Icmeler holiday report 18/09/09-28/09/09

[Claret Al]

Hello, a newbie to this forum so thought my first post might as well be a trip report!

Party consisted of myself and my wife and we met up with my sister and hubby and their 2 friends in resort who had booked their trips separately. (They were staying at Selen 2 hotel)

Ours was a DIY package:

Flights via Airflights/Custom Flights
Ozlem 1 apartments via Travel Republic
Transfers via transferonly.com

This was our 2nd holiday in Icmeler, 10th time to Turkey overall.

Flight out with BMI was delayed by about an hour which wouldn't have been so bad if we hadn't been stuck on the plane on the tarmac for the duration!

Transferonly were waiting for us at Dalaman as arranged and we eventually arrived at Ozlem 1 apartments in the Old Village around 6.45am

There are plenty of reviews of Ozlem 1 on various travel forums and there's not much more we can add other than they were basic but good value for the amount we paid so no complaints (apart from the sunbed hoggers with the towels out at the crack of dawn!)

We just had one day when it clouded over and we had light rain for a few hours late afternoon/early evening but apart from that the weather was ideal with temps averaging 30c each day though it did reach 43 one day!

Did an AI boat trip one day for £10 which was good value and an enjoyable day and visted Turunc a couple of times and had drinks at the Yacht Club which has great views of the bay and the mountains.

I think restaurant recommendations are always a bit subjective as everyone has different tastes and expectations and it's down to personal opinion but with that in mind the ones we would recommend are:-

Richards Place
Bamboo Beach
Coco Beach
Mr Yes
Deja vu
Sylvia Kitchen

One we would avoid is Villa Kontes but that is for reasons I will go into on another thread sometime..

Prices were very reasonable, large beer ranged from 1.5 lira in Buffalo bar to 5 lira on the beach but the average was 3-4 lira. Local spirits were 6-7 lira with mixer and decent wine was 6-7 lira a glass.

All the set menus we tried were excellent value for money and good quality,a 4 course steak/chicken/turkish dish meal for around £7-8 and entertainment afterwards.

The holiday did end on a bit of downer (though no fault of Icmelers)

Our return flight was meant to be with Onur Air departing at 17.00 on the 28/09/09.

When we rang Custom Flights local rep the day before to confirm the flight we were informed it had been cancelled due to "operational reasons" and we were now on a Thomas Cook flight departing 02.25 on 29/09/09!

Although it meant we had an extra half day in resort it didn't compensate for the extra expense and general hassle and inconvenience that comes with an early morning flight home, especially when you are supposed to be at work 8am the same morning!

The most annoying thing was that when we picked up the new flight tickets at Dalaman we noted the date of issue on them was 10/09/09 so they obviously knew 8 days before we even left the UK that we would not be returning on the Onur Air flight but hadn't bothered to advise us of the change.

That apart we had a great holiday and will definitely return to Icmeler for our next Turkey holiday

[reesy1959]

Hi and welcome to the ICR Forum, thank you for your review. I cant wait to go on Thursday.