Don't do Turkey for Christmas! (Christmas Travel Stories)

Member Name: BabyGirl08x

Product:	Christmas Travel Stories
Date:	14/06/08 (98 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nothing at all.

Disadvantages: Holidays4u will ruin Christmas ahhh!

Christmas - A time for love, family, and children ripping open their presents on Christmas morning, then cursing Santa because for getting the wrong things. Ahh, don't we love it?

In films, Christmas morning would start by two lovely children excitedly waking their parents up, then the whole family going into the large living room to see the Christmas tree. The man would hold his beautiful wife in his arms as the children would excitedly, but calmly open up their presents and thank the parents gracefully and appreciatively for each present. Then, the family would sit round the table and enjoy a wonderful cooked roast turkey and potato dinner, and it would be the best Christmas ever!
What a load of bollocks, does that happen in anyone's house, if so, who are you?

The way I vision Christmas is tumbling out the bed, 2 in the afternoon, putting on the kettle and frying some bacon, then dragging my mother out her bed. About 4 pm the brothers, sisters, uncles, aunties, nieces and nephews would invade the house, and somehow my brother and Gran would always start a fight! Then, we would all gather round the TV, watching the stupid programmes Sky give us and eat a Chinese take-away whilst the children fight over the Barbie dolls. Really, I don't fancy Christmas at all.

One year, we decided to try something new for Christmas, something, different. Then it hit us! We'll go abroad! Obviously, the family didn't approve but it worked out fine. So me, my mother and my little cousin set off for Manchester Airport, Dec 20. We decided to take the three weeks as it was a special occasion. The 6 hour bus ride was a nightmare, I do not, whatsoever recommend it! He flight was a nightmare also, Onur Air, I've already wrote a review about that.

We arrived in Turkey, Dalaman, and waited for our suitcases to arrive. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. So, we left the airport, bag less, and got on the bus. It was night-time and we were all very tired. The bus ride was 2 hours, but it flew by.
We arrived upon our hotel, Ilona Apartments, Marmaris. We decided to book independently as no travel operators were willing to give us a full package for Marmaris. Although, our flight was booked through Holidays4u. The hotel was out of reach, isolated and an utter mess. We walked in to what looked like a gangster's hideout. 10 guys sitting round a table playing cards and smoking cigarettes. One day, after 5 minutes of waiting, decided to have manners and fetch us our keys. Apparently, they were more interested in finishing their game then serve their customers. When we walked up the four flights of stairs to our room, we opened our door to a dirty, dusty s**thole. <<< Sorry about the language, its the least explicit way to describe this. Our first day of the holiday, was basically washing the room. We empted all the cupboards and scrubbed the dirty tiles. After a full day of therapy, the room was somewhat bearable. We couldn't go out that night, as we had no clothes to wear. So we cuddled up, in a ball together and feel asleep. The next morning, there was no sunshine, no children screaming at the pool and no music from any of the restaurants. We walked out, still in our clothes from the previous day, into a dull and cold ghost town. A cat walked up and down the street, an old newspaper sheet blew down the pavement, and apart from that, the place was dead. We walked out into the main area of Marmaris, to see a few people walking around, and one or two cars. None of the bazaar was open as there was no tourists. So we had to splash some cash and go to the big, expensive Turkish clothes shops. We bought a few days supplies of clothes then went to find somewhere to eat, which was a nightmare. Our last option was McDonalds.. who goes on holiday.. to eat McDonalds? Apparently, we did! It was the worst holiday ever, so far! We decided as it had been 2 days, and still no sign of a suitcase, we'd go to the Holiday4u office and check up where our suitcases were. "They're in Heathrow", the guy said plainly. He acted like it was nothing, as if it didn't really matter we were stuck in Marmaris with no luggage at all! So from there, our daily routine was, get up, watch Tv, go to Mcdonalds, go to the Holidays4u office, then go back to our s**thole.

Dec24: We were getting really anxious as our 4 year old cousin was already told that Santa DOES deliver presents to Turkey. We had no idea what we would tell her! We went back down to the Holidays4u office to see where our luggage was this time. "There in Sweden", said the guy, once again, dry and plain! My Aunty Liz started to get really peed off, as she usually does. We demanded to speak to someone else. This time the woman's name was Lorna, young and very cheery. She wasn't very cheery when we told her about our cases, in fact, she was really sympathetic and helpful. She was raged when she heard about how "Paul" treated our case. She said he was naturally depressed. Also, she was very funny. She said they couldn't exactly get the cases to us by Christmas day, but she said she will try and get them out of Sweden by New years eve. Assured by this, we only bought a few day's clothes. All in all, we had spent £2000 on that holiday between the four of us. It was getting out of hand.

Christmas Day: After resolving Vanessa's crying and screaming match after realising Santa hadn't come, we took a walk down the marina. Apart from the dull and cold weather it was pretty nice. We stopped by the English pub where there was a pub quiz. We won 2 bottles of wine. We had a steak and kidney pie and had a toast to the worst Christmas ever. When night-time came, we simply watched Turkish TV, once again. What a crap Christmas that was! I would have rather stayed at home, to be honest.
New year's eve: 4 McDonalds later, we took another trip down to the Holidays4u office. Lorna looked quite worried to see us, we assumed bad news. "So, where our luggage, today", moaned my Aunty Liz.
"Its ended up in Germany", she sighed. We said nothing, we all just walked out the building and wondered how we were going to celebrate New Years with no clothes or make-up! Once again, we went expensive clothes shopping, and even make-up shopping. We decided to just go down the beach front and see what there was. A huge crowd of people were gathered round a big un-lit sign saying "Happy New Year", we decided to tag along. We expected some action and partying, but they set on a firework (literally, a firework).. switched on the light, and that was it! No cheering, no clapping, just simple handshakes and a few "happy new year"s.. Or in Turkey "Mutlu Yillar". Severely disappointed, we went back to our apartment, and once again, fell asleep in front of the Tv.

Jan 7th:we took another trip to the Holidays4u office to see Lorna. We were raging at the fact we had spent 2 weeks and still no sign of suitcases. They matter was, apparently, the suitcases were in Istanbul and they refused to release them. We gave up, went back to the apartment, and counted up the days to go home. It was a terrible holiday. All we ever did the whole holiday was watch tv and eat McDonalds. We were all over a stone larger when we came back.

We love Marmaris, its a wonderful place in the summertime, just not in the winter. We did get our suitcases, when we came home! They were battered to bits. Turkey is not the place for winter. The only Turkey we'll be doing for Christmas, will be the type you can eat!

Summary: It sucked.