The Raga Side

“Fantastic hotel with exceptional food”

Just back from a week at The Raga, the hotel is located near the beach surrounded by local shops, it’s also only a 20 minute walk from the magnificent temple of Apollo ruins. Very relaxed atmosphere in this adult only hotel with the guests being mainly British and German couples. Rooms are very com… more

Just back from a week at The Raga, the hotel is located near the beach surrounded by local shops, it’s also only a 20 minute walk from the magnificent temple of Apollo ruins. Very relaxed atmosphere in this adult only hotel with the guests being mainly British and German couples. Rooms are very comfortable with a mini bar which is topped up daily free of charge, the room safe is also free to use. Excellent value for money compared to similar hotels in other holiday resorts. The hotel is spotless with the bedroom being serviced everyday to an extremely high level, the cleaner prides herself in her work and it shows. Very quiet outside with no noise at all. I am a fussy eater but the food and choice of dishes is out of this world, I usually end up eating at local restaurants a few times when away but not this time, every single meal was delicious with there always being something to suit without having to resort to chips and pizza. Overall a wonderful experience at a reasonable price and I will definitely be returning.

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“First time at Rada”

Overall had a good holiday at the Rada, Good points, the location is good close to shops and beach, only a 20 min walk to harbourand ruins. Rooms large ish very clean and maid service excellent. Value for money very good for this class of Hotel. Down side, Atmosphere poor and noise level to high a… more

Overall had a good holiday at the Rada, Good points, the location is good close to shops and beach, only a 20 min walk to harbourand ruins. Rooms large ish very clean and maid service excellent. Value for money very good for this class of Hotel. Down side, Atmosphere poor and noise level to high as most guests are older Germans speeking very loudly. Biesed slightly to much to German guests with food choices and service as most germans tipped with every drink or service so most staff only looked after them which is understandable if you are going to get a tip. The bar code reader app caused me the most anoyance as orders went to wrong tables most times and there is no way of ammending choices, This could have been my phones problemas android not iphone or expensive model, would have helped if main app had facility to select restrauht / table without having to rely totaly on barcode reader. Lasty strugeled to find staf that understood english all spoke some german, asked for directions to toilet and was given a cup of turkish tea say no more. would i go again probable yes as overall value was excelent.

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“Not sure it’s a 5 star anymore ….”

This was our second time with Raga and sadly, it’s probably our last… We went for the first time in June 2024 and it was a good experience, a clean hotel, lovely location, kind staff, great food, but we found some issues along the way. For example, the lack of English spoken at the hotel can get … more

This was our second time with Raga and sadly, it’s probably our last… We went for the first time in June 2024 and it was a good experience, a clean hotel, lovely location, kind staff, great food, but we found some issues along the way. For example, the lack of English spoken at the hotel can get a bit draining, we found there to be a bit of a communication gap when we spoke to staff and they weren’t really sure what we wanted. To be fair, the app they offered helped as we would do most of our ordering through there but if you needed a full on conversation with staff, you might find it difficult if you speak English - this hotel mostly caters to German speaking people. We also weren’t given wristbands when we first arrived which caused us problems when we tried to come back into the hotel - we had only realised this issue ourselves by seeing others had these on and we had to ask reception to give us these around 2 days into our holiday. The app also had its issues, we found that it would be a 50/50 chance if your drink would arrive or not. The food was lovely, we really liked it and we loved that every night they’d do a new cuisine. Soon into our 7 day holiday, we found it could lack variety sometimes (always serving chips and pizza etc). Although they do offer an in-app order option for foods which we used and gave a different option to the buffet but sometimes that wouldn’t arrive either (given you had to order these through the app). We really loved the walking stretch behind the hotel which offered a great view of the beach and ability to walk down any time. The hotel is very clean and the room we had was nice with lovely views. The second time we went (June 2025), we stayed for 10 nights and found the issues we experienced last time had gotten worse. The staff once again forgot our wristbands and one of the waitresses quite aggressively asked in Turkish where mine was when I was at dinner by tapping her wrist. I said I wasn’t given one on arrival, and due to the language barrier, she didn’t understand and proceeded to ask another waitress for help. She asked for my room key which I didn’t have as my partner had them and was off to get his food, I found the encounter rather rude and aggressive - we were only a day into the holiday and it really set me off in the wrong way. Once my partner showed our room key, she backed off and we had to ask reception (for the second time now) for a wristband to avoid any future issues. We needed a taxi on this trip and proceeded to ask the guest relations person, we were faced with a woman who was quite miserable and when we asked for help, she immediately said “I don’t work for jet2”, we awkwardly said ok, but that wasn’t what we were going to ask about. She helped us in the end but also prefaced the taxi by saying she wasn’t guaranteeing the taxi would pick us up - which for non-Turkish tourists who had no internet and didn’t know the language, it rubbed us up the wrong way. She ended up being very nice once we sorted the taxi out and it picked us up fine, but it was annoying that it had to be such a weird experience - it almost felt like we annoyed her with our question which for a guest relations role, isn’t ideal! We noticed that the waiter staff had junior (maybe student) employees who were likely in training as they didn’t know much English and were quite poor with their service. Glasses/plates were smashing because they were dropped at almost every meal, something my partner and I joked about every time as it was so consistent. The junior staff looked bored/annoyed to serve you during meal times, one time my partner asked for a drink and she simply gave him an annoyed look and never came back. It was quite appalling for a hotel that claims to be 5 star and we had spent a lot of money for this trip. The app continued to be 50/50 on whether you’d get a drink. We also quickly noticed a tipping culture starting with German guests, where staff would prioritise certain guests who paid staff at meal times (while it was becoming difficult/awkward for us to get even one!). I had tried to order at the bar for drinks during meal times (as the app doesn’t let you order drinks during meal services) and the barman said the waiters would send it over - but they weren’t so it was quite annoying. Tipping was quite bad to the point that during their show times in the evening, my partner and I noticed waiters only serving certain tables that had clearly tipped, one table having a drink ready for when their current one finished - yet the other tables like ours didn’t have one at all! Again, for the money we had paid and the level of service they claim to have, we were very disappointed. We also noticed that guests constantly reserved sun loungers at 7am, it got so bad that my partner and I had to set an alarm to reserve one ourselves otherwise we would have nowhere to go - it was really annoying and not ideal on holiday. They had signs not to reserve loungers but this was just ignored and not followed through by staff. We did notice a manager who arrived later on in our trip who was trying to ensure the wait staff did better at serving drinks, tried to check in on guests etc and we noticed an improvement. We also saw every room was given a note to say reserving sun loungers was not allowed but that happened on the last day of our holiday - it’s a shame this happened late in our trip but could mean the hotel is trying to improve these things? Only time can tell but we hope it does improve. The hotel does have its charms, it is pretty, clean, they do great and entertaining shows in the evenings, the hotel has a little mini market on the ground floor for any snacks/items you need, around the clock ice cream freezer, the main set of staff and waiters (although the junior staff are quite rude) are genuinely nice and do try for you, the food is lovely and the app (when it works) is a welcomed amenity. The location is very nice and in a good area - we loved having tea on the balcony near reception every morning. But I don’t think we’ll come back sadly, there were other hotels on the stretch we might try and compare - given the level of money we spent, we think it could be better spent elsewhere in Side next time.

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