Sunway Hotel

4 Star AA/Michelin this is not, but for the Gumbet resort area I would have to say it was close. The general feel of the hotel is good and welcoming. Very relaxed and nice staff added to a pleasant holiday. My major complaint is not about the hotel, more about the greedy nature of the resort. I would not go back to Turkey until the attitude changed. I am a robust 49 yr old with a young outlook but, I found the constant badgering from every stall/shop/restaurant proprietor a bit over the top. It became very tiring and prevented me from looking, and indeed, buying anything in the end. Also the cost of drinks over there has become outrageous. When you can rent a room for £12 or less a night, you would pay almost £3 for a rubbish Vodka and orange or similar. It got worse if you asked for Smirnoff etc. Beer was ok, about £1 a pint but just for the local stuff. Bud or other "Branded" stuff was again £3 a pint.

I cant work out how they do it. When a policeman earns just £300 per mth, how on earth can these prices be realistic, the answer is of course, that we were being scammed from all corners. Just haggle for everything and walk away if you dont get value.

To finalise, I enjoyed my time in Turkey, but I will not go back. It, for me has to control the greedy nature of this holiday resort, and the aggressive nature of its stall/restaurant staff.

The Sunway hotel is a good honest hotel in the wrong place.

The key to having a good holiday at the Sunway Hotel is to go there with realistic expectations. Anyone there for a week isn't going to be paying more than £300, so don't go anticipating Michelin Star cuisine for that price.

The rooms are basic, unfortunately quite a lot of them are twin bed, and few have balconies.

With respect to the food, remember you're in a recently developed area of Turkey, and that you've paid very little. Our advice would be to book B&B so you don't risk being disappointed by the inclusive evening meals. And if you really can't put up with eggs, toast, meats, pastries, tea, coffee and fruit juices in the morning, there's always any one of the many local places that do an all-day English for £2/£3.

Now the plusses...

The people in the hotel were all lovely, and can't do too much for you. That included our Vision Holiday rep, and extends to those that work in the local restaurants and bars. Some of the touts along the high streets were a bit persistent, but not a scratch on the Spanish or Greek touts that would probably follow you home if they thought there was a sale in it for them.

The excursions were all great, they can be booked via the rep or in some of the local stalls. The trips are all priced cheap as standard, but remember that everyone's in competition, so if you book a few together and haggle you can save even more. We did a day's scuba diving, a boat trip, a Turkish night, and a tour around Bodrum, went to the water park, and more, and were only there a week!

The resorts of Gumbet and Bodrum are fantastic. They're cheap, interesting, one of the Wonders of the World is in Bodrum (not many places can boast that), there are endless bars are restaurants and they're busy enough without being a cattle market. The beaches aren't anywhere near as good as, say, the Canaries, as they're man-made, but they were fine for a day sunbathing because the deck chairs were free. Definitely advise the area for families, couples and groups of friends. But I would say a group of young lads might be a little disappointed!

Finally did I mention the price of everything??? We had a steak meal for two at a lovely restaurant on the beach, with wine, a starter each and bottled water; and it was less than £20!

See you next year

Marmaris is a wonderful place to visit, but the Sunway Hotel in Gumbet is awful. One morning they took 1 hour and 15 minutes to bring us an English breakfast, and they started a fuss when we were refusing to pay.

This is not in any way a 4* hotel. Don't get me wrong - it's clean, it's nice and the staff can be helpful. The 4* rateing is based on bed and breakfast sevice NOT on half board or inclusive. The menu was a very poor choice of two starters two main course with melon or mouse as a dessert. There is a very small pool for children but the main pool is very deep - 6ft plus. My advice is book B&B only and all will be ok. Food is very cheap out there so eating out will not hurt your pocket.

Everything about the Sunway Hotel was fantastic! We had our doubts from reading the previous reviews, but from the second of stepping in the room, everything went well. The rooms were clean with brand new beds, and even the air conditioner worked. The food was amazing as long as your willing to try new things from chips. The staff were brilliant and they didn't leave a table untill it was cleaned. The pool area was always clean and had adiquit beds for all the guests. The eating area is a large court yard in the centre of the hotel, and the pictures of the hotel do it no justice. It als has a roof terrace that we didn't know about until we got to the hotel.

Overall we had a fantastic holiday and would fully recommend it to anyone of any age, as the hotel and the resort of Gumbet has something for everybody.

Gumbet, Sunway Hotel - Contrary to lots of the bad reviews you will read about this hotel, me and my boyfriend have just got back from a week at the Sunway and I can honestly say that to date it is the best holiday I have had. After reading reviews before going to the Sunway I panicked, and arrived expecting the worst. Admittedly if you are expecting a massive luxury hotel where every single one of your needs is catered for then you're probably not going to the right place, but for less than £300 for an all inclusive package you have to be realistic about your expectations. As far as the Sunway goes it is clean and pleasantly decorated. The rooms are cleaned every day and the air conditioning is such a joy to have. The staff at the hotel are friendly and helpful, doing everything they can to ensure you have a good stay. Entertainment at the hotel is basic. There is a pool bar during the day and the all inclusive bar is open until midnight. After that there is a Terrace bar at the hotel where the drinks are reasonably priced, but it is all a very chilled out affair. People who stay at the hotel during the evening sit and socialise, nothing more exciting or extravagant than that. The food was pretty basic but sufficient. There was lots of chicken, rice and salad. But it's so cheap to eat out that if you get bored of the hotel food you could easily find somewhere decent to eat. There were lots of good quality restaurants around the hotel.

We were given the opportunity to have professional photos taken up in the mountains at sunset. This was reasonably priced and I would definitely recommend doing this as we had some beautiful pictures taken.

All in all a basic but really nice hotel. Turkish 4* is so very different to what you might expect and compared to a lot of hotels that surrounded Sunway we definitely felt we had got a good deal.

The one critism I might have of the Sunway was that you had to make quite a lot of effort to be sociable with the staff for them to acknowledge you. They had very few English guests at the hotel, the rest were mainly Dutch, and we felt they were quite wary of us English guests. But as long as you are not ignorant and at least be polite then they will be polite back.

The resort of Gumbet itself is lively, with lots to do. Plenty of bars and night life. Shopping is not so good. There's mostly rubbish tourist tat on offer and you get harassed by almost every shop owner to come into their shop and have a look but you become immune to it eventually! If you want something special then the resort of Bodrum is a 10 minute bus ride down the road and there are plenty of lovely shops to chose from.

Don't get me wrong - the Sunway Hotel is not a bad hotel - I just expect a lot from a "4* all inclusive"!

Some staff were VERY ignorant and had there favourites when it came to serving (ie all the Turkish guests were served before you even if you were waiting). That said, some staff were fantastic - Atilla at the pool bar and the head food waiter (didn't get his name - very quiet but couldn't do enough for you).

Like the other reviewer said - all inclusive drinks finished at 11pm, no terrace bar open, no nightclub open, no gym, no Jacuzzi open, cable TV consisted of CNN, BBC news 24 and 20 channels in Turkish, Polish and German - no MTV or Sky Sports for you footy fans.

The food was very hit and miss - if you like fruit and veg you should be OK though. You were also expected to pay 2 Euros for the pool table! (all-inclusive anyone?)

Rooms cleaned every day with fresh linen & towels. Location was superb also.

The Sunway really is close to being tip-top - maybe next year they'll have got their act together - depending how much you pay, it could be worth a gamble.

The rooms at Sunway Hotel were nicely decorated and the staff helpful and friendly. The food was abysmal! We were there only 1 week and were offered pasta at least 5 times. We were never offered any other meat other than chicken and the food was left out, un-chilled, where flies quite happily helped themselves. The hotel was dirty; the sheets were never changed on the bed. There was little choice in the way of drinks and there was no gym, Jacuzzi, nightclub or entertainment as advised, not to mention no mini bar or working fridge or kettle in the room. One families sink actually fell through whilst we were there, our bathroom door didn't shut because the worktop around the sink was TOO BIG!!! Our honeymoon was terrible. the weather was nice, as was the pool until it rained and a lot of dirt washed into the pool off the mountains. The hotel managers were not in a hurry to clean it out at all, much to the guests upset, and they were actually telling the guests that this filthy cesspool (which was a deep, Amazon river green) was safe to swim in!

Well what can I say about Sunway Hotel, it's a shame because the staff are brilliant, Atilla the pool bar captain was great so polite, as were all the serving staff actually. It is stated as a four star but really it's a two star. This could be a fantastic hotel if only they refurbished it because; as I said the staff make it. and it is ideally situated for all the main life. They could have it sewn up there. Please please if the hotel people read this sort it out and you will have 99% happy customers and not 80% unhappy as we found out they are.