Name: Side Lowe Hotel
Price range: from £220.54pp (7 nights includes flights and transfers)

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Only day 2 of our holiday but fantastic service from the staff so friendly and helpful, huge shout out to Gùrkan who helped us with an issue with our room on arrival and an all around pleasant experience, really appreciated. Staff like this can really help turn a stressful experience into a memorable one!.

Side Lowe Hotel - Gùrkan

Awful hotel & Beware, Invasion of privacy by hotel staff member.
Stood outside of Room 104 and recorded two women having a personal conversation (around 4am)

Firstly, I apologise for the length of this review but future guests need to be made aware just how bad this hotel is.
If you tried to make a hotel as bad as this you would seriously struggle to do as good a job as this hotel does to itself.
My review starts with my wife and I’s arrival which was at 1am early hours of Tuesday morning by private transfer.
We were warmly greeted by the night time receptionist Gurkan, who took our luggage off us and proceeded to reception (off to a great start or so we thought) however that was soon to change, we get to the front desk and handed over our British passports and it went downhill from there.
During check in and whilst asking questions such as where breakfast was and what time, we were told the hotel was full and asked to be quiet and could we keep our voices down.
Strange as we were not talking any louder than Gurkan was, but out of respect for others we talked very softly.
We were shown to our room 113 just behind the reception desk area (God help you if you get this room) where upon opening the door we were hit with what one would only describe as a blast furnace of hot air (turns out air con does not operate when there is no key card inserted and you only get one so therefore you cannot keep the room cool when unoccupied this applies to all rooms)
Once the room key was inserted in the slot Gurkan then picked up the remote control and asked us what temperature we would like and we both agreed as low as possible.
The air con fan was blowing so we unpacked quietly and hoped the room would cool down once we were in bed. It did not.
Turns out the settings had been set to recycle, (still convinced this was done deliberately and you will understand if you keep reading)
Woken at around 5.45am in puddles of sweat, by the local mosques call to prayer (through single glass patio windows) followed closely by the staff at hotel opposite putting the metal bins out just after call to prayer ended .and then having a full-blown conversation for well over 5 minutes.
This was repeated every day of our 2-week vacation along with the customary midnight arrival of the staff on motorcycles and quad bikes.
Absolutely shattered, roasting hot and only having around 4 hours sleep we opened the patio doors and crashed back on top of the bed and fell asleep where we were woken yet again at 7.30am with doors banging and people shouting to each other in different languages mainly eastern European possibly Russian.
As we were meeting our friends who had arrived a day earlier, we decided to get up, and sent a PM to our friends to meet in reception for 9am so we could go to breakfast together.
They came out of their room just as we came out of ours. As always, we embraced said how pleased we were to be meeting up again and so on, excitedly chatting away in the main foyer of the hotel, we were then again told to keep the noise down.
Respectfully without argument we retreated to the dining hall downstairs for breakfast. I use the word breakfast loosely. (I’ll go into this later along with just how bad the food was)
As it was one of our friends Birthday that day we decided to go to Sunset beach away from the hotel which is a favourite of the birthday girl, so we went out for the day until 4.30pm. we came back to the hotel and went down stairs and got ourselves some soft drinks from the bar and decided to have a few games of pool before we showered and got ready to go out for the evening.
Enjoying our game of pool and having a laugh and a joke at everyone’s poor abilities to pot balls, we were rudely interrupted by Gurkan and asked to keep the noise down, it was 5.30pm in the afternoon music was playing and people were outside drinking and chatting briskly.
We all agreed amongst ourselves he was out of order as it was so early in the day, but respectful we played on as quiet as possible.
We went out for that evening and my wife and I can back at 1.30am early hours of Wednesday morning  and tiptoed to our room like mice, our friends came back around 3.30am and I was told by them that they also crept in so as not to disturb others.
Wednesday evening we decided to stay in the hotel have a few drinks and play cards, so we made sure we were well away from others and kept to ourselves and made our own entertainment,
Meanwhile a group of 8 east European guests were playing drinking games, shouting loudly at the top of their voices at each other so much so we could barely hear ourselves talking to each other over the table which was situated at least 15 metres away from them.
At no point in the 2.5 hours and well past 11pm did anyone approach them and ask them to be quiet or calm down their antics.

Thursday evening we again decided to have a night in and this is where it went Ballistic.
We sat playing cards away from everyone yet again ( playing chase the ace and laughing) it was 10.30pm ( bar closes at 11pm) not one of the 4 of us had more than 3 drinks so we’re not intoxicated by any stretch of the imagination when Gurkan came from upstairs and told us to be quiet and keep the noise down.
Well as you can imagine we were all enraged, being told to be quiet yet again when behind us the music was blazing out people were drinking and chatting loudly and yet again he was picking us out.
Feeling vexed I turned around and told him that NO we will not be quiet we are on holiday to enjoy ourselves it was only 10.30pm the bar was open till 11pm others were making more noise than us and that he had singled our party out since the day we had arrived, one of the girls then told him to piss off as he was ruining our holiday ( maybe not the nicest thing to say but could have been a lot worse) whereupon he then flew into a rage at the lady screaming at her pointing and wagging his finger in her face, saying you English are not welcome, we do not need your money we do not need to sell you rooms we have more business with other companies all you English do is cause trouble.

Upon this tirade there was a very frank exchange of views and I luckily managed to separate my lady friend and Gurkan before it escalated further, I told him that I would be speaking to the manager in the morning whereupon he blatantly lied continually saying he was the manager which we all knew was not true, I then told him to leave our presence as he was aggravating the situation and I would meet him upstairs to discuss any issues he has.
After managing to calm my party of 3 women down, by now still only 10.40pm I  went upstairs to discuss what had happened.
I was told that Gurkan had no issues with either my wife or myself but with the other two ladies who he accused of being constantly noisy.
I then tackled him on that statement and said that since I had been with them since Tuesday they had not been loud nor had they disturbed any other guests outside normal times 8am to 11pm.
Well what he did next shocked me to the core.
He turned around to me and said I was wrong, and took out his phone and showed me a video he had recorded standing directly outside of the room 104 (clearly showing the door number) where the 2 ladies were staying and put the volume on his phone up full so I could hear a full private conversation the ladies were having in the privacy of their own hotel bedroom.
When I asked him when this was recorded he would not answer but judging by the content of the conversation it sound as if it was the evening they returned at 3.30am as one of the girls could be heard saying something akin to that’s your birthday over now.
(Knowing this was a clear violation of their right to privacy I was totally flustered as to what to do next, do I go downstairs and tell them he had recorded them directly outside their door, because I knew if I did, all hell would break loose, police, arguments, bad language, hotel changes. Armageddon of the worse kind would ensue and it would ruin their holiday )
I asked Gurkan why he had recorded them and was told, so he could prove to his manager how loud they were.
I asked why if as you say they were being so loud didn’t you knock on the door or ring them on the phone inside their room to which his reply was because I needed to show my boss.
At that point I decided ( wisely or unwisely I’ll let you decide) not to inform the 2 girls whose personal space and privacy had been violated as I knew it would ruin their holiday ( of which they still had 9 days to go) and cause them irrepressible distress and alarm and very little if anything could be done to change the circumstances.
The very next day I informed the girls that I would be speaking to the holiday rep and the manager of the hotel ( I still did not tell them why, and did not the entire remainder of their holiday as they assumed it was because he kept asking us to be quiet)
I packed the girls and my wife off to the beach and managed to secure a meeting with the holiday representative Ali, who I explained the situation too, he too didn’t seem to understand the gravity of what Gurkan had done until I explained to him like this.
How do I know that he has not stood outside of my door recording whilst I made love to my wife or that he has not recorded other guests on previous occasions whilst they engaged in sexual activity or had extremely personal conversations that had been secretly recorded without permission / consent or knowledge.
It was then the penny dropped that this was not going to go away and at that point the hotel manager was brought in.
Due to language barriers Ali explained everything in Turkish ( I recorded this conversation so it could not be denied it had taken Place)
A back and forth conversation then took place which was in essence discussing what steps should next be taken.
I was all for calling the police and having his phone checked for other recordings but was told it was highly probable that the police would not do so and would take his word it was a one off recording to show his manager.
I May add that Turkish men stick together no matter what.
( I want to interject here that at no point did the manager deny he had made the recording as I believe Gurkan had already shown  it to him on Thursday morning as proof, at no point did he call up Gurkan to ask him if he had made a recording and at no point did he say my staff would not do anything such as this)
I was repeatedly assured that this was a one off occurrence and that Gurkan would be kept out of our way and would bother us no more during our entire stay and that action would be taken at a later date by Human Resources.
I told the manager that if there was even a single repeat of any situation that upset my friends vacation that I would escalate the situation, by letting other guests know and contacting the police immediately.
I am still badly conflicted as to whether I did the right thing by holding it back and I hope that the girls realise that I had their best interests at heart.

This is not even the worse part of this review, and if you have the time please read on.

As I said earlier in My review, Breakfast (I use the term loosely) 
So, my first morning we go down for breakfast, I politely order an omelette with just tomatoes, so the woman cooking them (with a face like it hates you for asking it to do some work) places some tomato’s on the griddle and then proceeds to crack 2 eggs on a gridle alongside the tomatoes and then starts dropping pre made batter into a doughnut machine turning them over as she went, I’m left there wondering if there was some communication problem and I’m about to say I did order an omelette when she came back to the gridle , got her cooking utensil and started to mix up the eggs loosely with the tomatoes she then folded the four corners over and flipped the  now square pate of mush over for around 10 seconds and placed it on my plate and went to add cheese which I said no just tomatoes. I thought this is never cooked so grabbed a nearby knife and whilst stood in front of her cut into the lump of eggs and tomatoes, as soon as I did it run clear with uncooked eggs running out of it, I said I can’t eat this.
Well at this point you would have thought that I had just drawn a cartoon of the Prophet, she snatched the plate out of my hand and poured the contents back on the grill, taking my life in my hands I said No, I want a fresh one made I do want that reheated, again I think her name should have been Medusa because if she could have turned me to stone, she would have.
Finally after much huff and puffing and I suspect cursing under her breath my omelette was finally handed over with all the care of, well Nothing, basically thrown at me. After that I avoid her every day she was on.

Breakfast offerings were utterly diabolical, flies over meat and cheese this applied also to Lunch and evening meals, Stale bread with people using their hands to cut the loaves up, and if you love powered milk in your cappuccino, your in for a treat, because that’s all you can taste.
The food here is so bad the majority of people we spoke to (not just English but German, Polish and Scandinavians) ate outside.
They had a Turkish night where the food was supposed to be lovely (cannot comment as we went out) but was told that the food ran out at 7.30pm (should go on till 8.30pm) because they invited their sister hotel over to join in the festivities but did not allocate enough for all, some guests staying here coming down for dinner at 8pm were forced to go out as there was only salad and other bits of leftovers to eat.
Lids were constantly left open on hot foods so within 15 mins they were cold as the aircon runs directly over them, foods that run out were not replaced after 8pm even though there was more than 30 mins left.
Same foods repeated night after night, mostly meats cooked in pepper and onions, poor signage so you weren’t even sure what was in dishes, fruit that was rotten inside, deserts that were bland and unappealing.
It was almost impossible to find something decent to eat (I found tomato soup one night that was passable lucky me) 
I feel I can’t do this justice of just how bad this food and Hotel was, I could write for hours on how dirty and unclean things were and how this is a major case of salmonella waiting to happen.

So, I will end this with my positive and negative list of Hotel Side Lowe

Positives

Kettle in room
Fridge in room
Free pool table (albeit with only 1 cue with a tip)
On site Haman / sauna (reasonably priced)
12 o’clock check out (room extension for a price)
Adequate coat hangers in wardrobe, extra given upon request
Free shower gel and body wash
Free bus to hotels beach
Free meals at beach (food was better here than the hotel)
Free Wi-Fi at the beach (charged at 2 euros per day in the hotel)
Free basic drinks at beach (soft drinks, water, beers and wine).
Water readily available

Negatives

Staff that cannot be trusted
Poor sound proofing (outside noises can easily be heard including regular early morning call to prayers) 
Lock on bedroom door does not lock without forcing it
Bedroom Curtains not blocking out light
Poor insulation/ can hear next door occupant’s and external in hallways
Building designed so every passageway or space echoes and amplifies sound
Room cleanliness / floors not mopped only swept / showers not cleaned hair from previous occupants still in base of shower unit
Poor green credentials
Water wastage (asks you to save water by reusing towels but will not give you a plug for the sink so water constantly runs away)
Majority of staff (faces like they want to be elsewhere or doing anything but serving you)
Staff personal Hygiene (on Multiple occasions when staff were in close proximity or leant over to collect dishes , plates or empty glasses they reeked of Body odour) 
Food Hygiene (there is none, flies over food, poor handling by staff) 
Food offerings / lack of variations at breakfast, lunch and dinner, repeated bland and undercooked on several occasions.
Lack of entertainment (2 nights Turkish night and fish Night, both an absolute Joke Entertainment consisted of a BMX biker showing of his skills, my grandson could do better)
Hotel location (stuck in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by other nosier hotels)
Room size (large enough for a double bed and very little else don’t be fooled by hotel photos) 
Shower size (this was a joke the door only opened with a 30cm gap you had to enter sideways god help you if you are on the large size.) 
Bed comfort (Lumpy, like the mattress had seen better days)
Bed linen wrong size (sheet and duvet too small for bed)   
Paying for internet (2 euros per day, this is a joke in 2024 and just another hotel rip-off)
Paying for safe (as above another hotel rip-off to be charged for something that should be standard)
Paying for clean beach towels (1 euro per towel every time you wish to change your beach towel)
Small pool (not large enough to accommodate a full hotel)
Lack of sun-bed space and number of available beds (not sunbeds or enough space to put them to accommodate a full hotel)
Atmosphere (so depressing we heard nick names such as ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE or Waiting for God, invasion of the body snatchers) 
TV (No English channels, needed because the place was so Damn boring and lifeless)
Air con display lights up room
Incorrect signage being displayed saying one time when other times applied (told on 2 occasions signs for dinner showing 7 to 9pm when actually it closes at 8.30pm and starts at 6.30pm

Awful Hotel & Beware, Invasion of privacy by  staff member. Stood outside of Room 104 and recorded two women ,

Overall it was a good stay. However, if I stayed any longer I might've not liked it as much.

Booked 2 Double Or Twin Land View Balcony rooms. What I got was a land view balcony room and a pool side view balcony room. Didn't bother me that much so I took the pool side room while my parents took the land view one. The regret set in as soon as the sun showed up in the morning cause the room felt like hell. Even with the AC it was still quite hot. 

The other thing I noticed is that my room was quite modern with a "newer" TV and better AC. For some reason the land view room had older appliances. And to our surprise the AC was barely working. They did come and fix it asap but it did eventually go back to how it was when we came in. 

Food was good for my standards even if the chicken was undercooked. Avoided it for the rest of the stay. Plenty of other options to pick from. Other guests have mentioned it as well but the food labelling was a mess. The first day they were practically missing. Then someone must've mentioned it to them cause they suddenly appeared for the rest of the stay. The same cannot be said for the breakfast though. There were a bunch of mysterious syrups and sauces with no labels. The meats were also unlabelled. On a positive note, I have to mention the little breads with herbs and cheese filling. Those were bomb. Honestly I would go back just to eat them again.

I didn't expect there to be an entertainment night every other day but it did get boring. I think there was a dance night once. That was it. If you want a 'stay in the hotel' kind of holiday then you'll get bored.

Lastly, the beach toilets. Not gonna lie it rubbed me the wrong way. They lock up the women's toilet for the night. So if you come for a swim in the early morning (before 8AM) or just before sunset (6PM) you won't be able to get in to get changed or even take a piss. Honestly I think it's mad considering the fact that the men's toilet is never locked. One time they did notice that I wanted to get changed and instead of unlocking the women's toilet they told me I could use the men's one. Now that I think about it I should've just refused but girlie didn't want to wear that swimsuit no more. For my future early and late beach swims I just went back to the hotel drenched cause I couldn't be asked.

All I'm gonna say is if you got ££ I'm sure you can find a better deal. We got what we paid for I suppose

Positives:
Great variety of food
Relatively clean
Plenty of water bottles
Free beach transfer
Quiet
Great location - nearest shops and restaurants 5 min away, beach 25 min away if you feel like taking a stroll
Reception can call up a taxi if you need one
Free printing facilities
Holiday rep if you need help booking any activities

Negatives:
Food gets repetitive if staying more than a week + chicken seemed to be undercooked multiple times
Paid wifi
Towels reserving sun loungers despite it being against the rules
Cocktails were meh
The room floor wasn't swept or mopped - kinda annoying when you got sand and hair strands all over the floor
Lack of entertainment 
Women's beach toilet gets locked up for the night (!!) 
Staff washing the patio during breakfast and rinsing our feet in the process (?? surely there's a better time to do that)

Good

Genuinely the worst hotel i’ve ever stayed at and i’ve been to Turkey many times.

Firstly we arrived in the night due to our plane being delayed where we were greeted. However we were offered one bottle of water between 3 people to last us through the night in 30° and we had been travelling for hours and paid for all inclusive. 

When checking in and buying wifi we was told be keep silent as the hotel was full but we was only talking at the same level as the man at reception.

The room was way too small for 3 people and the beds are just squeezed in to make more money. The bathroom had a strange smell for the whole week maybe a sewage issue. Tv did not work and the fridge was warm.

The breakfast pancakes were the only edible thing for the whole trip meaning we had to eat out everyday, luckily macdonalds is not far. No fresh tasting fruit and no fruit juices for breakfast just watered down squash. We paid for all inclusive but were told we only could get one drink at a time even though one person was taking all the drinks back to the table. No ice cream or ice lollies and drinks are barely cold.

The entertainment was severely poor, loud repetitive music all day everyday to the point I thought I was going insane. The one Turkish night was even worse as they ran out of food for us meaning we had nothing to eat but chips. The pool is also warm like a bath. 

Not many staff speak English meaning it’s hard to communicate.

A huge lamppost fell down towards sunbathers which could have easily killed someone if it landed on them. They then propped the lamppost back up?????

We tried to make the best out of our holiday so played games in our room.
However we got caught talking in the hallway after 6pm and the Manager of the hotel told us we are going to be held captive in a punish house and exposed to severe punishment and torture. Being three young girls this really scared us and we didn’t leave the room until it was time to go to the airport.

AVOID AVOID AVOID

This hotel is not for people who want to have fun and enjoy themselves. Not allowed to talk in the hallways which is a ridiculous rule as I thought this was a holiday not a prison. Never the less we tried to enjoy ourselves by playing music from a mobile in our room at this point the manager who must have been walking by knocked and told us we was going to be sent a prison house where we would be punished and made to miss our flight which seemed very extreme. Especially as they have music playing through a speaker all day and this was only at 5pm. 

The food was also poor and very bland and nothing for kids to eat but chips and a few pancakes. Not enough entertainment and was no point paying for all inclusive when they have nothing to offer.

NOT FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

Located 1. 2 mi from the Mediterranean Sea at Side, this hotel features air-conditioned rooms and a swimming pool. There is a free beach shuttle and a hotel bar with a terrace. Including a satellite LCD TV and balcony, all rooms at Löwe Hotel come with light wooden furniture and tiled floors. The rooms have a private bathroom and a mini-bar. Breakfast is served daily on Löwe’s terrace with its yellow parasols. Side’s center is 0. 9 mi away and offers a wide variety of eateries for lunch and dinner. This boutique hotel offers a 24-hour reception and free Wi-Fi in public areas. Karaoke evenings are organized on a regular basis by the swimming pool.

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Side Lowe Hotel