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Ive just come back from Turkey, where Ive been on holiday from the 7th of July 2001 till the 15th of July 2001 at the hotel " Club Oasis Beach Vista ", Alanya. Here I want to tell you about my impressions and give some useful advice to everyone, who is going to Turkey or to the hotel " Oasis ". It was my first trip to Turkey and if I had found similar information on the Internet before, I could probably have avoid some mistakes and expenses.
At first I want to say, please dont trust the travel agencies, who try "to add" more stars to the hotel... Hotel "Oasis" is a three stars hotel only and not any better. It works as "all inclusive", BUT:
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Hotel "Club Oasis Beach Vista" -
bird's eye view |
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- If you want to rent a room with air-condition, you have to pay 5$ a day extra (I recommend to take it, I was in Alanya in July, the weather was 40 degrees centigrade in the shade (humidity - 90 percent), but I heard, that the hottest month is August. There are fans in all the rooms, but they wont help you!).
- The safe is by the reception (a separate room with many small safes) and it costs 1$ a day. I decided to use it because I didnt want anything to happen that could have Ieft me without money and my passport in a foreing country. I had quite a good camera in my room and nobody took it.
- A mini-bar will be established in your room on your request (1,5$ per day), but I think there is only mineral water.
- You cant take the towels from your room to the beach and the swimming pools (its better to take them from home because the cheapest beach-towel in the small shop behind the hotels territory costs 6$-8$). Deck chairs at the pools are made from plastic and have a rather convenient form, so one towel will be enough to be comfortable. On the beach the deck chairs are made from wood, they are very rough with big gaps between the boards. Some people rent mattresses for 1$, but we just bought two air mattresses for 5$ each).
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Main swimming pool |
- Now about the drinks: free-of-charge are instant fruit drinks (I cant call it "juice") with different flavours such as cherry, kiwi, orange, and "mix for children. Other free drinks: cold tea, mineral water, coffee, tea, "Ayran", "Merinda", "7UP", "Pepsi", beer, white and red wine, a Turkish national drink "Raky" (anisette), Turkish vodka, Turkish gin, Turkish cognac. "Ayran is a Turkish yoghurt-drink; its very refreshing when its hot, I recommend to try it. Free beer is of low quality. For example, the Turkish beer "Efes" is much better. Free wine is also of poorest quality, too dry. You have to pay there for all natural juices, long drinks, cocktails (5$) if their components are not made in Turkey. Everywhere you can read "Please, dont fill water in bottles! ". The reason is that its dangerous to drink tap water in Turkey, its also dangerous to use it for cleaning the teeth, therefore people try to take water from the bar with them and not buy it in the hotel-shop for 1,5$ for two litres.
We could have avoided these additional charges to "all inclusive", if we had known all these things before we could have chosen the hotel more carefully.
Now I want to talk about what I really liked there. Of course its the hotels premises which are very well looked after with clean paths and lawns. There are a lot of palm trees, flowers, 2-3 floor blocks, there is a big aviary with parrots, areas where rabbits and ducks live, and hens are walking on the lawns. The swimming pools are clean enough, but I prefer seawater. There are two restaurants in the hotel: the beach-restaurant is "open-air". There its possible to have dinner in a bathing suit. In the very big main restaurant, there are also some tables "open-air". The meals were tasty and various enough (except breakfasts, they were identical and without a special choice every day). Fish dishes: only grill-trout, salad from mussels and once we ate an unknown deep-fried fish. Fruit: only watermelons and melons. Vegetables: tomatoes and cucumbers, salads, many dishes with eggplants. However, almost all dishes were very good, and we always left our table full and pleased... I liked the evening animation on the stage of an amphitheatre very much, animators (Turkish guys and two Russian girls) worked super. There is also daytime animation (we heard the announcements in a loudspeaker), but on the beach we didnt see it.
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"OASIS BEACH" |
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We were disappointed because of the hotels rooms: beds are squeaky, a shelf in the bathroom and the toilet were dirty. There isnt any acoustic insulation in the rooms, so if you cant sleep and cant watch TV (because there is no TV in the rooms), you can always hear what your neighbours do. But the most awful is the beach! Yes, its sandy beach, but only down to the sea-line, and then you can have a big "pleasure" when you step on the small and prickly stones and then through the bigger uneven boulders... I ended up to enter the sea from the hotels quay because its more safe...
Every day there is a ship going from a hotels quay to Alanya and back, along picturesque bays with the cleanest water, with small stops for swimming. I highly recommend to go on this excursion, you will receive a lot of positive emotions, and it costs only 8$. There are also other entertainments on the hotels beach: "banana" (5$), "parachute" (20$) and some more.
There is a free fitness centre, a free sauna and a Turkish bath on the hotels territory. The simple peeling and " foamy washing" in the Turkish bath plus an oil-massage cost me 20$. They have offered me 4 sessions of oil-massage for 100 DM (the normal price is 120 DM), but I have refused. The haircut at the hairdressers costs 12-14 DM without styling. Near the fitness centre you can buy one small dish of ice cream for 1 DM. There are also 4 billiard tables at the "Pool-BAR, but they stand very inconveniently. It costs 5 DM for one game or for one hour (its not the exact information, I havent understood the boy who was responsible for billiards, because he doesnt speak neither German, nor English, nor Russian). All the time I wanted to go to the disco (its located under a restaurant, there are no doors and no air-conditioning), but there it was always so hot and so stuffy, though the music was quite good. The last bar closes at two o'clock in the morning, and people who want to continue the fun go to a disco-bar behind the hotel, but of course thats not free of charge.
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Boat Trip to Alanya |
Now I want to say a little about money and the prices. If you go this year 2001 before the introduction of the EURO, take only DM, they are more appreciated than dollars (an official rate of the currency-exchange 1 dollar = 2,4 DM, but in all shops 1 dollar only 2 DM). If you have decided that you want to change dollars into Turkish lyres (sometimes its better to do so if you dont want to lose money on conversion, you better change it in Alanya, but not in the hotel where the rate is a rather low. The bus-ticket from "Oasis" to Alanya costs 1,5 DM; the busses come every 5-10 minutes, the trip takes about 20 minutes. There is a small town called Konakli near the hotel but there is absolutely nothing to do there, so its better to go to Alanya. Its also better to buy cigarettes in the city (3 DM, in the hotel-shop 3,5 DM), but dont buy the so-called "export" cigarettes (they are a little bit cheaper than normal Turkish cigarettes, but they are rather bad Turkish fake made from the cheap sorts of the tobacco).
There are a lot of mosquitoes though they poison them every day with terribly smelly smoke.
At the end of my story Id like to add, that I didnt want to make the bad or good hotels advertising on this page. In any case, you should decide for yourself how it is there, I have just written how it actually was for me, and have tried to help those a little who go to the hotel "Oasis" for the first time. If you have more questions, write to me, please!
I wish you a nice holiday in Turkey!
Your Innusik
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