Altinkaya Holiday Village Review - 19 of 50 Reviews

OK, 1st things first. You will find many differing views on this hotel and the reason is that there is a varied range of acom types. I'm going to try and explain what you've got.

The resort is split across 2 sites, pretty much opposite sides of the main road to Bellapais. The 'main' site consists of single storey bunglaows (located on your left as you enter the grounds), these are pretty decent.

As you walk past these you will come to the Hotel reception. This block consists of 2 levels of hotel rooms, no lift!. These rooms were modernised I' guess a few years back and are a bit warn but on the whole not too bad. Basic but OK. They have 24hr hot water, TV (albeit not great reception but who goes on holiday to watch the telly), small fridge, aircon, room safe, hairdryer and balcony. Some over look the pool, some over look the mountains at the back. The hotel block is where you have breakfast etc.

The final block on this side of the road is where the fun begins.... These are on 2 levels, GF and 1F. The 1F have gallery style bedrooms. The problem is that about 6 of the rooms in this block have been very recently modernised and are very nice. They have double glazing, flat screen TV's, sofas etc, and some basic self catering equipment. The rooms that haven't been refurbshed are poor... really poor considering the price is the same as the refurb. Very dated, very tired, very dirty in places, poorly equipped and not really a place you'd choose to stay. We were given room 212 and promptly moved the following day... but more of that later!

This side of the road has a lovely freshwater pool, lots of sunbeds, brollies etc as well as some nice gardens. There is a bar as well as a TV lounge, and wifi internet access (bit weak but acceptable none the less).

Now to the site across the road. It is pretty much opposite the main site so not big deal for breakfast etc. This site have rooms in a horseshoe around a smaller, but nice, pool. The rooms are again gallery style and are pretty nice. There is a bar next to the rooms which also does snacks for lunch etc. This bar also has a large screen TV for UK (among other) football matches etc. The odd thing about this side of the road is that when you enter the building you have to go up one flight of stairs to reach the level of the acomodation and the pool.

OK, so that should explain the layout and differences in the room types and hopefully make it easier for potential holiday makers to prepare for what may be ahead of them.

We arrived from Larnaca towards late afternoon, checked in to room 212. Utter dump of a room.... dirty and inadequate. Spoke to reception (Melissa) and followng morning and we had a choice of rooms in either the main hotel, or the rooms across the road. Welooked at both and decided that the hotel room was fine for our needs.Melissa was very helpful and I think our request is common practice. It certainly seemed that 'newbies' were placed in the 'old' rooms until a better room became available. Its a shame really as I'm sure they could simply close the 'old' rooms off, get them refurbed quicker and then avoid all the hassle this siutation must cause every day. Once we changed room we had a couple of issues - leaky tap, toilet not flushing but these were fixed the same morning I reported them.

OK, some other things that may help you decide:

Bar - reasonable although staff not very proactive so you'll need to go ask for your drinks

Breakfast - pretty decent. Items always topped up when running low and if one other person moaned about the toaster not working properly I swear I would stick them in it.!!!

Wifi - as mentioned its OK, but only if you inside the reception area. The hotels PC which is free to use is very slllllllllooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!

Pool - really nice. Very clean. Large shallow end but not a seperate pool for the kids/non swimmers.

Entertainment - couple of nights a week there was live music but it finished about midnight so even if you have a room overlooking the front of the hotel its not going to cause to much of an issue.

Restaurant - never ate dinner so unable to comment. Lunch menu was quite expensive for what was served and to be fair it wasn't that great. Adequate but not great.

'Games area' - lol... they have a table tennis table just behind the pool area but only one bat with a handle....

Nearest Supermarket - out the entrance turn left. 400yards or so is the Starling supermarket for all your essentials.

Eateries and bars nearby - not very many in all honesty but a few within easy walking distance. best bet is to ask reception to call you a taxi and go a little further afield, or if its cool enough then a walk into Kyrenia would take about 30-40mins.

Restaurants of note - Our preference is for small, family run places serving Turkish/Cypriot dishes with changing menus... here are some of our faves... Ikimiz ( really nice, small place with only half dozen items on the menu but changes each day ), Kyrenia Tavern (again very small, lovely place.. including the free coffee and brandy we countered 17 dishes of food that were served to us!!!), Bella Moon (they will pick you up and drop you back to your hotel, up in the village of Bellapais about 5 miles up the hill, good food, lovely family run place again but static menu), Niazis (down near the harbour, very nice place but can get busy, again loads of dishes served and a very varied menu), Al Shaheen (walkable from the Altinkaya, pretty decent Indian restaurant, great service and food cooked to order and I've had far worse curries in the UK than there.... good for a spice kick). There are loads of others but the one that became our favourite was Ikimiz. Lovely place, great service, great homecooked food... but worth making a reservation as the few tables they have can quickly fill up.

So Altinkaya in summary. Its OK, but get the wrong room and you will need to ask for a move. They do most things to an OK standard and are really friendly, but you cant help but think that if they just sorted out the silly little things that can niggle you, even when you are relaxing, the reviews they get would be that much better.

Would I go back, dont know. Kyrenia yes, very nice place but Altinkaya not sure. If they sorted all the rooms out to a decent standard and just sorted out the few silly things that are so easily fixed then yes I would without question. We will see.

Liked — Kyrenia
Disliked — having to change rooms

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