Sherwood Dreams Resort

We just returned from our holiday to this hotel as a family of 2 Adults and 2 Kids ( 10 and 2 ) Been to many 5 stars hotels previously and this ia definitely not a 5 starts. It needs major improvements. Rooms are very dated, the pool area ( especially the baby one ) is full of black mould on the grout, tiles were missing from the bottom of the pool, very unsafe for babies. The area around the pool is very slippery, please ensure you were some sort of shoes/ slip on’s. We stayed on the top floor and the lady that was cleaning our floor was not doing a proper job, hoovering not done, bedsheets not done, hair left in the drains, just collecting the bin… Once my son left a pack of nutella biscuits on the sofa ( 2-3 biscuits ) and she ate them all…. I personally asked and she admitted. Food was poor for someone who do not eat beef/ lamb… not too many options of chicken meet. Sweets were almost same every day… different colours, same dough…. Constantly pasta / different shapes and salads… it’s 5 stars hotel, we do not live on pasta and salads and yougurts… cheap stuff to buy… not thematic evenings… only once with sushi and we had sushi 2/3 days after for lunch/ dinner…. Always food from the day before… whatever is not used for dinner, use it for lunch next day and dinner again… very poor food choices…

On the good side of things… staff at the bar/ outside, restaurant very friendly, smiling and helpful. Nice cocktails and good weather.

We will not return to this hotel.

Sherwood Dreams Resort Review

We’ve just come back from Sherwood Dreams and I wanted to leave a fair review because there were some really good parts of the holiday, but also quite a few things that let it down for us.

Firstly, our room was lovely and we were upgraded for free, which we really did appreciate. It was a lovely gesture and we were really happy with the room.

The pool was also lovely and our daughter had a great time in it, but it did sometimes feel uncomfortable when children were just playing and splashing. Some guests seemed to get really annoyed by it, even though it is a family hotel and children are obviously going to play in the pool. I’m not talking about children deliberately bothering people, just normal playing and splashing.

There were also a few safety issues around the pool. Some of the slabs were loose and we saw people slipping and hurting themselves. What concerned us more was that the slabs were still not fixed during our 10-night stay, so this wasn’t just a one-off issue we happened to notice. For a busy family hotel, I really do think something like that should have been sorted much sooner.

The sunbeds were okay, but you did have to be up early to get one as they were pretty much all gone by early morning.

I really want to mention Ayşe, Rabia and Ali Deniz because they were absolutely amazing. They were so friendly and worked really hard, and I genuinely think staff like them deserve a lot more recognition for what they do. The servers on roller skates were also lovely and worked so hard.

The food was very hit and miss for us. Some meals were nice, but other times the food was cold and there were days where we struggled to find much we actually wanted to eat. For an all-inclusive hotel, I expected it to be a bit more consistent.

The snack bars were good and we did use them quite a bit, but again they became quite repetitive after a while.

Another small thing was the bottled water in the fridges. Sometimes it was lovely and cold, but other times the fridges had obviously just been restocked and the water was warm. Not a massive issue, but in the heat it did make a difference.

The cocktails were also very hit and miss. You could order the same drink more than once and it would taste completely different each time, so there didn’t seem to be much consistency.

We were also disappointed with the entertainment. It felt very repetitive and once the main show had finished there really wasn’t much else going on. We expected there to be a bit more atmosphere afterwards, especially in a family resort.

The beach itself is a mixture of sand and stones/pebbles. It looked nice, but we found it quite difficult getting back out of the sea because of the stones underfoot, so I’d definitely recommend taking water shoes.

The location is something I’d also mention to anyone thinking of booking. There really isn’t much outside the hotel, so if you like being able to walk out and have shops, bars or restaurants nearby, this probably isn’t the best location for that. To get into Belek we were looking at around €40 for a taxi, although the bus is a lot cheaper.

Another thing worth knowing if you have a late flight is that check-out is at 12pm. After that you can use the showers in the spa, or if rooms are available you can pay around €20 per hour to keep your room for longer. It’s definitely something I’d budget for if you’ve got a really late departure, especially with children.

Something else that made us uncomfortable was the hotel photographers taking photos of children around the resort without first asking the parents for permission. I understand resort photographers are common, but when it comes to children I personally think parents should be asked before photographs are taken.

One of the biggest things that affected our holiday was the difference in the way we felt British guests were treated compared with Turkish guests. We had a number of occasions at the bar where Turkish guests were served before us even when they had come up after us or pushed in. We also noticed that people who regularly tipped seemed to get a much better level of service.

We also had an issue that we took to Guest Services and we really didn’t feel listened to. Communication wasn’t great and we came away feeling like our concerns weren’t taken seriously.

There were also times when other guests made us feel uncomfortable with staring and looks, almost like we shouldn’t have been there. I know the hotel can’t control how every guest behaves, but it did add to the feeling that we weren’t always particularly welcome.

For somewhere sold as All Inclusive Plus, we did expect a little more overall, especially when it came to the food, drinks, entertainment and things to do in the evenings.

It’s a shame because the hotel itself does have a lot going for it. The room was great, we really appreciated the free upgrade, the pool was lovely and some of the staff were genuinely brilliant.

I just think there are a few things that need improving, especially the food being served hot, more consistency with the cocktails, more variety at the snack bars and evening entertainment, the safety issues around the pool and making sure all guests feel like they are being treated the same.

We did have some lovely moments here and there are definitely staff members who made our holiday better, especially Ayşe, Rabia and Ali Deniz, but overall I don’t think this is somewhere we would personally return to.