Visited this hotel over 16 months ago but had a great time. no many British people there but thats fine with me as there was not moaning they.

Hotel always clean stall helpful. food ok. location about 3km from centre.

I just came back from a week in Kusadasi. I had booked the Pigale Panorama which is in the center of Kusadasi but on the but taking us to our hotel our rep told us that the hotel was closed and that we had been upgraded to a different hotel (from 4* in the center of town to 3* outside the city). As we were outside town and buses are only running until 10.30 we ended up spending a fortune on taxis to get to Kusadasi (as there was no activities in the hotel)

What isn't visible from the pictures you will find on the internet is the fact that the hotel is situated near a petrol station and a motorway which is so busy it kept us awake all night.

The staff was all but helpful, never taking our suitcases to our rooms (there is no lift but a lot of stairs). Most of the staff doesn’t speak English at all and we did not get any information on what could be done in and around Kusadasi so we missed most of the attractions we were interested in (Turkish dancing / market etc)

This is the worse hotel I have been too.

Hotel / Holiday review

Not really sure where to start – I guess a bit about us, We are a young, easy going, not picky, couple. Unlike many people we don’t spend £300 on 2 weeks all inclusive and expect it to be 5 star quality.

Last year we stayed in the Marbel Hotel in Kusadasi – you can read our review of that on here.

This year it was Pigale Beach Resort.
The hotel (well complex / hotel) is situated on Pigale Beach (well 2 min walk away), the hotel campus Is really green, the contrast between the terracotta of the hotel buildings is gorgeous.

FIRST THING: If you have any kind of disability, walking problem, small children or any difficulty with steps or hills – this hotel is not for you. It is built on a hill – there is no main hotel to speak of rather a collection of small chalets all of which have steps up to them.

SEWAGE: The place constantly stinks of sewage, they have some serious problems with this – it is worse at some times than others but its still pretty gross. Especially in the heat.

BEDS: Very Hard - Very uncomfortable, I like a hard bed but I didnt have one good nights sleep - also the sound from the Animation (Often continuing until around midnight) travels very far - we were as far away from the pool as we could get and it kept us awake at times!

MUSIC: Not as bad as some places but still irritating at times - constantly on around the pool!
The hotel is clearly based around its superior pool area, it boasts one of the biggest pools ive seen out of the hotels in Kusadasi, it is half Olympic size and has a slide.
It was great fun, see how many people you can fit down it at once, try and go down on your head etc etc etc – it doesn’t operate all of the time – it is on for about 4 hours of the day.

Plenty of sunbeds, don’t think we ever had a problem getting one – Germans still happily put their towels out at 6am – this didn’t matter as there were plenty to go around. Have seperate sunbathing areas aswell


Now there are 2 reasons you come on an all inclusive holiday:

Food & Drink.

I am not picky in the slightest – ill eat anything, I read on so many reviews that the hotel “only caters for Germans”, ive always ridiculed this thinking that people were just too narrow minded to enjoy Turkish food.

HOWEVER – I have to say that this hotel catered mainly for Germans. The food was bland and boring, it was generic rubbish that had no taste. Its a shame! Plus the portions they serve you are stupidly small - and although you can go up for more you will be grunted at and generally looked down upon by the miserable chef for doing so and given even smaller portions next time. There was little to no Turkish food served at the hotel - whats the point in going to a country to sample the food if they serve generic rubbish? Kids would have some serious problems with the food there!

Breakfast – If you like Eggs your fine – but even after 2 weeks fried eggs gets a bit boring, there are boiled eggs (3 and 5 mins (or uncooked and hard boiled)), plenty of Ham and salami kinda stuff and lots of nice crusty bread and salad bits

Lunch – Some kind of rice / pasta / rice looking pasta, Chicken in a orange tasteless sauce, beef in a brown tasteless sauce, occasionally some kind of lamb / aubergine dish (not too bad) and sometime spaghetti with a tomato (just tomato) sauce.
Plenty of salad and Olives and then the normal Turkish Sweet puddings and of course crusty bread and soup (again tasteless).

Tea / Dinner – As above pretty much – whatever was left over from lunch is (not so) cunningly rearranged into something with new and different coloured tasteless sauces with a few extra veg chucked in.
Occasionally they will serve kofte or chicken kebap meat – so make the most of it!
Again all the usual salad / veg!

I did notice that the sauerkraut (yep – see!) never seemed to disappear – but it did seem to reappear mixed with other veg throughout the week – I stopped eating it after the second day for fear of death.

I developed a bad stomach on the third day, I would recommend that if you are prone to a bad stomach hit the Chemist (Eczane) and get some tablets – they all speak English. I can eat anything in England, without getting ill, im not going to blame the Hotel Specifically cos it could have been anything.

The snack bar is okay, they do Beef/Ham/Red Meat type burgers with some good salad for it.
They do cheese sandwiches, pizza and chips, don’t ask for a Cheese burger cos the miserable arse of a chef will tell you to do one – ask for a cheese sandwich and a burger and silently stick 2 fingers up at him when he clocks what your up to and cant do anything about it.

As part of the all inclusive – once a week you can book a meal in Meze bar next door – we had the fish and the Mexican – both of which were very nice – the Mexican was a steak covered in a nice sauce and the fish was … well … fish (Turkish fish I was told).

THE WORST THINGS ABOUT THIS HOTEL:

The drinks are watered down – i'm not talking slightly watered down its at least 50/50.
The beer is VERY gassy – I like my beer but I could manage about 3 pints before it bloated me so much I wanted to die.
Whisky, Vodka, Gin, Brandy – all 50/50 spirit / water – the managers / bar mans excuse – “Its not good quality” – I don’t care whether its strips the skin of the back of my throat – I still wanna be able to get drunk (believe me – it is impossible to get drunk on the drinks at the bar!)

Now this isn’t opinion – we made friends with one of the barmen, I asked him to bring an unopened bottle from the back (you will notice that all of them on the counter(even full ones) have been opened, he did it – poured a drink from each and let me taste – very obvious which one wasn’t watered down – needless to say he served us “the good stuff” for the rest of the holiday (God Bless you Mare(sp?))

The only thing that wasn’t watered down (of course) was the Raki – however I was assured that the stuff was of utterly crap quality. Try Raki Sprite, its palatable and will get you on your way to being drunk.

The wines are like paint stripper, however after your mouth goes numb its fine and also gets you drunk 

OTHER STUFF:

The Animation at the hotel is fantastic – as rubbish as it might be (quality wise) there was still something happening each and every day / night, volleyball, water polo, basketball, karaoke, darts, bingo, Turkish nights, acoustic music, various other comedy stuff.
Ozzie and the other guys did a really good job at it – and although it was awful it fulfilled its purpose and the kids loved it.

The Slide is pretty good – no rules on it – the adults had more fun than the kids – it was good to see the grannies have a good go aswell 

Dolmus stops right outside – 1 dolmus to the centrum – 2 to ladies beach.

Pigale beach is definetly one of the nicer beaches in kusadasi – offers a lot of water sports and the snorkelling is really good around kustur Tropicana aswell.

Free Ice cream 3-4pm and 10-11pm

Don’t get a henna tattoo from the guys – they are crap!

THINGS YOU HAVE TO DO:

1)Hassle the manager (lanky guy) about the watered down drinks – he will feign innocence but at the end of the day its your money he is abusing.
2)Play Bingo – great fun!
3)See the Turkish night at the hotel
4)Book into Meze bar
5)Just visit Meze bar – really nice guys
6)Get a lilo and launch yourself down the slide
7)Get as many of your mates together and launch yourselves down the slide
8)Get some cheesy photos done by the photographer
9)Pick fresh pomegranates from the tree behind the photographer and eat them
10)Play scrabble!
11)Play volleyball – great way to meet people and a really good laugh
12)Go to the beach
13)Hire out a sea canoe!
14)Buy a bottle of spirits from the shop next door so you can get drunk!


I would highly recommend not coming to Pigale Beach, for the price of it there are plenty of other good hotels out there for better money.

We had a good time - but we ate and drank out a lot and subsequently spent a lot more time!

More pictures can be found: www.double-drop.com/sites/photos/turkey

Hope this helps!