I spent two weeks at the Kempinski Bodrum this past summer and although, overall, I’ve rather enjoyed my time there, I just can’t bring myself, try as I might, to give it full marks. There were simply too many things which weren’t quite right.
For instance, although the interior of the hotel is indubitably lavish, it is lavish in a soulless, upmarket City hotel way, which somehow detracts from the visible effort and expenses that have been incurred in the making of the property. An example of luxury that blends less obtrusively into its surrounding is the Four Seasons in Sharm El Sheikh, which, in my book, remains the gold standard for any seaside resort. Also, although the rooms are very well appointed, one can’t help but notice that perhaps some of the generosity that went into the realisation of the vast communal spaces could have more appropriately been diverted towards the guest rooms which, for a seaside hotel, feel a tad small. Here I should point out that the distinction between the Standard, Superior and Deluxe categories is effectively non-existent. We booked one of each and the first two are, for all practical purposes, identical, whereas the Deluxe is only insignificantly larger.
Admittedly, there was very little to complain about the pool, beach and sundeck areas, which, despite the hotel and residences being at close to full capacity, never felt anything near cramped. The only quibble I have, and this is something that I knew before stepping foot in the hotel, is that to reach the beach you have to take a Club Car. Now, the majority of the time, the service was spotlessly efficient and as soon as you expressed the intention to go to the beach or back to the hotel, you were whisked away; however, on a few occasions, we did have to wait for ten minutes or so and queues did begin to build up. Apart from this, the sea water is crystal clear and always clam, with the bay providing excellent shelter from the currents of the Mediterranean and, very importantly, there is not even a hint of cheap plastic sun-beds in sight.
Perhaps my biggest complaints relate to the food and the service. Let’s begin with the first. There are three restaurants in the hotel: a buffet restaurant in the main body, a Vietnamese, yes Vietnamese, restaurant further down the hill and a grill restaurant down at the beach. Now, the food at the buffet ranges from OK (at dinner time) to excellent (at breakfast). The same goes for the grill: it serves decent grub at lunch time and, rather surprisingly, since it’s meant to be a simple grill, less tantalising food for dinner. The Vietnamese restaurant, on the other hand, is a ridiculous acronym which shouldn’t have been there in the first place. At best, the dishes they passed as Vietnamese were mildly unpleasant; at their worst, they were close to inedible. It’s a shame because the location is stunning and, unlike the other restaurants, most waiters speak English (but more of this later). What they should have put here is either a traditional Turkish restaurant or a fine dining Mediterranean à la carte. Instead, you have “the first Vietnamese restaurant in Turkey”. Meh.
As far as pricing is concerned, there are some wild inconsistencies which management should address. To give you an example, a 75cl bottle of San Pellegrino costs close to €14, yes FOURTEEN euros. In all my travels, I’ve never come across anything as ridiculous as this. They don’t charge this much at La Voile Rouge in St. Tropez nor at one of those hideously overpriced hotels in Porto Cervo, yet they do so here, on a cliff half an hour away from Bodrum. I found this so offensive that I spoke to the Food&Beverage manager who told me that due to some outdated tax regime, they end up paying about €7 for a bottle. To be frank, this explanation seemed a bit unlikely, and, indeed, a couple of nights later we dined out at the restaurant of a boutique hotel in Turkbuku where the same 75cl San Pellegrino costs exactly half of what it costs at the Kempinski. Either that place is selling it at a loss or I’ve got ‘monkey’ written on my forehead.
Also, although the food is generally fairly priced (about €25-30 for mains at the grill) -- considering that this bit of Turkey is certainly not as cheap as I had imagined it -- what I found close to absurd is the price of fish. Lobster and king prawns went for about €140 per kg, whilst sea bass clocked in at around €80. There is something perversely ridiculous in paying the same for your fish in Scott’s in London as you do in a restaurant in Turkey two metres away from the sea, and even then, you’re probably likely to get better stuff in Scott’s. Apparently, this has something to do with some sort of fishing ban. Again, I prefer to think that I’ve got monkey written on my forehead. The dinner buffet, which as I said, is OK, costs around €50 per head, which, I suppose, is just about acceptable. Wines are expensive – not only in the hotel – with decent Turkish ones at €50-60 and decent foreign ones starting at maybe double that. A bottle of bogstandard Moet & Chandon costs €350. One can’t help but laugh at things like this.
As far as the service is concerned, staff were generally courteous, although not incredibly attentive in the case of some. The main problem though was communication. It seems that given that 80 per cent of the clientele consists of wealthy Turks – which is a good thing – knowledge of English by staff is sort of optional. Ordering a meal for six people could quickly become a rather daunting exercise. All restaurant managers and some waiters spoke it reasonably well, which made things a bit easier, but this isn’t quite sufficient for an international resort.
Also, we sent several items to the laundry (which, again, is quite expensive, e.g. €8 for a washed and badly ironed shirt) and one piece was returned severely ripped. There was no mention of the damage in the laundry tray or receipt. When we discovered it, we told reception, who did nothing. We then asked to speak with a manager of some sort, and we did. He took the shirt the day before we left for ‘observation’ and come dinner time still hadn’t done anything about it. We had to raise our voice slightly at reception the night before our departure so that we could a) get the shirt, which was now locked in the manager’s office, back and b) get some sort of compensation, which was finally offered in the form of a rebate of the entire laundry bill. This is all very well and good but it should have been offered right away without us having to raise the issue several times. Apparently, the manager’s lack of immediate action was due to the fact that he wasn’t told that we were leaving the day after we had spoken. Still, I was unimpressed by the way the matter was handled.
Finally, the hotel is quite remote. This cuts both ways. It’s a good thing because it has pretty much the whole bay to itself and, quite frankly, it’s best to keep a bit out of the way of Bodrum. However, it does present problems when wishing to dine out, especially since the culinary offerings of the hotel are, as discussed above, a bit bland. Bodrum itself is 30 min away, but you wouldn’t want to go there anyway as it’s pretty awful and the one restaurant we tried on recommendation of the concierge, Kocadon or some such -- apparently one of Bodrum’s finest --, was dire. The problem is that the hotel is not just far from Bodrum but also far from more agreeable places like Turkbuku (45 min/€40 one way by taxi), where all the ‘hip’ hotels and beach clubs seem to be located, such as Ada, EV, Maca Kizi and so on. We dined at Maca Kizi once and it is easily one of the best restaurants in the whole area – with a meal costing about the same as in the Kempinski (not including transportation costs). Another good place to dine out is Akvarium (excellent for seafood) – the only problem being that it’s even further away than Turkbuku and will therefore add about 2 hours and €100 to the duration and cost of your dinner. Apparently, the restaurant at EV is also quite good, but I cannot comment as I haven’t been.
All in all, the hotel would deserve four stars because, aside from what has been mentioned above, which quite a bit, it is really quite good and the rooms are very reasonably priced. But I’m still going to give it three. In any case, I do recommend it if you have small children and/or prefer the isolation of a large resort. Otherwise, especially for young couples, I strongly suggest you choose one of the boutique hotels in Turkbuku (Maca Kizi seemed very good, but there are others), which is, by far, the nicest bit in the Bodrum area.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC.
