.
And now for eating out, this is where I’ve saw the biggest change. 3 years ago for a family of 6 I was paying £12-£18 when we were eating out at night. Now I was paying between £28 which was the cheapest most was £42 and this is with no alcohol. I and the Mrs do not drink but 3 years ago I was drinking and my bill was always under £20. Small cokes are now 3-5 Lira same as the Efes right old con. I even started to restoring to sneaking in a litre of coke which you can buy for 2.50 lira and filling our cokes under the tables. Sorry but it needs to be done, my bill was always sky high because of the drinks cost sometimes more than the food.
There are so many places to eat it’s very hard to eat at all of them but we did like the Coco beach restaurant, Travellers, New Sound Bar and Friends.
The beach was so so and sun bed cost are 2.50 lira same as 3 years ago so nothing changed there, we spent 2-3 afternoon there but drinks again where sky high you better off taking your own.
The jeep safari is a must and please shop around for deals you can haggle them.
Overall and good trip and the weather was between 37c and 48c hot hot hot.
The Icmeleronline office was very help and big thank you Sharon and Michelle for helping us out. And it was great to see John at the resort nice to put a name to a face now.

Any questions and advice please send me a message.

[redmanc78]

hi robinbhogal.

just read your review of your hols as i havent been to icmeler this year.looking forward to booking for next year and enjoy reading peoples reviews.
after reading yours it is obvious that prices have gone up(as has everywhere) but made me chuckle to read that you thought 5 tshirts for a tenner isnt cheap anymore. and 28 pound for 6 meals.not cheap????
am i missing something here because along with the service and entertainment that i have had the previous 3 times ive been icmeler to pay them prices would be a pleasure.

hope you dont think im being funny cos i dont intend it to be.just thought id make a point.
looking frorward to july 2011 in icmeler and hope the prices are still low.

[robinbhogal]

i know what you saying but paying £30 + everynight for meals x 10 times then going shopping after just killed me. but hey its still worth going to. I'm in 2 minds about going next year its icmeler or OLUDENIZ. I've had a quote for 2 weeks in aug 2011 for under £2000, you can not really bet that.. its just the mrs saying shes bored with icmeler now but i'm ok with it..u know the saying what the mrs says u do...

[bonnied]

Are you for real?

[robinbhogal]

Are you for real?

Yes why ..??

[JT]

Haha no wonder I always saw you with a calculator, you must have been working out how much to spend at the shops

The Efes is sold for less than a quid a pint in some bars and it costs them more than that to buy it in so paying rent and bills they have to put it on the kids drinks

I would go for the all inclusive option next year Robin but working on the prices you just gave as in £28 for 6 meals and drinks for the kids you will find that all inclusive would work out far far more than that.

If you had taken the kids to butlins then it would have cost you an awful lot more than that

[bonnied]

Are you for real?

Yes why ..??

Thought this was a wind up! Did you seriously think the prices were that high? i would be well chuffed paying those prices!!!

[MARKCAV]

Ok guys lets bring this back into perspective - a good holiday was had albeit a little more expensive than expected is how i read this. This is exactly how i felt after Junes holiday. I am back again in September for my 40th and will be far more wary cost wise. I have seen a greater increase in prices this year but love the place and will keep coming back. What i wont do is eat and drink out all the time as i have done in the past. Many others have commented on the increases also this year. We can all see whats happened here back in UK as costs have increased - people entertain at home far more and BBQS etc are more popular than ever despite our atrocious weather. I am more than happy to eat and drink out whilst on holiday but refuse to be pressured and similarly refuse to pay over the odds. One thing i can assure you is i aint tight or trying to put a dampener on things just expressing my views on my experiences. I am sure this is the same for Robin. He has taken a large party and found it expensive and it is only me and the wife and we found it the same and go every year. This year all in all it has been far more noticeable than in previous years, Thanks for listening and sorry for going on. Have a great holiday all and roll on Sept 6th.

[JT]

You are both correct.

Robin has a gang of kids that need feeding and watering all day in the high temperatures so costs will be dear.

When we are at home we don't eat out every night or I should say we don't eat big steak meals every night so why do it while away.

Erdem on the beach has spag bol for £2.50 so do that one night, fish and chips at Harry Rams is 12 lira but its when you start adding drinks it becomes expensive.

The reason for this is that they are giving away the food at about cost price.

I live here and like to cook my own but the prices of meat are so expensive it is actually cheaper for me to order a meal rather than cook if it was a meat dish.

Good steak to buy from shops is £10 per lb so how can they make money and try to be competitive when the place next door is advertising 5 courses for £5.50 albeit chicken dishes which at the moment is good value to buy in the shops but come on you cant eat chicken every night.

Shop around and if you have an apartment then have an odd meal on the balcony but it really is only the price of the drinks at some bars that take the bill higher.

You can say well the beer is only 80p at Sugars bar but if you have kids in tow then you will pay maybe £1.50 per drink for them so shop around

[MARKCAV]

Thanks Admin. I must intercept here and point out i dont and have never eaten out every night whilst on my hols. I am happy to but dont. Whislt there in June i walked everywhere drank water which is cheap and ate luch at Nefis and Cafe Rose - very cheap places to have lunch out. The need for a big meal after eating at these places is diminished somewhat, I ate out 5 times at night and had a few drinks every night. I didnt go stupid so cannot blame the cost of drinks alone for these noticeable increases. Anyway i shall leave this subject alone now and look forward to September. I will shop around more as i did in June and as previous am looking forward to it as always. Happy Hols everybody!!

[Lee101]

Could be worse could be benidorm prices, spent £400 in 3 days in june, last year spent £550 in 7 days in Icmeler we budget on £100 per day and will be very happy if i don't pay an extra £150 over 7 days We eat and drink out every night as it is part of our holiday (prices are for 2 people)

[madazahatter]

Could be worse could be benidorm prices, spent £400 in 3 days in june, last year spent £550 in 7 days in Icmeler we budget on £100 per day and will be very happy if i don't pay an extra £150 over 7 days We eat and drink out every night as it is part of our holiday (prices are for 2 people)

Must agree with your post. Have been to British holiday Resorts and spent £300 in a weekend on my own. Go to Icmeler with my OH and budget on £100 a day. Even with trips and eating out every night I rarely spend over budget. I do understand that people have their own ideas about what they want from a holiday cost wise, but I think that Icmeler is still cheap in comparison to most other places in Europe. My step son has just come back from Sorrento where he was paying 8euro for a bottle of beer..............

[AussieEve]

Hi there everyone, me and my friend have been going to Icmeler twice a year since we fell in love with the place in 1998. I agree prices have increased somewhat over the years, but after going to Euro countries also quite recently, its still much cheaper than Greece or Spain! we went to Rome for a week last year, and all we ate mostly was a simple pasta meal with a carafe of house wine between us at night and that came to £25.00! the small bottles of coke in the fridges in the shops were 4 euro!

Anyway back to Icmeler prices, we like to eat out every night, we dont eat much in the day so look forward to it, and I think it is part of your holiday. but the portions can be very big, especially when they give you rice, chips and mash! so we ask for a small/half portion, and our friends in most restaurants are only too happy to oblige, they just give you a litlle less of everything, but we are still stuffed after! And they only charge you half the price, if the full meal is around 18 to 20 Lira, they only charge us 9 or 10, so it works out perfectly for us. Im not saying they will all do that, but we have never been refused, and they know we will keep coming back if they are fair with us.

We were there in June, and go again in a few weeks time, cant wait!

Hope everyone has a great time who is going soon.

[stringerbell]

sorry gong to be controversial here but,we were in good old benidorm last september on a pub trip and if you enjoy a tipple benidorm is cheaper,cigs granted are double the price and the food in comparison with icmeler is dire and expensive,but for a good old **** up benidorm wins hands down.however we dont travel to turkey for this type of holiday if its a rowdy let your hair down holiday then benidorm wins every time price wise and entertainment wise,icmeler wins on the nice meal ,great service,stunning scenery count.i can completley understand where the author of this post is coming from thank god my two are older as our once cheap family holiday would now be costing a bomb,and granted there are cheaper places to eat ,but that does limit your options.the price of coke and soft drinks is a joke and as mentioned on another thread,a lot of hotels and apartments are funny about taking food and drinks to your room.Another point that also leads me to beleive benidorm is a slightly cheaper option is tips are not expected and bars operate a pay as you go system similar to here,which if you are a generous tipper can really chip into your budget.

[juju]

Yes it is more expensive now .This year we ate cheaply a lot, at Champion bar very cheap and huge portions,also pizzas at various places....unfortunately it was the drink that cost us a lot but we both like a drink and its the same at home,we can get a cheap meal deal here but its the drinks that knock up the cost.Still we have a choice,hard lines when you have to keep buying pop for the kids!

[Doz]

We take our boys on holiday and for a family of 4 it is slightly expensive, however we choose to do this so we dont grumble about it. Last year we knew didnt have as much spending money due to cut backs and we knew that we would have to cut down slightly so we stayed in an apartment and had a few meals in and bought cans of efes from the supermarket-again this was our choice so we wouldnt grumble about it. If I knew that I didnt have the spending money I usually have then I would improvise or simply not go? However there are plenty of places where you can go and eat cheap-whats wrong with buying a few chicken kebabs or going to the chip shop etc? We have also done this plenty of times and the boys have loved it! They share a big bottle of freezing cold water which cost around 4ytl...same price as a kebab.

[juju44]

i find it amazing that you didn't say anything to these people but thought it was ok to talk about them behind their backs and then put a nasty comment on this forum, even making reference to an old lady in a wheelchair - these people just wanted to get on with their own holiday....you were obviously bored with your own company if you felt the need to discuss them with other guests!

[bikerjambo]

i find it amazing that you didn't say anything to these people but thought it was ok to talk about them behind their backs and then put a nasty comment on this forum, even making reference to an old lady in a wheelchair - these people just wanted to get on with their own holiday....you were obviously bored with your own company if you felt the need to discuss them with other guests!

I found it rather strange as well!

[cassie]

forgive me but its only good manners to say good morning and i get annoyed when i take the time to say "good morning " and then people ignore you ! sorry if i offend anyone , but when everyones on holiday relaxing , and you start talking to people ,isnt this how we meet some good friends over the years ,
ok so some people find it hard and maybe want to be left alone but good manners cost nothing .

[juju44]

well you have offended quite a few people actually. If people do not wish to meet new friends then they do not have to, but I can assure you that those people to which you are referring are not rude!