Riolavitas Resort and Spa

This holiday was ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE! I have loads of videos and photos but I can't post videos here. I came here with my mum for 7 days and it has been horrible! So the first day we arrived we noticed in our swim-up room the board was broken at the back and it was very dangerous, it never got fixed! Then we went down to the main pool whilst we was sitting their some guy was walking in front of us then the board he was walking on snapped on him he was lucky to not get injured, they covered the broken board up with a flower pot! 😡 no safety tape or anything a flower pot, and it took them an hour to fix it, it does not take an hour to get someone down and replace a board!!! On our 2nd day staying here we noticed quite a lot of people in the swim up room pools and we thought that wasn't right so we looked down the pool and someone REMOVED the little barrier stopping everyone swimming up so we went and told reception straight away they told me they will get someone down straight away to fix it, we waited 20 MINUTES and nobody arrived so I went down and fixed the barrier myself but I'm not being funny we payed an extra thousand for these swim up rooms and everyone got access to it and there's not even any signs saying for people to not go swimming past so if the little barrier does disappear nobody knows they can't swim down and they should have a sign saying they can't it's stupid! On our 4th day of staying here our bathroom sink started leaking and came into the bedroom making the floor wet it was lucky we had nothing on the floor otherwise I'd of been furious!!!! Additionally later that night when they fixed the leak the power in the bathroom completely cut out! We had no lights in the toilet at all!!!! The little metal strip separating the bedroom and bathroom has come loose and we've tripped over it multiple times! One of our lights are hanging off of the ceiling, there was mold/stains on the bathroom floor that had not been removed at all, the pipe isn't even put through the roof correctly it's just a hole cut in the roof (very badly) and a pipe shoved up there! All the fake grass on the bars outside the swim up rooms separating the balcony's are hanging off or just removed they hadn't been replaced! There's some white stain all over the bathroom walls! And the drain for the shower is absolutely DISGUSTING! You can tell they haven't cleaned it ever! Additionally the bathroom door doesn't even shut properly you have to SLAM the door just for it to shut correctly otherwise it opens on its own! thankfully they offered us to change room but that is not an exception for what we've experienced here we will NOT be staying here EVER again! Besides all that, the place, staff and entertainment have all been great but if you have children who are very picky eaters DO NOT COME HERE! Their food choices aren't the greatest I ate spaghetti and bolognese everyday for dinner as there was nothing else I liked, it was all Turkish food fair enough it is a hotel in turkey but they should have more options for people who are international and don't like Turkish food. Additionally with the excursion people they tell you everything about what you can do on the holiday and you pay for it there HOWEVER what they don't tell you is there's also things NOT included. We picked the mixed safari and it was 54gbp each, the mixed safari includes going to the zoo, petting lions, boat trip swimming, in the river, jeep water fights up the mountains but it doesn't include the fee to enter the zoo, pet the lions, the water guns for the water fight and when you go on the boat trip be aware you must pay for your own drinks as it's not included either, when we got picked up for the mixed safari the jeep broke down on the bypass with cars passing at incredible speeds and it was so dangerous! Also if you have little kids the water fight is not ideal as it can be quite aggressive and it goes on for hours, I advise you don't take your phones out at all because when they stop your water fight other jeeps passing by can still soak you and it almost damaged our phones as we was taking photos of the mountains! The only reason it's a 2/5 is because of the entertainment and the bar staff

We chose this hotel as it stated 70 minutes transfer but this is incorrect as it took us over 2 hours both ways with numerous drops at other hotels.

We (my husband, 14 year old son and myself) have just returned from one week here. The hotel is clean and modern with our room being spacious and well equipped. Staff added another single bed which meant my 6ft son didn’t have to sleep on a small sofa bed.

The pool is nice with lots of beds (which are occupied all day so get in early), we sat on a table within the pool snack bar area which was nice, this offered the best food (chips, breaded chicken, pizza, burgers) which was replenished regularly. There is a strong smell of manure around the pool which we got used to after a few days.

During our stay we only spoke to one other English speaking family, the hotel caters for German speaking travellers with nearly all staff members speaking German or Turkish and only one member of staff spoke English but very little.

Downsides • Everywhere within the hotel and local area price items in Euros and charged extra for using Turkish lira. • Our room wasn’t cleaned properly, same sheets on all week and got dirty due to the unclean floor in the room. I constantly asked for coffee, coffee mate, toilet rolls and enough towels for everyone. • ⁠Most staff don’t speak English which proves difficult when you have questions or need assistance.

The evening entertainment was pretty rubbish and is held on the hotels private beach about 10mins walk away. There is a bar and plenty of seats.

The hotel has a good selection of internal shops but do remember to bring euros as they prefer and offer better prices compared to Turkish lira.

Staff are all friendly despite not speaking English, the cleaning staff are pushy and try to open the room door even when the sleep sign is displayed.

There is a good selection of food options with plenty of places to eat throughout the hotel.

There is nothing to do nearby, we hired a car and drove approx 1hr away to Lara Beach which was more lively, there were lots of shops selling fake designer clothing, shoes and trainers.

If you want a quiet and relaxing holiday this is the place.

I have been asked by the hotel to redo a review for the first one my son (Jayden w) wrote while we was there, they did acknowledge our complaints finally after the review & did amend some of the issues there and then, so I am grateful for Olga the manager for doing this. The things we stated and showed in previous review with some pictures that we put up should have not been like this from the start, which they acknowledged that, so it did spoil our holiday and we didn’t want to keep on complaining but it did get to a point where we’d had enough. When Olga saw the post they was very quick to sort out most of the issue we reported and she offered us meals in the la carter restaurant for the remaining 3 days and catered to our needs, even tho first one didn’t go to plan but after we spoke about it and was put right. They also offered me a massage in the spa, but I had been bitten so badly all over my body I didn’t really want to do that. I would say if you go just check the rooms fully and if you’re not happy report it to the management team to get this fixed straight away they are happy to help not the reception team as they are quicker to get stuff sorted. Hopefully with the changes they said they was going to do and also the amendments they did do next season will be a lot better, as the bar and entertainment staff was lovely and beach area is very nice, lovely sandy beach, it just needs the few tweaks that we had spoken about to bring it up to that 5 star standards. I happy that they did try their best to help sort this out for us, but it still shouldn’t of happened in the first place, it did put a downer on the holiday for us but we made the most of it.