Lara Barut Collection

This hotel really is amazing! Our first time to Turkey and it did not disappoint. The hotel is very clean and has a lot going on but never felt busy even when full (bar the 30 min peak time at the buffet in the evening and the main heated pool). Beach very course sand/pebbles but you get that a lot of destinations. The pools are freezing bar the one main one that’s heated (you still get that anywhere, at least one is heated)

The food and drinks were all amazing, both restaurant and à la carte!

The staff are super attentive and friendly mostly and you barely finish a drink before they are offering another. Our cleaner Yasmin was the sweetest person ever and really made my autistic daughter welcome ❤️. Esra also stood out as a very sweet attentive waitress, nothing was ever too much trouble and went above and beyond on service.

Guest relations were amazing, any questions about anything give them a what’s app and they replied straight away or issues with getting à la cartes they also sorted straight away!

Iv only just got home and racking my brains to think what they could do to improve and I genuinely can’t fault them. My only bug bare and that’s being petty is the cold water to wash hands in the toilets dotted around.

We’ve just spent a fantastic week at Lara Barut Collection with our four-year-old daughter and have thoroughly enjoyed every minute. It’s a hotel that gets so many things right, particularly when it comes to food, service and creating an enjoyable environment for families. There are a few minor things that we feel could be improved, but overall it’s genuinely difficult to find much fault with the experience.

Staff and service

Without question, the biggest highlight of this hotel is its staff. Across the resort, everyone has been incredibly friendly, attentive and willing to help. Nothing ever seems too much trouble, and the level of service has been consistently excellent.

A special mention has to go to Busa, who has been looking after guests around the pool on roller skates. She’s been absolutely brilliant throughout our stay and particularly lovely with our daughter. It’s people like her who really make a holiday memorable.

One feature we absolutely loved was the WhatsApp concierge service. Being able to send a quick message with a question or request and receive a helpful response is fantastic. It’s something more hotels should offer and genuinely makes the whole experience easier.

Food and restaurants

The food has been exceptional throughout, both in quality and variety. We ate at the Garden Barbecue, pizzeria, sushi restaurant, Tirmis and Sandal, with Sandal being our personal favourite. The service and food in all of them were excellent, and having such a good choice of restaurants included within the all-inclusive package is a huge selling point.

One unexpected highlight was the Hungry Gorilla Grab N Go restaurant near the pool. The cheeseburgers were so good that I ended up having one most days rather than bothering with a more formal lunch! It’s brilliant having such high-quality casual food available without needing to leave the pool area.

Although we ate à la carte almost every evening, we regularly walked through the main buffet restaurant and were genuinely impressed by the variety, presentation and live cooking stations. It looked fantastic, and I honestly don’t think you’d feel you were missing out if you chose to eat there every evening instead.

For breakfast, we particularly enjoyed Turunç restaurant overlooking the Lagoon pool, which became our preferred option. The main breakfast buffet is extensive, although perhaps a little unusual for British visitors expecting traditional bacon and pork sausages, which understandably aren’t available. There are plenty of alternatives, but it’s not quite the same if you’re used to a traditional English breakfast.

The only frustration with dining was booking the à la carte restaurants through the hotel app. Reservations open at 10am, and despite setting alarms and trying each morning, we only managed to secure one booking ourselves. Fortunately, the WhatsApp concierge team were fantastic and managed to arrange restaurant bookings for us every evening. Strangely, even when the app showed no availability, there were often plenty of empty tables when we arrived at the restaurants. There may be operational reasons for this, but it does feel like an area where the system could be improved.

Pools, gardens and facilities

The resort grounds are absolutely beautiful and, for us, one of the hotel’s strongest features. The extensive landscaped gardens are immaculately maintained, with restaurants, bars and other facilities dotted throughout. We loved that going out for dinner in the evening involved walking through these lovely gardens, almost giving the feeling of leaving the hotel and going somewhere different, even though we never actually left the resort.

The pools themselves are excellent, although during our October stay we found that only one outdoor pool was heated. The others were simply too cold to enjoy comfortably, particularly with a young child. As a result, the heated pool was understandably very popular and could become quite crowded. Heating an additional pool would make a big difference, particularly outside the peak summer months.

Poolside service is brilliant. There are QR codes on tables around the resort allowing you to order food and drinks directly from your phone, which are then brought to you. The roller-skating waitresses delivering drinks to sunbeds are another lovely touch.

The pool areas are also kept exceptionally clean, with staff constantly collecting rubbish, emptying bins and keeping everything tidy.

We also loved the unlimited pool towels, with no cards or restrictions on how many you can take or exchange. The downside is that some guests simply leave their towels behind when they finish using a sunbed, making it difficult to know whether beds are actually occupied. A little more proactive clearing of abandoned towels would help.

The beach bar is another fantastic spot, whether you’re relaxing during the day or enjoying a drink in the evening. The selection and quality of drinks throughout the hotel are excellent, with an impressive range of premium branded spirits, particularly gins and whiskies, included in the package.

Rooms

We stayed in room 2233, a standard Garden View room overlooking the Bayou Villas.

The room was spotlessly clean, well maintained and had everything we needed in terms of amenities. However, we did find it quite small for two adults and a four-year-old. Once our luggage and belongings were in the room, there was very little space left, to the point that we ended up keeping our suitcases and some other items on the balcony to free up space.

The balcony itself was also quite restrictive. With our daughter occasionally having a nap or settling down in the evening, we would sit outside, but there was barely enough room to stretch our legs without touching the railings.

This would probably be our biggest consideration when returning. We would definitely look at booking a larger room next time, as the standard rooms feel a little cramped for a family of three.

Some of the hotel buildings are also beginning to show their age aesthetically, although everything is kept exceptionally clean and this didn’t really detract from our enjoyment.

Children’s facilities and entertainment

The children’s facilities have been fantastic. Our daughter absolutely loved the kids’ club and regularly asked to go back. The activities are varied, well organised and clearly put together with a lot of thought. The staff are excellent, and we always felt completely comfortable leaving her in their care.

There are also children’s playgrounds dotted around the resort, which is a really clever feature. You can often sit and enjoy a drink or a meal while your children have somewhere nearby to play.

The animation team deserve recognition too, with plenty of activities and entertainment throughout the day.

Evening entertainment was probably a little more hit and miss for us. We watched the Wonderland show in the amphitheatre, which was fantastic, but found several of the other performances rather basic and not particularly engaging.

There is also regular evening entertainment around the Meltem Bar, which can be quite loud. It clearly appeals to plenty of guests, but wasn’t particularly our thing. The beauty of the resort, however, is that there are so many other lovely places to sit and relax that this was never really an issue.

Location and overall experience

The hotel is also conveniently located for Antalya Airport, with a transfer of only around 20 minutes. We travelled with Jet2 and, unlike on some of our previous holidays, didn’t feel the need to arrange a private transfer. We were the first drop-off, which made arriving particularly easy.

Overall, we’ve had a genuinely wonderful holiday. Lara Barut Collection offers an excellent balance of fantastic restaurants, beautiful surroundings, brilliant facilities for children and, above all, exceptional service.

The points I’ve mentioned are really only minor niggles and areas where an already excellent hotel could be made even better. None of them would put us off returning.

Would we come back? Absolutely, without hesitation. We can completely understand why so many guests return year after year. It’s a fantastic resort that caters for a wide range of guests without feeling like everything revolves around one particular type of holiday.

A huge thank you to all the staff for making our stay so enjoyable, and particularly to Busa for helping make it so special for our little girl.

We would highly recommend Lara Barut Collection to anyone considering a quality all-inclusive family holiday, and would happily return ourselves.

Excellent location only 20 minutes from Antalya airport. Lush green resort with beach and many different pools. We loved our penthouse suite with Turkish bath and jacuzzi and large balcony. Excellent animation team that are friendly and offer many different activities during the day like darts, archery, rifle shooting, boccia etc . Thanks to Melissa and Furkan. Variety of à la carte restaurants with vegetarian & vegan menus . Exceptional guest relations team, especially Saida. Friendly and accommodating staff in the restaurant. Our favourite was Turunc for breakfast and lunch, special thanks to Sahil, Onkan and Rabia. We also enjoyed the many à la carte dinners our special was Kayu where manager Harun looked after us for our special vegetarian menu. Housekeeping was excellent with rooms kept clean and snacks and drinks in the mini bar replenished everyday.