The pick up at airports is always a fraught time for both visitors and travel representatives. In a way by Dalaman keeping ALL company travel reps from the arrivals hall there tends to be less of a scrum, with people being able to pan out once outside the building. This made finding the Simpson Travel rep easy and within a few minutes of leaving the terminal building we were en route for the accommodation.
A welcome basket was well received, not least as it contained a bottle of wine which made recovering from the hassle that is air travel nowadays much easier. The basket also included a few basics so there was no desperate need to either change money or go shopping until the next day.
This is a relatively small complex with the apartments with one bedroom at either end of each of the two blocks, making 8 in total, and then there are 6 apartments which have 3 bedrooms, all of bedrooms having their own en-suite toilet and shower. The first floor single bedrooms tend to feel slightly claustrophobic as the sloping roof cuts into the living space with signs warning you to mind your head.
Although the complex itself didn’t have any restaurant facilities (and due to the lateness of the season the bar in the complex had also been closed) the ownership connection that exists between the River Suites and the Aydos Club Hotel meant that there was no problem in using their facilities and a first night BBQ meal was open to those from the apartments (50TL, approx £15). If you didn’t want to use the self catering facilities a breakfast could be ordered – the kitchen is in the Aydos Club Hotel, two doors down – which could be delivered to the apartment between 08.00 and 10.00, cost 20TL.
The town itself is a walk of about 15 minutes from the apartments and although on this walk you pass a number of restaurants there was no opportunity to change money or do a supermarket shop until actually in the town. I’m not really used to this type of holiday but I’m sure that regulars know what to expect and arrive with a section of their luggage holding what they themselves deemed necessary for their requirements.
We were there at the second to last week of the season and it was quiet. We had been allocated one of the upper floor single bedroom apartments but when Jenny Cockrell – the Simpson’s representative (the company either owns the property or has sole booking rights) – realised that there were empty apartments we were ungraded to one of with 3 bedrooms and then we had space in spades.
The apartments were scrupulously clean and the showers were invigorating, to say the least.
I don’t know why the decision of one and three bedroom apartments only, with nothing in between, was made during the planning process but I assume that during the season it pays off to have groups of six in half of the complex.
The accommodation blocks are on two sides of the pool, which I didn’t try, I don’t really swim and it wasn’t hot enough (although more than pleasant during the daytime in late October to be able to walk around in t-shirt and shorts) to want to escape the fierceness of the Mediterranean summer sun. However, other guests found it comfortable enough and adequate for fun and games – there was a young family there for the week – as well as daily exercise for some of the older guests.
Although there were children there during our stay I wouldn’t have thought Dalyan is the ideal place for children, I’m sure the average age of the visitors to the town, even in the high season, would be well in excess of 50.
Each apartment has a outside balcony or patio and that must be really pleasant in the summer for breakfast or just drinks in the evening.
Do I have any criticisms? Yes, but not serious ones.
If I was designing the complex I would have had the front of the longest block facing south so that the sun would warm you in the morning and the sunset could be admired in the evening. The decision to build as they did might have been because then the sun would be streaming into the front of the building in the really hot summer months but the result is that front of the majority of the apartments are perpetually in the shade.
The only little niggles I have are: the phones in the apartments weren’t working, which could have made matters a little difficult on the first day when any first timer is getting to know the place. I accept that most people now have mobile phones – but not all; the other was that the internet, of an acceptable standard when it was on, was switched off from about 01.00 until about 09.00. Didn’t quite understand why.
Boat trips were organised by the two self catering/hotel complexes and we did two of them. An early morning, have your breakfast on a boat on a quite lake, one hour trip and an all day sailing in the sheltered bay of Gocek, both of which I would recommend. The archaeological site of Kaunos is readily accessible either independently or on organised trips.
This is not my normal type of holiday or my normal type of resort but you can’t beat walking around in warm weather, wherever it might be, when temperatures at home are racing towards winter.
