Petr zajac
Overall, we were very satisfied with our stay. The hotel is beautiful, very clean, and the food was excellent – plenty of choice and always fresh. The female staff members were always smiling, quick, and very professional.
However, I need to mention one issue – the male waiters often spent too much time talking to each other instead of serving guests. We had to wait over 10 minutes for drinks, and by the time they arrived, our food was almost finished. This happened mostly at dinner and felt uncomfortable, especially with children. The staff at the lobby bar were also not very welcoming, so we didn’t go back there during our 10-day stay.
Suggestion for Improvement:
It would be great if guests were assigned a table number (based on their room or section) upon arrival, with a dedicated waiter responsible for that section. This would make service faster and avoid long waits. Having a self-service drink station would also improve the dining experience.
Overall, we are happy with our stay and would still recommend this hotel to friends.
Gooberchop
We had a lovely stay at Side Star Resort. The staff were friendly and welcoming — if you greet them with a smile, you’ll get one right back.
Some reviews say the resort is mainly geared towards German guests. While it’s true that German is often the first language you’re greeted in, we found a good mix of guests when we visited, including German, English, and Dutch.
Food
Breakfast: They’ve made an effort with English breakfast, though the sausage is local, the beans were often a little undercooked, and fried eggs could be tricky to get (rarely more than one at a time, depending on the chef). That said, there’s plenty of choice — pastries, breads, fruit, cereals, yoghurts, omelettes, and local dishes.
Lunch: The main restaurant offers a wide range of cooked dishes, breads, salads, desserts, and fruit. The pool bar is great for quick bites like jacket potatoes, wraps, paninis (toasted or not), burgers, nuggets, chips, onion rings, and pizza.
Dinner: Similar variety to lunch, with themed nights adding some change. It can feel a little repetitive after a while, especially for children, so check out the feature cooking stations outside for something different. Desserts are plentiful but very sweet — we often opted for fruit or ice cream instead.
Facilities
Despite what some reviews say, we never had trouble finding sunbeds as long as we went down after breakfast. Even later in the morning, we could usually find three together. We can’t comment on the private beach early in the day, but when we visited, there were always spaces.
Entertainment
The animation crew during the day were fantastic, with plenty of activities and energy around the pool. Evening entertainment was varied, but not really to our taste, so we often spent our nights in the lobby playing games together. There is a games room on-site, though we didn’t use it during our stay.
Service
Special mention to Kadir, who was incredibly friendly, took time to learn about us, and always had a smile. He made sure our drinks were topped up and genuinely made our stay more enjoyable.
Getting Around
Shuttle buses run right outside the resort — it’s about 30 minutes to Side or Manavgat and only €2 per person. The drivers are friendly and helpful, letting you know when to get off or how to connect to other buses.
Money Tips
We found a mix of euros and lira worked best — lira for haggling in markets, euros for tourist activities like watersports.
Overall
Side Star Resort is ideal for a relaxing spa-style holiday. If you’re looking for lots of activities within a reasonable distance, you might find options limited, but for unwinding by the pool, spa or beach with good service and plentiful food, it’s a great choice.
Yumeko dolli
We stayed here as a family of 6 , the hotel itself is very nice and clean and always good entertainment on. The only downside is the sun-bed situation and food. When going to get food in the morning, lunch and especially dinner it’s like a free for all. People pushing in queues and kids picking food up and putting it back is just vile. Also not a lot of selection for gluten free in which was the whole reason we chose this hotel. Was apparently meant to be fully accommodating for gluten free yet when we arrived the chefs kept pointing out things with dairy in ? Sun-beds are also a free for all meaning we had to wake up at 7am every day to secure a bed for the rest of the day. Other than those downfalls we had a very good time. There isn’t much around the area either if you’re wanting a market or shops.
Helin Cakmak
I’ll start by saying this: if you’re German, I would recommend this hotel, but if you’re Turkish or from another country, I personally wouldn’t. The staff’s priority seems to be Germans — they smile more and treat them differently, while we, as Turkish people in our own country, didn’t receive the same treatment.
When we arrived, the welcome from the women at reception was genuinely kind, and the gentleman who showed us to our room was also very welcoming. We stayed in a family room, which was nice overall, though it was strange that the twin bedroom only had one plug socket. The minibar was a pleasant surprise with more options than I’ve seen in previous hotels. However, I drank a chocolate milk on the first day, and it wasn’t replaced until the very last day of my week-long stay — something they should pay more attention to, especially since it’s supposed to be restocked daily.
The food was one of the highlights. There was a different variety each day, and it never felt repetitive. That said, the chips at breakfast and dinner were always disappointing — they tasted like leftovers. On the other hand, the snack bars were excellent, especially the one by the pool, which had amazing, fresh options and great variety. The man working at the pasta section was kind and friendly. The beach snack bar was good too, though not quite as impressive as the pool one.
The beach itself was one of the best I’ve been to: sandy, clean, and fun, even when the waves got a little strong. The sea temperature was just right, but the pool was always extremely cold. You do get used to it after a while, but it’s still a bit uncomfortable at first. The slides weren’t too exciting, except for the rainbow slide, which was actually really fun.
One thing that surprised me was that the hotel didn’t provide bottled water. At first, I was worried the water machines would taste like tap water, but they turned out to be very refreshing and always ice cold. Drinks at the bar were also great, especially the cocktails and mocktails. Unfortunately, many of the bartenders seemed moody, except for one man with round glasses who worked mornings. A special mention goes to Tayfun — from day one, he served with genuine joy and happiness, and he absolutely deserves recognition (and a raise!). Another great staff member was Günay, who was polite and attentive when serving drinks around the sunbeds.
Not all the bar staff were like that, though. We did encounter a rude bartender who was dismissive towards us, while happily serving Germans and Russians. Sadly, this wasn’t an isolated case; it seemed to be the general attitude of many workers. To be fair, the bar managers handled the situation well and apologized to us.
Entertainment was another mixed point. Halil from the animation team stood out — he’s talented, does his job wonderfully, and speaks excellent English. There were themed events like beach parties, pool parties, and white parties, but they all felt repetitive, as the same songs were played over and over. On top of that, the poolside music during the day was either repetitive or sometimes not played at all, which was disappointing.
On my last day, I had an issue with reception. I needed to call my transfer but didn’t have a Turkish number. I asked the man in the black uniform at reception for help, but he was moody and unhelpful. He pretended to dial, then told me the number wasn’t going through and to come back later. Just two minutes after, my sister called, and it went through immediately. It felt like he simply didn’t want to help.
Overall, while there are positives — such as the beach, snack bars, and a few outstanding staff members — I would not recommend this hotel unless you are German. The feeling of being treated as less of a priority, even as a Turkish guest in Turkey, left a negative impression that overshadowed the good parts of the stay.
Jana Zagora
Overall the hotel is okay, we spent there nice vacation, beach was good, but it could have been much more better experience if some things were changed.
• The whole hotel is oriented for German clients and Russians. All staff (except the reception) will speak to you German mostly. If you talk to them English, they mostly dont understand, or they pretend not to🤷♀️
• The pool is veeery small and overcrowded whole day, with warm water, not refreshing at all. There is constantly somebody jumping into the pool with big splash, despite there are signs which doesn't allow it and the lifeguard doesn't really care too. Not sure what time people wake up to secure their spots in the pool area, but when I went around at 7:30 the whole area was reserved with towels already. • The walking path to the beach is nice, only huge heat over 40 degrees made it challenging, It's a small downhill to the beach. The huge disappointment at the beach was beach bar, you will not get here any alko drinks, they have just beer and wine. So for drinks you have to walk uphill to the beach bar, where were always queues.
• The food at the beach was every day the same. Sweets you can get only from 3 till 4pm. Good thing is that at the beach you can always find free sunbeds. They could improve with cleaning sunbeds and tables and picking up the buds after ignorant smokers.
• the sea is nice and clean, some days with good waves.
• make sure you make your a la carte reservation asap, we wanted to do on the second day and we were told they are all fully booked, except the Turkish one.
• the food in the main restaurant was every day almost the same, only with minor changes. Dinner is only 2 hours from 19:00 - 21:00 and kids animations starting during dinner time at 20:20 - not able to make it on time. Chairs were often dirty and we had to search for a clean cutlery, as tables were not serviced after they were used. For the hot food area people are creating unnecessary queue and standing there even they are not picking up the food and blocking it from others who might want to pick something 🤦♀️ We really love baklavas and their variations - delicious👌