Icmeler 2009 - Ekinci Palace (Longish)

[john G]

Our Icmeler holiday this year was on the 17th August and was for a party of 10 family members. We all met at Newcastle Airport for check in and panic soon set in as one of our family seemed to be missing off the flight plan. I had all the e-tickets but for some reason one member didn’t exist on their system. It was soon put right by the check in staff - I’m just glad it happened at Newcastle and not Dalaman Airport.

Onur Air Flight (20kg bag allowance + 5kg hand)
The flight with Onur Air and uneventful apart from being approx: 30 mins delayed. No meals were included but snacks and drinks were available to buy. We all whizzed through passport control, our bags collected and the ICR driver was easy to track down. The Transfer was quick, easy and I would recommend this service to all, we soon arrived at our destination.

Arrival - Ekinci Palace
1st impressions were good as we were led past the massive pool with slide to our apartments, this soon faded as we walked past the stairwell which seemed to be the storage area for dirty laundry and cleaning chemicals. Things didn’t get any better when we looked around our rooms. Our room had a broken shower and the shower doors were completely off their runners. The bathroom was filthy with dirt and hairballs all over the place and the toilet waste bin hadn’t been emptied - stinky. The soap dispenser was on the floor and the drying rail on the balcony was hanging off the wall. Another room only had 2 beds made up for 4 guests with no other bedding available and the 3rd room had a broken sofa bed. Good start - so at approx 5:30 am we were swapping beds from one apartment to the other, up and down staircases until we all had somewhere to sleep. Next morning we raised the above points with the guy at reception and good to his word all things were fixed - apart from our scruffy room which was never really cleaned in the 2 weeks we were there. Enough moaning for now.

Just to clarify - there are about 6 blocks of apartments and other guests in different blocks said their rooms where spotless with the cleaners leaving petals and towel arrangements - our cleaner was found asleep on one of the beds by the guests in their apartment below us. Says it all I think!

1st Day
The 1st morning we awoke to find the typical, cloud free, blue skies that bring us back to Icmeler every year. We all had pool and mountain views, which you never seem to tire of, and things were looking better in this light. Breakfast was ordered at the large poolside bar which has a pool table, football table and 2 computers with internet access. Breakfast was good and the staff seemed happy to help in anyway.

Pool
The pool is fantastic - large for icmeler with a water slide which is switched on at 12.00 - 5.00 but as usual there aren’t enough beds. The slide is well used and fun for everyone, including adults who seem to make better splashes than the kids on landing. Well, fun for everyone, except the people lying on the beds near the slides landing pool - he he.

Restaurants
When in icmeler we like to eat out as often as possible as the food is normally very good. We ate quite a few Breakfasts at Ozzy’s new restaurant which is very near the Ekinci Palace. Breakfasts there are excellent value at 4 lira each with real English sausages, bacon and even black pudding. Other places we ate are:

Ozzy’s - Anatolian Kebab - Nice place to eat, even supplied a cake for my brothers birthday.
Set Restaurant - Sunday dinner - more expensive than ¾ bells but much better quality and thicker meat.
Charlies Place - Calzone Pizza - visit here every year and he never seems to disappoint - friendly guy
Lemon Tree - Rump Steak - probably one of our best meals
Mandalin - Set Menu - Ottoman Kebab - another excellent meal
Pop inn - Set Menu - Mexican Steak - good meals and fun entertainment.
Romance Palace - Ottoman kebab - good fun night out with excellent meals.
Roses Café - Salads - What can I say - lovely food in relaxing atmosphere.
Ekinci Palace - Set Menu - T’bone Steak - nice meal, good value but spoilt by being hassled all holiday for.
Place Opposite and to the left of Buffalo Bar - cheapish Ok meal.
Buffalo Bar - Cheap bear - didn’t eat but tried to empty the place with my singing - sorry screaming .
Wembley Bar - Had diner time snack there - enjoyed it, couldn’t do enough for you.

Places I wouldn’t go back to are:
Friends - unbelievably bad, promised the earth, tasted like mud. All meals came at different times, 4 meals out off 10 were wrong, all 3 bills were wrong and it took 45 minutes to get a round of drinks - very poor.
¾ Bells - Sunday Diner - Massive Yorkshire, small amount of veg, very thin poor tasting meat. Promised apple pie, non left, didn’t offer anything else. Other people seemed to enjoy this but I’d rather have a smaller Yorkshire pudding and a proper meal.

Beach
Linekers beach - we used it a lot last year, but its different this year with prices in the bar a bit steep - snack meals were ok but didn’t go back. Beach here slopes off fast and there’s plenty of nibble fish.
Free beach near Osimoko bar (Think that’s how its spelt - down canal turn right) - used this once but moved further along as got sick of the hassle.
Pay beach outside Osimoko bar - used this a quite a few times and enjoyed it - no hassle. The beach here slopes very gently and you can walk out all the way to the buoys. No nibble fish. My 2 nephews had a go on the jet skis and I joined my daughter and nephew on the ringo’s - great fun but bloody terrifying for me, especially when you hit the concrete, sorry sea, upside down travelling at about 100mph.

Hassle
We found the hassle this year was worse than the last 2 years put together with many places not taking no for an answer. Especially bad was the walk along the promenade, every 10 yards beach boys were grabbing you and trying to sell you the beds. The bars were pretty bad too! I read reports on here of places being closed down for hassle - I never saw any bars closed in the 2 weeks I was there and to be honest I wish I had as this part of the holiday really gets me down. A lot more people would use the restaurants and bars if there weren’t hassle men on the entrances.

Trips
Some of our party did the Turkish bath and most did the Aquadream Waterpark which was fun as usual. Wave pool was broke this year so that was a shame. Didn’t do the boat trip or jeep safari as we did both last year but now wish we had.

Ekinci Palace Positioning
The Ekinci Palace is up the dry canal towards the old village but before you get to the Rhodes and Daystar apartments - its in an excellent position if you don’t want to be in the centre. A 10 minute stroll along the dry canal gets you to Pop inns where there’s also a good supermarket, same prices as Tansas. Out of the apartments and across the dry canal bridge towards the mosque you can reach the bakery in 5 minutes, not the one near Tansas. Across the bridge and left and your at Roses Café in under 5 minutes. Cubana, Love star and Ozzys are only a 3 - 5 minute walk away.

Ekinci Palace
Where do I start - these could be the best apartments in icmeler, but on our holiday, they where let down badly by the management, some staff and cleaners. The manager was a complete (sorry - family forum) and never stopped trying to sell the nightly meals and Turkish night. I know they have to do this but his selling technique was to be in your face at all times and never taking no for an answer. I had a major run in as I told him, after 5 days of taking his crap, that we wouldn’t be joining him on the Turkish night. After being insulted by being told to shut up, he and some of his staff totally blanked us for the next 5 days, apart from insisting we took our towels off the sunbeds - strange he never said that to any other family. One day, one of the staff dropped a pint glass at the pool, it smashed and some bits of glass went into the pool. The manager was told but didn’t seem bothered and it was up to us to inform other guests not to swim near that area. We spent all morning diving down with goggles on and retrieving 2-3 inch pieces of broken glass from the bottom of the pool. We handed them to the staff and manager but they didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. I decided that from then on I wouldn’t part with any money and took my business elsewhere - to the beach. We never put in a formal complaint with reception about our treatment but the manager must have upset other guests as after 10 days he was sacked - good riddance. We started spending at the bar/pool and the staff started being friendly again - the next 4 days were the best part of the holiday.

Transfer & Flight Home
ICR bus was 20 minutes late picking us up, but dropped us off at the airport in plenty of time for our flight with cool water supplied for the journey. Another safe driver and would use this service again. Airport has changed a lot with loads of food shops closed, prices seemed cheaper with a slice of pizza at 5 lira - sure it was 8 or 10 last year. Flight took off 10 minutes early and was going pretty well until we got closer to Newcastle. I’ve flown through storms before but this was like something you see in the movies. The plane was all over the place - dropping, rising and shaking , this went on for about 20 minutes. At 1st everyone kind of laughed it off but as it went on the laughter turned to screams and a lot of people where in tears. I think the pilot took a diversion to get out of the storm but after circling a few times we had to go back into it to land. I’ve got to admit it was pretty terrifying, especially when I looked round to see a Turkish flight attendant, head in hands - praying. I made the mistake at one stage of looking through the window - the wings were flapping with tension and the land rising then falling away then rising again, lets say I didn‘t try looking out of the window again until we landed. We finally got down with a bit of a hard landing approx 50minutes later than planned and the screaming turned into cheering and applause for the pilot. I’ve never seen so much relief on peoples faces and I too was glad to place my feet firmly back on the tarmac.

Our cases where found pretty quick and after saying good bye to other family members we went out in the rain to catch a taxi - 10 minutes later we were home.

Thoughts on Holiday
We all enjoyed our holiday, but it would have been a lot better if the hassle factor was taken away, especially from the Ekinci Palace Manager. Sorry if this seems to be all moans but this guy nearly ruined our holiday that we’d been looking forward to for nearly a year. Icmeler has changed quite a bit since last year with a lot of empty shops and bars but it still has its charm.

Gone on a little so will finish now - hopefully post some pics when I get round taking them off the camera.

Cheers John