Here you will find tips on how to search for a good package holiday and what is especially important for Turkey.
It’s about hotels, reviews and what’s different in 2019, …
Tips for Finding a Good Turkey Package Tour
Research in advance on the Internet
The first thing is to find a good offer and to get an impression of a hotel. Therefore the search in the Internet is not surprisingly the first station for the reservation of a good package tour. The evaluation of a hotel looks at itself meanwhile also each travel agency coworker.
The first thing is to find the right destination and then a good hotel for your needs.
HolidayCheck gives you a good overview of the available hotels in Turkey and their ratings. On HolidayCheck I also find the photos of guests from the hotels useful.
Here the wheat separates from the chaff! You get a first impression of the hotel and can adjust to what is to be expected. All ratings below 80% are a reason for me to take a close look. I only book such hotels if there is no other alternative.
But ratings are not everything either. What’s great for some might bother others. Think, for example, of a great family hotel with a large aquapark and many slides. The playing children are happy families, couples would like to have perhaps in the vacation their peace. In addition, the motivation to share a bad experience is higher than when everything was okay.
Therefore my call: If everything was good, then write a positive review!!! This takes five minutes and will definitely help others in your situation!
The right seaside resort? Antalya, Side, Alanya?
In brief:
- You will find the cheapest hotels between Side and Alanya.
- “Party strongholds” are Side, Alanya, Bodrum and Antalya.
- The most exclusive hotels are in Belek, Antalya-Lara, Bodrum and Cesme.
- Family hotels are located around Side and in Belek.
- The Golfhotels are located in Belek
- You will find sandy beaches with hotels in direct beach location along the 130km long coast between Antalya-Lara and Alanya-Konakli.
- Individualists travel to Cirali, Adrasan, Kas, Kalkan or Dalyan.
- The typical seaside resorts with many travellers from Germany are all located in the province of Antalya. These are:
- The district of Manavgat with Side, Kumköy, Evrenseki and Colakli.
- Then comes Alanya, Avsallar, Konakli and Okurcalar.
- Belek, Kemer, Beldibi, Tekirova and Antalya-Lara follow …
- In the same order you can expect the hotel staff and all other people working in tourism to speak German. This makes communication much easier for many travellers.
All hotel staff speak English anyway. But places in the Turkish Aegean are better known for this. Very “British” is for example Didim, Sarigerme and Kusadasi. In the places there are more pubs than bars, completely contrary to Side.
Three. I’m looking for a really good hotel? Do you have a recommendation?
The question often ends up in my inbox. Yes. I have some recommendations.
These include the “25 best 5* star hotels in Turkey – sorted by guest ratings”. There you will find the 25 best hotels, sorted according to the average ratings on all rating pages.
A general recommendation from me are the Güral and Trendy hotel chains. I find the Paloma hotels also good.
But personal recommendations are always subjective. There may be other things that mean something to me than to you. In Antalya, for example, I like to book the boutique hotels in the old town instead of the all-inclusive club complexes on Lara Beach.
You must know what you want so that I can recommend a hotel. That goes badly in such a contribution. You travel with your family? Children? As a couple? I recommend other hotels for this.
If you have any questions, please feel free to do so in the comment column below.
Help in the search for a suitable hotel by rating pages and social media profiles
You always see on Holidaycheck or TripAdvisor who reviewers were on the road with. This tells you more than “90% satisfaction”. For example: “Travel as a family” or “Travel as a couple”. This is a good indication of which guests you can expect at the hotel.
I also sort the ratings by date and language. The needs of the different nations differ. Germany, for example, is an absolute package holiday destination as far as Turkey is concerned. Turks book less all-inclusive trips in their own country.
I also like to look at the photos of hotels on Instagram. I search for the hashtags and the location of the hotels. The pictures are still more current, than on the evaluation sides.
Should I book at a travel agency or online?
For an identical package tour of a tour operator, the same price applies on all portals, in the travel agency or at the airport. This means exactly the same trip. With the same flight, same departure time, same return flight time, same hotel, same category, etc..
The price can nevertheless vary on different pages. This is due, for example, to booking fees from travel portals or processing fees charged by some travel agencies.
At a travel agency, you have to trust that it will actually find the best price for you. And the price in a travel agency is always a matter of negotiation. The first price is an offer that you can still negotiate. You have to be prepared for that for the bazaar in Turkey anyway.
Online the price comparison is easier. One look at HolidayCheck and Check24 is enough to see the offers of the tour operators including price and ratings.
Tour operators make no difference whether you have booked online or through a travel agency. In the event of a problem, your first point of contact is your local tour guide. You will receive his contact details on arrival in Turkey anyway.
Of course, a travel agency extends the possibility to talk to the tour operator as a guest if something doesn’t fit. This advice is clearly important for many guests. That depends in the end everything on your own preference.