Port River Hotel - All Inclusive

“True Brit review”

True hearted review of port river hotel and spa! Myself, husband, son and daughter have just returned from here after a week. We arrived late afternoon on Friday 24th July via private transfer, which I will admit was so much better after a long early flight, they provided us with refreshments for o… more

True hearted review of port river hotel and spa! Myself, husband, son and daughter have just returned from here after a week. We arrived late afternoon on Friday 24th July via private transfer, which I will admit was so much better after a long early flight, they provided us with refreshments for our hour journey from airport to hotel. Upon arriving at the hotel we where greeted by two male members of staff and the concierge, the language barrier was apparent straight away but we tried our best asking what we should say for hello and goodbye which they seemed pretty happy with our efforts. We were then taken to our room, 3210 a two bedroom family room which we thought was big, clean and with the added bonus of having two bathrooms for our family. The fridge was well stocked with water both still and sparkling, Fanta, Coke and to my husband’s pleasure cans of effes, these were replenished daily. The rooms are cleaned daily with the added touch of towel designs for our birthdays and wedding anniversary, see pictures. My Husband had to get up every morning early to get us sun loungers round the pool as of 8am all loungers were taken. The pool is very busy and mainly full of arrogant Russians who think they own the place! One threw a football in my daughter’s face and thought it was hilarious. That was the first of many run inns that we had with the Russians on our holiday. We read before we went away that the food wasn’t great and quite repetitive but we always found something to eat and my daughter who can be fussy always had a plate full and a full belly. The staff in the restaurant where lovely and so attentive, Engine was great and made friends with our son, I cleared a table one day so that myself and family could sit to eat and the member of staff(didn’t catch her name) was so apologetically polite and got us clean cutlery etc straight away. Whilst we were there we had our 3rd wedding anniversary and to our absolute shock they provided us a decorated table with one member of staff getting us drink 💙 made our evening that bit more special. We found all the staff to be so hard working the activities team worked tirelessly to keep everyone entertained each day. There was yoga early morning with water aerobics and then darts around the side of the pool which my husband and daughter enjoyed very much. These activities extended to the beach where you could have a game of volleyball whilst still enjoying the all inclusive food and drink. The beach is lovely and also very busy but we didn’t struggle to find four beds together, there was constant staff members round clearing plates and rubbish making the area clean and pleasant to sit in. I now want to give a massive shout out and to thank 3 members of the team who made our stay the best and made myself and family feel special and they too became part of our little family. Yalmaz you went above and beyond for us making me some delicious cocktails and helping our son organise our anniversary table, for that we are forever thankful. Ismet you have to be the most hardworking barmen I have ever seen again making me some lovely cocktails whilst dealing with the most vile, greedy Russian men I have ever seen, you stood your ground whilst remaining professional and ensuring other guests where ok including myself after being swilled with a drink by the Russian drunk. You worked along side your little sister Nermin who is such a gorgeous human, she tried her best to converse with myself and my family daily making us feel so welcome and also making me some lovely cocktails, we are missing seeing all your smiley faces each day now we are home, you are all a credit to the hotel and hope you receive extra credit from your management team. The first morning at the hotel we had a little welcome meeting which was good as they do it family by family so it feels more personal and they try their best to cater to your family needs, before coming we had an idea of trips we wanted to go on of which we booked via the hotel. We booked the shopping trip, dino safari and the land of legends via the team. The shopping trip was sold to us as a chill couple of hours with no pressure to buy anything, this isn’t true! We where met by the manager who was lovely and very attentive getting us drinks and explaining the layout of the store, then a member of staff aka chicken nugget proceeded to follow us round the store being very pushy and putting stuff in our trolley even if we picked it up for a slight second, he made us as a family feel very on edge and we didn’t enjoy the shopping at all. We did purchase a handful of items between us and we feel as though if we hand had our wits about us we could have actually been, conned by them. They wanted to initially charge us over 600 euros, I told them to put everything back and we didn’t want it, things at hotel are so much more cheaper, weirdly after hearing me say that the price suddenly dropped to just 300 euros, please be careful here as I’d hate for anyone else to be put in this situation as you can get everything that’s in this shop and more in the lovely shops within the hotel grounds and staff again our lovely. The dino safari was our best day out, although the zoo did upset us a lot animals are not treated great here, my daughter paid 30 euros to hold certain animals wanting to contribute to their care and up keep, I can’t be certain looking round that this is actually the case 😭😭😭😭 the rest of this day was amazing definitely one I would highly recommend and when you have a driver who was with us all day treat us the way he did made it all the more better the man was a legend Serbo you went above and beyond showing us a side of Turkey that not everyone gets to see, thank you so much. Land of legends wasn’t all it was cracked up to be the transfer there took 2 hours, then after having something to eat, we didn’t have much time at all to look in the shops and take in the show before being collected again by 11pm, maybe a private transfer would of benefited and gave us more time. My husband is a massive fan of watches and found the shop in the hotel near the a restaurant fantastic he bought in total 3 watches from him? He was great so chatty and welcoming he even gave me a gift for my birthday a beautiful bracelet. Whilst there I was treated to a massage which was split into 3 separate hours for 100 euros this was lovely and so relaxing Amelia was great, unfortunately I had a reaction to the face mask and didn’t get to use my third massage as I didn’t want to leave the room with my fave the way it was. Overall we had a lovely holiday and want to thank all of the above for everything you did to make it that bit more special for us as a family. I would suggest maybe catering a little bit more for us English guests and not just the Russians who have no respect for the staff working so hard there. Again thank you for a great stay 😊😊

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