Lara Beach Royal Wings Hotel

it was wonderful in every way.staff were very friendly and the entertainment staff moved amongst the guests talking to everyone not spending more time with one than the next. we made many friends and were so pleased we are going back next week. very clean food very good 24 hours bar and bistro. the outdoor pools were being cleaned for the easter onset so pools and flumes and children main adventure section were not open but that suited us.there was an indoor pool.we already knew of hotel as we have been to lara beach several times. There is a bus outside hotel to Antalya and from there to whever you want to go.

I found the Lara Beach Royal Wings Hotel one of the cleanest hotels i've stayed in. I thought the food was excellent and the staff friendly. I will definitely go back.

I would definitely recommend the Lara Beach Royal Wings hotel to anyone thinking of an All Inclusive holiday. We went as a couple looking to relax and enjoy ourselves and that is exactly what we did, making friends with English, German and Dutch people at the same time.

The only annoying thing for us is when we had a lie-in until 11am therefore was no food until 12!

I enjoyed the resort so much i booked to go again the following year the day after i returned. I always stated i would not go to Turkey but it is by far the best hotel i have stayed in Europe. Yes it may not be the 5* of Cancun but it is clean food is good with plenty of choice. With the kids the staff cannot do enough for them and entatained them whilst we were eating which if you have children you know how stressful this can be. I read all the comments before i went and have to agree with the majority that it is a fantastic place.

This was our second stay at a 5* AI. (Previously we stayed at the Sun Zeynep in Belek). After carefully trawling through the reviews, we opted for a Thomas Cook package deal at the Lara Beach Royal Wings Hotel in Antalya. We arrived at 4:00am in the morning and checked in OK. The room was the quality we had expected, and everything looked very clean. So first impressions of the hotel were very good, and it certainly looked like a classy place.

The first problem we had was with the clothes hangers in the wardrobe, which were all broken, so when you hung your clothes on them, the frame came away from the hook and your clothes ended up on the floor - not a good start.

In the morning, it became abundantly clear that we were in the minority as British guests. In fact, out of 1700 people staying at the hotel, my family and I made up all of twenty British peoples. 50% being German, 30% Dutch, 10% Russian and 5% Spanish. The other 5% consisting of Turks, French and British. Before this holiday, it never bothered me to be in and around foreign people, but to have so many Germans in your face with their attitudes was intolerable.

The staff in the hotel were very nice, but only about a handful could speak English. Some others could only speak the basics, and the rest none at all, but they could all speak German. There seemed to be an obvious bias towards the Germans, as they always got attended to first in the dining room or bars.

The resort currently consists of a dual carriageway with about a dozen beachfront 5* AI hotels, a shopping centre on one side and apartment blocks and a smaller shopping centre. The Royal Wings is at the eastern edge of the main resort (in its current stage of development), about 10 minutes walk from the shopping areas.

The Royal Wings has a central 10 storey high building. There are 6 lifts, 4 are glass, with 2 overlooking reception area, and 2 looking over the pool and gardens. The lifts were a bit of a nightmare at peak times, with everyone calling them at the same time. I lost count of the number of times I saw what looked to be fit people getting in a lift to travel one floor.

All rooms have air conditioning controls which can be set at various temperatures; however, the main unit is centrally controlled, and as it was October it had been switched off, although it was still 27 degrees through the day. This meant that the unit was only blowing normal air, which made the room hot and sticky at night, and it was difficult to sleep. To overcome this, we had to leave the door open, which led to an invasion of mosquito's.

On our second day, there began a 16 hour thunderstorm, which led to large expanses of water forming all around the hotel in the areas where building work was being carried out. On seeing this, I thought to myself that these would be breeding grounds for more mosquito's, and sure enough, by the start of our second week they were everywhere. As the air conditioning was not on, the various doors were open frequently, which led to most people going around with lots of visible bites. I was bitten over 30 times. There was even mosquito larvae in the lazy river.

The food in the main buffet restaurant was very continental, but there was plenty of choice.

Breakfast consisted of pancakes, omelette's, various breads (homebaked), fruit, pastries, cheese, cold meats and cereals etc. If you wanted fresh orange juice you would have to fork out 2 Euros per glass. The choice at breakfast and lunch did not seem to vary much from day to day, and the evening meals were very repetitive. If you happened to use the main buffet restaurant at peak times, then you would have to be prepared to be patient - very patient. With about 800 people going around with food in their hands, we saw quite a few spillages and broken crockery. When we were there, the in thing with the continental kids was roller blade type things that attached to your trainers; which was fine, except it was often very difficult to avoid 25 - 30 kids in the dining room buzzing about on these things. I complained on two occasions to the hotel management that this was a health and safety issue in the dining room, but nothing was done. I guess they did no want to offend their majority customers.

The food in general was at best average. Main dishes were repeated quite often, and most times it was not very hot. Because the doors were open quite often (no air conditioning) there were lots of flies and mosquito's around. Most of the fruit cocktail was always full of small flies. The outdoor food corners were OK, except for the Kebabs. These being the most popular snack at lunch time, attracted larger queues (something the Germans don't like).

Another aspect of the main dining room was that there was no clear no smoking area, and most of the smokers just lit cigarettes whenever they felt like it, which got on my nerves, because there is nothing worse than getting smoke all over your not very warm rotten food.

I was very disappointed in the choice of international branded drinks available. My wife ordered a Southern Comfort, which cost 5 Euros. There are a choice of about 10 alcoholic and a few non-alcoholic cocktails. The wine was disgusting, except for one of the rose wines in the dining room. Soft drinks were a bit of a hit and miss, depending on what bar you used. It is all draught soft drinks, and most of the time there was either not enough concentrate or not enough CO2.

The lagoon style swimming pool meanders through the grounds, and together with the profusion of palm trees and straw thatched bars and restaurants, it had a Polynesian feel. The pools are not heated, and to be honest they are very cold when you first go in. The sea was actually warmer. We had no problem getting a sunbed at any of the pools or the beach, but we did notice lots of people ignoring the rules of not reserving sunbeds before 9:00am and getting away with it. If you like the shade, there are plenty of shaded sun beds on the beach. Towels are provided, which you can change once each day. If you lose a towel you will be charged 10 Euros. The aqua park was on the whole quite good, although it was very busy. Again, the Germans took over, especially at the rubber ring slides, where they tried to take turn after turn without giving up the ring to the queue of people waiting for them. There were very few rings, and this caused some arguments. On a couple of occasions we witnessed grown men wrestling with each other over these rings. We ended up buying a ring for our son so that he did not have to bother with the hassle surrounding these flumes. The area around the aqua park gets very wet at peak times, and we found this to be slippery and dangerous, as it is not non-slip tiling around the pools.

The beach in front of the hotel is very nice, being mostly sand with some shingle at the sea edge. It was more peaceful lying on the beach away from the endless noise around the pools. Water sports like para-sailing, Jet Ski and catamaran etc. are available from the beach (additional charge of about £20 for 15 minutes). There are a wide range of activities available during the day. I did the archery and airgun shooting, and I won, much to the disgust of one German guy who thought he was Robin Hood!

The entertainment team seem to work hard during the day to please those who want to take part in the activities, although they did tend to annoy you to take part, and they won't take no the first time of asking.

Hot water was a problem if you wanted to shower at around 6 - 7pm. It seemed to be that everyone in the hotel was showering at this time, and the hot water just runs out.

Night time entertainment consisted of either going to the nightly shows or sitting around one of the bars in the lobby area listening to a couple of Turks trying to sing English songs. We went to the shows a couple of times, which we found to be absolute rubbish, but it was quite funny to see the entertainers making a fool of themselves. After the show there is always a mad rush to get a seat around the lobby bars, as this is where everyone hangs out at night. There is only a very small area for non-smokers, and these seats are usually gone pretty fast.

If you were really bored at night you could always retire to your room early and watch one of the many German Channels on the TV, or you could watch the one British channel - BBC World.

Except for the shopping mall there is nothing in the immediate resort, and unless you have transport or unless you're prepared to pay big taxi fares, you are very isolated. You can get the resort bus (out 1000 ret 1600) into Antalya for 5 Euros, or the local Dolmus for 1 Euro each way. It takes about 30 minutes to get to Antalya on the resort bus.

Antalya is quite a large city, with lots to see and a quaint little harbour in the old town. There is a large shopping centre and a couple of Bazaars, which sell the usual fake rubbish. Going round these bazaars is not for the faint hearted because the traders are in your face from the moment you walk in. If you happen to go there with a female be prepared for some sleaze bags leering all over the top of her and making suggestive comments. If you do want to buy anything, always haggle with them as they start off at a ridiculously high prices for their goods. I found it a good tactic to start at an equally ridiculous low price and meet somewhere in the middle. Prices in the hotel shops and the local shopping mall are expensive, so it is best to travel to Antalya if you want to buy anything.

This was by far one of the worst holidays we have had, all points considered, but at least the weather was good and sunny (26 - 27c most days). We could not do Turkey again, as we have been put off by everything that happened to us this year. We certainly would never plan to stay in any hotel with so much of a minority of British people.

The Royal Wings is a nice looking hotel, but it's a pity there is so much wrong that makes it for me quite a bit short of the 5 star we expected.