Not the best start to a holiday when you arrive at 1am to be told that your room will not be ready until 8am and that you can sit in the foyer while waiting. As you can imagine we were not happy and told the hotel staff, eventually they agreed to accommodate us in a sister hotel 10 mins drive away and they would bring us back in the morning but we would not be allowed to have breakfast there as it was a 7 star hotel. Mardan Palace was beautiful and it almost made up for the bad arrival at Topkapi Palace and they gave us breakfast without any fuss whatsoever. We had to wait until 11am to be collected. On rearrival at Topkapi Palace we were not able to have a balcony room or a sea view as we had asked for in our booking but we were in the end happy with our room as it opened out onto the quiet pool. The room decor was very tired and we had to ask for pillows as there were none and also a chap had to come and fix the sink. Food was very good, beach front was lovely. We went on a couple of excursions that were great and the turkish baths at the hotel was extremely pleasant if a bit expensive. We booked with Thomas Cook and the mini bus did not turn up to take us to the airport to return so we had to grab a lift with another company to get to the airport on time. We had confirmed all travel arrangements. Thomas cook rep has been very hard to get hold of on our arrival, it wasn't until day 3 that she was at our hotel. She was looking after 4 hotels at the same time. We were by no means the only people to have problems on arrival with rooms. I have to say that the staff and the food and drink were very good and we did enjoy our holiday, could just have done without all the hassle. We complained to Thomas Cook on return and they gave us a voucher for £200 which I thought was very miserly of them as you can get that much discount off a holiday just by booking online.
