Gloria Serenity Resort

We are here for the third time now, and we wouldn't change a thing. This is amazimg

My wife and I returned to the Gloria Serenity for what must be our 10th stay. This, in itself, indicates how much we love our stays here. As soon as you enter the hotel you are welcomed by a member of staff who serves you champagne and chocolates from a display table in the reception area. Guests are welcome to return to the display at any stage in their holiday. The Serenity and it's sister hotel, the Gloria Golf, cover a large area adjacent to a river, which has a bridge across it that leads to an immaculate beach with two piers, one of which is payable. The Serenity has a long pool that practically circumvents the entire hotel. There is the opportunity for guests to eat in a wide range of places, which we did, including the fabulous buffet, which has such an amazing choice of food, an outside barbecue, beach cafes, Italian outdoor restaurant, 24 hr à la carte and several payable à la carte restaurants. Over the last few years there has been much investment in newer facilities including a new pool, a fabulous rooftop extension, the Charlie Parker Lounge, which includes the Charlie Parker Bar, restaurant, ice cream parlour , à la carte restaurants , a patisserie and a terrace overlooking the hotel grounds and river. Rooms in the hotel are luxurious having been recently renovated. A new promenade has been constructed this year that runs along the side of the river adjacent to the beach and has benches that allow you to sit by the river watching the fishing boats a pleasure boats sail by. However, what really makes a hotel is it's staff. Overall they are amazing. It was great to see Zafer still there in the main restaurant, with his attention to detail and Dicky, the Chinese Chef, who created a wide variety of tasty dishes. This year we met Yusuf, who served us in the outside BBQ area. He was so pleasant and helpful and is a credit to the Serenity. There were numerous other members of staff who went out of the way to make this such an enjoyable holiday, especially the housekeepers, who are so pleasant and who do such a wonderful job keeping our room and the hotel immaculate. Will we return? I am sure that there are many other fabulous hotels in Turkey, but for now we will be back again next year to the fabulous Serenity.

We stayed for my husband’s birthday last week and thoroughly enjoyed our stay at this hotel.

The hotel has a real luxurious vibe and as a guest you are spoiled for dining choices. I’ve never stayed at a hotel where there are so many options including a patisserie, chocolatier and ice cream parlour with different flavours on rotation each day. The à la carte dining included at Estella was also superb as were the buffet options including grilled items upon request and live cooking stations.

The beach, pool bar and outdoor areas within the resort were also great, very clean, well maintained, plenty of space for everyone. We also booked sun loungers on the premium pier a few times and really enjoyed these.

A few downsides to the stay as a couple personally adults only areas are limited and not really enforced. We went in September expecting it to be quieter given the new academic year but found there were still lots of small children around. This wasn’t a massive problem but it did become annoying when we were in adults only parts of the hotel and young children were allowed in. This was particularly disappointing in the spa area outside of the children’s access hours which are between 1-3pm.

Another downside to the resort is that the main buffet is extremely busy and there is no queuing system or crowd control, so going up to get food feels stressful and chaotic. I had issues with other guests pushing ahead at cooking stations, crowding around certain items, children picking up cakes and fruits then putting them back down again etc. To avoid this we ate at the à la carte Estella most of the time, but that meant we missed out on some of the special items put on at the buffet such as fresh oysters etc.

The premium pier also isn’t adults only although a lot less busy than other parts of the beach and pool for couples that want some time to relax. On the final day that we booked the pier, a group of children were running up and down to the water slide and screaming loudly most of the day. The parents couldn’t be bothered to ask them to stop. Children were also jumping in the jacuzzi when we tried to use it, which was really annoying. A group of older boys also kept ignoring the ladders and diving instead over the side of the deck in front of our loungers and splashing water onto us and the deck. This detracted from the premium vibe we’d paid €100 for.

The Gloria App is good for booking experiences like the pier and for ordering items to your lounger on the beach. We found it worked most days with the exception of our last day on the premium pier where it seemed to have glitched and waiters didn’t receive our call, then suddenly received 5 calls at once.

Smart controls in the room were not very smart, we had to keep resetting lights at the main switch by the door, automated curtains kept getting stuck etc. Just felt unnecessary and confusing.

Some positives,

Staff put on extra treats for my husband’s birthday including a beautiful cake and a bottle of sparkling wine in the room. It was a lovely touch.

Evening entertainment was amazing, the best we have ever had at a resort. We saw acrobats a few times and had an amazing party down at the G Venture arena on La Marionetta night, which was a Friday. DJ set was awesome and the dancers and acrobats were memorising.

Complaint for management about the taxi service outbound hotel management need to be aware of. The taxi that was booked for us by the hotel told us upon arrival that he accepted card, drove us wrecklessly to the airport, then refused card payment and demanded cash. The taxi ended up costing us more because he demanded whatever currency we had on us, which were some £20 notes. When we travelled to the resort initially we hailed a taxi at the airport, it cost much less despite the journey taking longer and the driver accepted card payment, drove smoothly and helped us with our luggage. Because we had a good experience with the same taxi company, we trusted the driver the hotel had booked for us on our journey back to Antalya airport but in hindsight wished we hadn’t as despite being from the same taxi company the driver seemed to be operating under his own rules and wanted to rip us off.

Also a tip for British guests, learn some Russian! Most of the guests at this hotel are Russian which we found quite surreal. We found that the staff will speak to you in Russian by default unless you reply in English… made a change from hearing German lol

Overall a glorious hotel with a luxurious vibe, we would love to come back but perhaps when it’s perhaps more quiet…