Side Star Elegance Hotel - Ultra All Inclusive

On November 28th my husband booked the Italian restaurant to celebrate my birthday. We ate different courses. My husband had beef. After the meal he was violently sick and had diarrhoea which continued throughout the night and was unable to get out of bed for 36 hours. We lost 3 days of our 11 night holiday. I was not affected. I reported this to Guest Services. The person I spoke to was very rude and officious. I believe she has since been dismissed following many complaints about her aggressive attitude. She told me that Norovirus came from Europe on the Planes! This was not norovirus. When I went to Dinner that evening, November 29th, the main restaurant was overflowing. The waiter told me that all the a la carte restaurants were closed for deep cleaning so all guests were eating in the main restaurant. I encountered around 30 other guests who were very ill with the same symptoms but hadn’t reported this to staff. The housekeeping staff were excellent. Our bathroom was cleaned thoroughly and sprayed with an anti-bacterial product. My husband didn’t want to call a doctor and I respected his decision because it was too late to provide a faecal sample after the cleaning process. We contacted our Jet2 rep and reported the illness.

Definitely not a 5 star hotel. Food was cold every time, I had food poisoning for 2 days of my holiday. Staff were all oriented towards the German guests, and hardly spoke to anyone else. It was hard to get a drink served. We had to keep asking to get our mini bar and tea tray filled, and the noise from the road and people slamming doors constantly was disappointing. Would go back to Turkey, but won't be at this hotel

Previously having stayed at the Side Star resort last year we were really looking forward to our stay here, it was an anniversary and birthday treat so we splashed out a bit more to stay here. We had contacted the hotel beforehand to request a quiet high floor room, away from the road noise, entertainment and lifts area, we were given room 3222 which was pretty close to the lift area and quite a noisy corridor as obviously lots of guests having to pass by to reach the elevator. The room itself was great, really spacious with plenty of storage space and beautifully decorated, the bed was a bit hard but I believe you could ask for a mattress topper, with hindsight we should have done this if we knew how the holiday would unfold. The hotel is massive and it did take us a few days to navigate our way around but you are given a map with all the information which is helpful. Most of the staff we encountered were pleasant and polite, our favourite bar was the timeout bar, the staff there were fantastic, really pleasant and efficient, the pizzas were absolutely outstanding, we also found the lattes at this bar better than the Pearl Patisserie which was a bit surprising as you’d think it would be the other way. The Duden bar was very nice, lovely cocktails and friendly staff, it could get quite noisy with large groups but it was a nice area to spend some time, our least favourite was the lobby bar, the drinks were not always great, I was given a pretty awful Malibu and lemonade and had to ask for another, staff here seemed a bit more abrupt on occasion, made a point of given this one a miss. The main restaurant had a decent selection of food, the breakfast was nice, decent selection of different choices, a late breakfast was available if you missed getting there before it finished. Rarely went for lunch to the main restaurant as preferred the pizzas at the Timeout bar, evening meals were hit or miss, but certainly could always find something. On our first full day at the hotel we booked the speciality restaurants, it would be fair to say we could easily have given these a miss, the Chinese was not what we expected but most people seemed to enjoy. The Italian restaurant we visited on the 26th November was when it seemed to go downhill for my husband. The meal itself was lovely at the time, although the service was extremely slow as for a busy restaurant there was only 2 staff, we felt so sorry for them as they were really stretched and doing their best. We both had different course’s and I was absolutely fine, unfortunately my husband spent the last 5 days of our 10 nights holiday being unwell, after going to bed after the Italian meal my husband was up at least 6 times vomiting really violently, he was unable to get out of bed the next day and for the rest of the holiday felt really delicate and sore, it did have a huge impact on our enjoyment, especially his as he was unable to stomach heavy foods and the thought of alcohol made him sick, at the Itali

This was our first visit to Turkey and given the low cost of our Jet2 holiday, we couldn’t have been more surprised at the excellent standards of the Side Star Elegance hotel. Every area of the hotel was sparkling clean and well serviced by hordes of staff who worked very hard to keep the place in good condition. Even the standard rooms exceeded our expectations. Serviced daily, it had a large balcony, large walk in shower, plenty of storage and a free mini bar refilled every day. If it’s your thing you can eat and drink for the full 24 hours. There is a main buffet restaurant that manages to offer slightly different meals every time, a cafe/patisserie, a cafe/bar and several a la carte restaurants (you can book 3 a week). The food on offer was exceptional with a huge variety from breads to fruits, from salads and veg to meat and fish. The choice was endless. In fact it was impossible to sample everything on offer during the week. Leisure facilities are very good and there’s something to occupy everyone throughout their stay. Side itself was well worth visiting. Roman/Greek ruins you could wander around and lots of shops and bazaars. It was lovely to walk into town along the seafront promenade and to watch the antics of the (very well looked after) cats and dogs. I’m sure we’ll be back.

Second time coming here and was amazing as usual. Always so clean, bar and waiter team are all so helpful the animators were spot on, Emre was so friendly and never failed to make me laugh. Will definitely be coming back next year. Thanks for the time.