Royal Taj Mahal

Came here a few years ago as it was recommended by my parents and for the price we got it at the hotel was absolutely stunning. I had been to Turkey twice before but neither of the hotels compare to this one. This hotel is most definitely the best hotel I have ever stayed at. I mean what more could you ask for, you've got the beach on your doorstep so you don't need to travel far to get there. The beach on site also has watersports which makes it even better. The hotel has it's own fair for the kids which is free to use. There are a few little shops inside the hotel including; gift shop, clothes shop, bags + shoes and a tattoo parlour. If you want to go shopping there is a shopping mall across the road from the hotel which is quite big. If you want to go to the market you just need to take a 5/10 min walk to get a shuttle to Manavgat. There is a 24hour bar in the hotel and right next to it they have like a night club room that's open till 3am. Next to the 24hour bar there is also a games room/arcade and the A La Carte restaurants are also near the 24hour bar. One night while we were there we tried the Mexican A La Carte restaurant and the food and staff were amazing. The A La Carte restaurants were only 10euro each which isn't bad for what you get. I know it's an all inclusive hotel but if you fancy a change of food, I would highly recommend going to one of the A La Carte restaurants. The food in the main restaurant was also amazing and if you're a fussy eater like me then you'll definitely find something to eat. In the mornings they had a smoothie bar which the smoothies were delicious. Throughout the day there are snack bars that have; jacket potatoes, fried chicken, kebabs, pizza etc... The beach bar also do food which you can order as much as you like off the menu and they'll bring it to your table. Our hotel room was big and had plenty of space for us to use. The bathroom was also bigger than expected. The room was nice, tidy and clean and so was the bathroom. The room was beautiful and so was the view from our balcony. Our room had a mini bar which had; bottled water, 7up, tango, iced tea and Efes beer. This was refilled every day. Our room was cleaned every day and we received fresh towels every day aswell which was brilliant. The staff at the hotel was nice and friendly and they always remembered what I was drinking. The entertainment team was great and always spoke to us and always try to get you involved. I would highly recommend this hotel and I will definitely be coming back in the future!!

The entertainment people were very friendly, the beach was nice and so was the pool area. Shops on ground floor were helpful but a little expensive, which is to be expected. However a lot of the staff in the only restaurant (buffet) were rude and only nice to the guests if they gave them a big tip one night. There were some staff in the restaurant that were nice. The restaurant itself was overcrowded and like ‘eating at the zoo’. If you didn’t go at peak time then there was limited food left. The food itself was extremely ‘hit or miss’. The prawn tower you see in the pictures didn’t happen and were just laid out on the side for people to take with their hands. One particular waiter was extremely rude to me when I had dinner on my own one evening as my husband was poorly, he wouldn’t give me a large bottle of water to take to my room for my poorly husband. He actually told me to go away and continued to then ignore me - I asked another waiter and he happily provided me a bottle. The worst part though was the air conditioning (air-con), you’d expect a 5* hotel to have continually flowing air-con in which you could turn up or down (speed or temperature) to your liking irrespective of time of day etc. NO this wasn’t the case!!! It would turn off around midnight and would also not be on at random hours of the day. So we’d wake up to a sauna of a room/not be able to sleep because of the sauna room and also we would enter our room after a lovely day at the beach and be hit with instant heat. With our balcony doors open we would get a little breeze but nothing to help us also this let the bugs in which we hated. My husband had sun stroke (never had it before), it was extremely hot in turkey, and we needed to keep him hydrated and cool. It was impossible in that room. I went to reception several times to check on whether our air-con was broken or whether it was like this in every room. The reception staff were awful! They didn’t help and said all rooms were the same and there was no problem and that no one else complained which I know was a lie as there were several people complaining about this when we first arrived at the hotel. Thanks to google I managed to help my husband with his sun stroke by essentially sleeping in cold wet towels which we changed every few hours for a few days. After my husband recovered we thought we’d try the spa, it was so expensive for what it was. Honestly the people who did the massaged were not trained! So, some staff nice, spa overpriced, food not 5* standard, room rubbish - I would have expected it from a 3* hotel maybe. I have no idea who rates these hotels! You money can be better spent in a different hotel. I can’t access my pics at the moment so cannot attach evidence.