Rating:

Review Date:Jun 25, 2009

Book this hotel at your own peril!!

Well... we have been back in England for 6 hours, after an 11 day all inclusive stay at the so called 4 star Sesin Hotel in Marmaris Turkey! We will start with the food! Breakfast consisted of a soft cheese, bread, beans as hard as bullets, grilled tomato, cereal and occasionally a hard boiled egg! Oh and spam! Lunch This was very limited and was usually recycled ingredients from the evening meal the night before. Poor at best! Dinner Lots of choice with regard to salads and visually well presented, however limited choice of a main dish and the deserts consisted of blamanche and jelly! Food was very bland and repetitive offering no value for an all inclusive deal. Obviously food is very subjective and different people like different things. But in our opinion there was very little thought put into the meals and even less into the budget! If we had taken our children we would have had to eat out at every meal as they are not catered for. You may also expect that some kind of fruit would be on the menu at certain times of your stay, but you would be wrong! Fruit is available in a locked cabinet at an extra charge of approx. 7 TL. Drinks We were often told by the Sesin Hotel in Marmaris Turkey that they had run out of certain soft drinks which also happened to be the more expensive ones. We would later find out from other guests that these drinks were available, so make your own mind up about why they were telling certain people they were not available! The measures depended on which member of staff was serving you at the time. We were asked on occasion to go and collect our empty glasses to ensure that we didn't have two drinks at the same time, which we flatly refused to do. We found this offensive, un-trusting and down right rude! Also be warned that fruit juice is not part of the so called all inclusive deal, either as a mixer or on its own. Staff Well... the staff issue is the main reason we have made it our priority to inform others why our stay at the Sesin Hotel in Marmaris was so disappointing and effectively ruined our time away in Turkey! It all started when we came down to reception on our second day and politely greeted the receptionist asking for information about money exchange. As soon as the staff member noted which room we were in (408) he proceeded to ignore our requested information and produced a plastic bag with a hand towel which he said had been removed from our room by the cleaner. He stated that they had attempted to clean this towel without success and demanded 7.50 TL, we did recognise the towel as it had been in our room 30 minutes prior to this incident. The towel had some of my partners mascara on it from the previous night. We challenged that they had tried to clean this towel without success, due to the time scale involved, again he demanded in very rude and abrupt manner that we had to pay for this towel. It wasn't so much the request for money in a public place like reception, which had many other guests onlooking, that annoyed us, more so the fact they were lying about having tried to clean this towel. Which was still dry! Eventually we 'negotiated' that we would clean the towel ourselves rather than pay the 7.50TL they were demanding. My partner then had to handwash the towel and the offending mascara came off the towel with virtually no effort at all. Again it wasn't so much the request, more so the embarrassment caused by the inappropriate public display of our dirty laundry and the fact they had lied about attempting to wash this item of laundry! This was the start of a prolonged offensive by certain staff of the Sesin Hotel in Marmaris which made us feel bullied and victimised! After this there was a continued effort on the part of certain staff to be very rude and obnoxious during our stay. We came down one morning early to put a towel on a sunbed, as every other day we had gone down to the pool to find all the sunbeds with towels on them but no guests using them. On our return to the sunbed an hour or so later, they had been removed by staff and could not be found. I reported this to the management who told me that it was "forbidden" for anyone to put towels on sunbeds when not using them. We pointed out that there were actually two people in the pool, one sat at the bar and all 22 sunbeds had towels on them! So my question was, why have you removed our towels but no one elses? The manager stated that I was trying to make trouble! I said if the rules state that it is forbidden to put towels on sunbeds why were all the sunbeds unavailable? He then got very angry and started waving his hands in the air and shouting. I could see that we were being singled out at this point and went back to our room. The towels were then brought up a few hours later by a bell boy, however they weren't our towels. The next day we were locked out of our room and had to go to reception. The manager was called by the receptionist to speak to us. He said that our air conditioning was broken because we had left it on with the patio door open! We stated that we had not left the patio door open at any time when the air conditioning had been on, I mean, what would be the point of that? We were then given our keys and allowed back into our room. We checked the air conditioning, and it was working perfectly!! So not sure what that was all about, other than another attempt to persecute us. The next day before we had awoken, a hand written note was slid under our door from our supposed turkish rep?!!? Until this point we didn't even know we had one! The note was a rehash of the air conditioning conversation we had endured the previous day. It basically said that if our air conditioning broke at any time during our stay we would have a very expensive bill to pay before leaving! It was threatening in its manner and we seriously considered going to the police with it! We were also continuously stopped by staff when coming into the hotel if we had a bottle of water in our hands. They again stated that this was forbidden and that we must use the water provided in the mini bar, which was 3 times the cost of water purchased in a shop. In summary the staff made our stay at the Sesin Hotel in Marmaris Turkey a complete and utter nightmare! A small minority of staff were friendly, and they also had a similar opinion of their colleagues we were having trouble with. However, as the problematic staff were the ones in charge we didn't have a hope! Accommodation Rooms were in need of refurbishment but on the whole adequate for a couple and were clean. However, we saw another guest room who had two children with them and who were squeezed into a room exactly the same size as ours! This hotel is not child friendly! We paid for the use of the safe whilst at this hotel and when the electronics failed on it we waited 7 hours for them to come and look at it, despite my partners medication being locked inside it!! Location This hotel is 50metres from the beach and long beach which is good. There is however a busy road right outside of the pool area and backs on to a hotel which played music a lot louder than the Sesin Hotel in Marmaris Turkey, which is fine, I have no issue with loud music, but hearing two songs at the same time doesn't really work! There are derelict buildings next to the hotel and a very strange smell coming from them! The access road to the hotel doesn't have a path so you have to walk on the road which again if we had children with us would have been very difficult! Hotel Entertainment Turkish Night once a week consists of, chicken kebab on a spit, with the usual bland side dishes available every other night. A male belly dancer and songs from the hotel owners son......Mehmet who also went by the name of hotel manager when it suited him. Nightlife We would suggest that long beach is the best place to spend your evenings out. We ventured to bar street a couple of nights and had a fair amount of trouble from the local men. We were followed by 3 men on our way into bar street who were then waiting outside for us 4 hours later! I asked them if they were following us and they said, yes we are! This was very disconcerting and worrying. We spent many evenings on Long Beach and other than bar staff pestering you, we had no trouble. Good restaurants, cheap drinks and welcoming. To sum up.....go to this Hotel at your own peril, we may travel back to Marmaris one day, but we will never again book in at The Hotel Sespit! This hotel is NOT a 4* it is a 2* at best! The staff are obviously unhappy and miserable and this shows! The management are obnoxious, unprofessional and threatening. Please don't misunderstand us, we never expect a lot when traveling abroad and take each country we visit as it comes. We are not fussy eaters and we are very accepting of different cultures and beliefs. But common courtesy and manners we believe should be reciprocated when offered, but not at the hotel sesin in marmaris turkey! Good luck if you book! :-)

Shamus Siayip