Please Don't Pass The PASCHA By... (Pascha Bay Hotel)

Member Name: rachels_ratty

Product:	Pascha Bay Hotel
Date:	04/09/03 (642 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: SPOTLESSLY clean, Helpful and friendly staff, Excellent facilities, good public transport links

Disadvantages: Slightly overpriced food and drinks

As a person who hates being herded around I generally travel independently so it was with some trepidation back in May that I found myself in my local travel agents with the words ?Package Tour? jumping out of my mouth. Not only were those words mysteriously emanating from myself, they were followed by the phrase ?last minute deal please?! Now I admit to getting a good deal. A darned good deal in fact. Granted the accommodation was unnamed at the time of booking, but with only 3 possibilities (to be allocated on arrival) I was only scared instead of plain petrified...

So, preamble aside, following an hour and a half transfer from Antalya airport we arrived in Konakli and outside the Blue Village Pascha Bay Hotel complex in the wee small hours of the morning and in temperatures still in the upper 20s. Thankfully the reception area was air-conditioned, the staff were very efficient and following a brief exchange which involved me handing over my passport for the week and gaining a key, a map and room air-conditioning unit remote control we were on our way. We declined the help of a porter as our block was next to the reception but then regretted that choice when we realised we were on the second floor!


~ THE ROOM~

Pascha Bays accommodation consists of 306 rooms housed in 7 separate blocks each with 4 floors. These are built around the centralised pool/bars/restaurants. As I have already stated, we were in block number one, which put us at a distinct advantage at check in/check out but as we were on the second floor with only staircase access; no fun with heavy cases and tired kids. My own fault though?

Our room was classed as a one-bedroom (sleeps 4 adults) studio. Entering the room there was a wide but short corridor with two huge DOUBLE WARDROBES on the left, complete with hangers and bottom cupboards containing extra blankets. Not too sure about using them during the summer but never mind. In one of the wardrobes was a
n electronic security box, which can be activated for around £14 per week. We didnt use this facility, we left money and valuables in the room on a daily basis and NOTHING was touched, by the cleaning staff or anyone else for that matter.

On the right hand side of the passageway was the bathroom or maybe SHOWER ROOM would be a tad more accurate. This was tastefully decorated and spotlessly clean, the sink and vanity unit was of a good size and allowed for all of our toiletries to "spread" during the week and the shower stall was huge and more than big enough for two person showers (ahem). There were plenty of soft clean towels available and these were changed as required during the week by the maid. In the shower was a wall mounted dispenser filled with complimentary shampoo and next to the vanity unit was another of these dispensers containing liquid soap. The only drawback was to use the toilet you had to enter the room and then shut the door immediately as the "loo" was behind the door.

At the end of the short corridor, the room opened out into the main SLEEPING AREA/LOUNGE/KITCHENETTE. Again simply decorated but very fresh and clean the room was adequately furnished yet uncluttered. There was a sofa bed, which had already been pulled out and made upon our arrival, along with an armchair bed, which was also similarly pulled out and furnished with a clean sheet and blanket. The wall mounted air-conditioning unit was in here and positioned in such a way that you could blast the bedroom with cold air too if you left the connecting door open. It was fantastic to be able to keep the room at a steady 20 degrees whilst outside could be anything up to 45?

This room also had a small circular dining table complete with 4 sturdy chairs and a "kitchen" area. Yes this is a hotel! The Pascha Bay offers rooms on a full board; half board and self-catering basis but ALL rooms come equipped in the same manner. So when I sa
y kitchen area what exactly do I mean? Well, there was a full sized fridge, a microwave, 2-ring electric hob, full sized sink plus short counter-top with coffee maker and four slice toaster. There was also ample cutlery, crockery, cooking utensils and cupboard space. All of course was spotless and all the electrical equipment looked new. Above the counter top and wall mounted was the television set. Not much variety on offer through some very basic satelitte channels, but at least two were in English and there were also three radio stations available.

From here there was a glass-panelled door that led into the BEDROOM which was simply decorated to match the lounge area. In here were two single beds, a chest of drawers and a vanity unit. Off the bedroom was the "piece-de-resistance", the BALCONY. French doors opened up onto a smallish tiled area furnished with a small patio table and 2 chairs; all well and good but thats not what drew me out there at 7 o clock each morning. Sitting out there I could turn to the right and see the Mediterranean Sea lapping at the hotels own beach and to the left were the hills. Perfect! Now I MUST stress here that only a FEW rooms can offer a view of BOTH hills and sea and we struck EXTREMELY lucky. However I can say that all rooms above the ground floor do have balconies and those on the ground floor have private patio areas.

As I have already stated, the DAILY maid service covers ALL rooms during which time they will change the bedding and towels and towel "art" seems compulsary! Of course it depended on which maid cleaned your room as to what "shape" you received, but one day we got towelling swans. Well I was impressed! They also give the whole room a clean and tidy and even wash your dishes should you leave a dirty glass in the sink. Apart from this, you also get a "do not disturb" sign to hang on your door which reverses to be a "please clean this room" sign sh
ould you make a mess between scheduled cleans. Very handy when travelling with kids. Both signs were complied with; the first day we were there the maids left our room until we had surfaced...


~ FACILITIES ~

No hotel in the sun would be complete without a SWIMMING POOL and the Pascha Bay has THREE of them! The main pool has a fountain in the middle and a depth that ranges from 1.5 metres to 2.5 metres. Separated from this by a wall and a bridge that crosses the water is the childrens pool which has a depth of less than a metre. New for this year is a baby pool, which is completely separate from the deeper pools and has a depth of barely a few inches. Covered by a marquee to keep it in the shade it was a lovely place for those "younger" guests to cool down.

Please bear in mind though that this is NOT Britain and therefore safety standards as we would take them do not apply. Lifeguards do not exist so it is down to parents to watch their own kids in the water, but there are plenty of hotel staff around should problems arise. I was impressed to see how CLEAN the water was, in fact how scrupulously clean the entire hotel was and YES the pool is cleaned daily. Surrounding the main pool are plenty of sun loungers, which are free to use. The hotel also operates a policy of "no reservation" when it comes to the sun loungers. Stops certain people putting their towels on them! Any towel found on a lounger with no obvious signs of anyone using it, the towel is removed. Made me laugh?

After all that swimming you will probably be in need of a quenching drink. Beside the main pool is the POOLSIDE BAR, a mainly covered area with plenty of seats. At night they light this area with small covered candle lamps on each table. Drinks here were, I thought, a little on the expensive side, as were the basic snack type foods available. Theres also a dartboard here in a separate "conservatory" addition to one side of the
bar as well as a pool table. I cant quote how much the darts were to hire, but the pool table was 5,000,000 TL (£2 approx) for a half-hour and 9,000,000 TL (£3.50) for an hour.

Alongside the poolside bar was the hotel dining area for those guests who had paid for full/half board or for self catering guests who were willing to pay for their meals. As we were self-catering (and Im a cheapskate, the meals were quite expensive) I cannot comment on the food but to me it looked to be being served efficiently and was well presented. However, some guests I spoke to commented that there didnt seem to them to be an awful lot of choice and everyone said the meals were over priced. Each evening ENTERTAINMENT was laid on near the dining area on a small stage area. We stayed there briefly for the "Turkish Night" but to be honest it was nothing special and we preferred to dine at a lovely little restaurant, the AKSOY directly across the road from the hotel. The waiters there provided more than enough genuine Turkish entertainment 7 nights a week!

Should you be the sort of person who doesnt like to move very far when youre on holiday then besides everything I have already mentioned, the Pascha has everything you could possibly need to make your holiday a good one. Across from Block One is a small on-site GROCERY SHOP selling all the basics as well as that all-important bottled water. Lining the pathway from the pool area are plenty of other shops and outlets selling anything and everything from camera film to personalised T-shirts, from sarongs and swimsuits to jewellery; theres even a small internet café for those more addicted to the www than me!

As I briefly hinted at earlier, the Pascha has its own PRIVATE BEACH. For us that mean a whole 2 minute walk to the sand (please note the sarcasm there), but for the further blocks, the walk couldnt have been any more than 5 minutes. The beach area was divided up neatly into different areas. Ther
e were plenty of FREE sunbeds to relax on for those who just wanted to soak up the suns considerable heat and a beach volleyball court and football pitch for all those of a more energetic disposition! Theres also a tennis court, but this isn't on the beach, its directly behind block one.

There were also some more unique touches; a huge chessboard complete with all pieces, a punch bag and several marked out lanes for games of boules. There was, of course, plenty of sand available so you could do your own thing and with the crystal clear and VERY blue waters of the Mediterranean lapping at the shore, who could possibly want for more?

Last but by no means least is the kids club, which operates daily but ONLY in high season which here means July and August. They have a playground for the smaller children plus obligatory "throwing the kids rep in the pool sessions"! The club is divided up into 3 age groups ? under 5s, 5-8 years and 9?12 years. There is also a teenagers club at night; they seemed to meet up in the gaming room near the bar. I cannot comment personally on any of the clubs as my two didnt want to participate, they preferred the "bug mother" approach to the week; but parents I spoke to whose kids had attended the sessions said they were impressed with the activities and level of care shown their children.


~ MY OVERALL IMPRESSION ~

This I can sum up in one short but sweet sentence! I was impressed. Very impressed! The Pascha Bay is a FOUR-STAR hotel and it shows. The whole place is spotless and the cleaning staff work long hours and very hard to keep the place sparkling. Our room was certainly kept in an immaculate condition despite the best efforts of one 6 year old and one 13 year old who challenged the maid service to the limit! The pool is shut at seven each evening for cleaning, in fact I dont recall seeing any rubbish AT ALL whilst we were there.

During our weeklong stay we had t
wo small problems concerning the room, one was a broken wardrobe handle and the other the handle to the room fell off! The wardrobe door handle was fixed BEFORE I had chance to report it to reception which has me wondering if they carry out repairs through telepathic means and the door handle was repaired AS SOON as it was reported. Its pretty good when you can wander down to reception to report something amiss and it is mended by the time you return to your room!

If security worries you when you are away from home then this again is the place for you. There are security guards on the gates and they discretely check each visitor who comes through the main gates. Just inside the main gate is the entrance to an underpass that takes you across the road to the Aksoy restaurant and the few shops that are alongside it. You may think that this would present a security risk but the security gatehouse has been positioned perfectly so everyone can be monitored. The guards also take regular walks around the complex and personally we all felt VERY safe whilst staying there and I had no qualms about letting my 13 year old come and go as she pleased. The door to each room/studio DOUBLE locks so each room is as secure as it can be. We certainly had no problems and nor did anyone else I spoke to over the week.

Very impressed overall I may have been but I do have a couple of small niggles with the place. The first was the obvious overpricing of the meals, drinks and groceries in the hotel shop. Now this mattered not one jot in the great scheme of things, as a far cheaper shop was just 200 metres away through the underpass and the Aksoy restaurant I couldnt fault for either price or service. It does make me annoyed however that hotels around the world charge blatantly inflated prices and get away with it. My other niggle came on the last day at checkout time (which incidentally was a very generous 12 noon). They lost my passport! Well, to be exact, they claimed ne
ver to have had it in the first place. The same person who checked us IN checked us OUT and after a little gentle persuasion was made to check EVERY rooms pigeonhole where, low and behold, my passport turned up having been placed in the wrong one!


~ FINAL THOUGHTS ~

Pascha Bay is owned by TUI so if you dont want to travel with one of their tour operators Im afraid you wont get to stay here. Having spoken to one of the waiters at the Aksoy, he told us that this is the first year that British people have stayed at this particular hotel. TUI owns it but have always let it exclusively to their Scandinavian operators. The war changed things somewhat and they found they couldnt fill it so Thompsons were offered the remaining rooms and Im very glad they were!

For us, this hotel offered us all that we needed for the perfect holiday. Granted we didnt take up all the activities on offer or use all of the facilities but that was because we didnt need to. Most things we wanted were either on-site or across the road and for everything else Konakli centre was 10 minutes Dolmus (pronounced Dolmush) ride away, with Alanya city another 10 minutes in the other direction. A Dolmus? Its the little local mini-bus type public transport system and an experience all on its own! For us this was perfect but I lost count of the number of BRITISH people I spoke to who, and I will be frank here, acted like a 10 minute PUBLIC TRANSPORT trip was the end of the world and made the hotel too isolated.

I only hope that this view doesnt mean that Thompsons drop this hotel next year. Why? Because we are already saving for a return trip? So THANK YOU Pascha Bay. With all the horror stories that tend to abound when it comes to accommodation that comes part and parcel with package holidays it made a refreshing change to find somewhere that is pretty darned close to my idea of perfection. I dont say that lightly and above all else, after years of Independent tra
vel and near hotel-phobia I cant wait until next summer rolls around!


THOROUGHLY RECOMMENDED and FULLY DESERVING all FIVE STARS.


For further information check out www.paschabay.com.tr


£1 = roughly 2,500,000 Turkish Lira (TL)


Incidentally, we paid £279 per adult and £239 per child (weekly price - airfare and hotel on a self-catering basis..told you it was a bargain!)

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