Where do I even start with this place, at over 1,200 dollars a night I genuinely cannot understand how they justify what they deliver, because it is nowhere near worth that kind of money.
I need to say this upfront as a European traveller who has stayed at all-inclusive resorts across Turkey, the Canary Islands, mainland Spain, the south of France and Italy, so I know what real hospitality looks like and I know what good value feels like. This resort would not survive a single season if it had to compete in the Mediterranean market, and the only reason it exists in its current form is because it sits next door to the enormous American tourist population, where people have fewer nearby all-inclusive alternatives and seem to accept this level of service as normal. For us Europeans it is absolutely not normal, especially not at these prices, and I want other European travellers to know what they are getting into before they waste their money here.
The property itself is absurdly large, with over 3,000 rooms and a capacity of something like 10,000 guests, and it does not feel like a resort at all but rather like an airport or a small city that happens to have pools. They operate shuttle routes with colour-coded lines and transfer points like a metro system, and our room was so far from the main building that getting anywhere felt like an expedition rather than a stroll, meaning you end up spending a shocking amount of your actual holiday just in transit within the resort itself, which is the last thing you want when you are supposed to be relaxing.
The worst part by far though is the way they divide guests into tiers based on how much money you have spent, because certain pools, loungers and areas are completely off-limits unless you hold the right level of membership, and it makes you feel like a piece of meat being shuffled around with a dollar sign on your forehead, which is genuinely dehumanising when all you want to do is find a nice spot by the water. And then there are the sales teams, who are relentless beyond anything I have ever experienced at any hotel anywhere in the world, disguising timeshare pitches as complimentary perks and VIP invitations and ambushing you everywhere from check-in to the pool to the lobby. What was supposed to be a quick ninety-minute presentation turned into nearly three hours of aggressive high-pressure selling where they pushed memberships ranging from 7,000 dollars all the way up to 300,000, and they did not care in the slightest that we were on holiday with little kids trying to relax, which completely poisoned the atmosphere for the rest of our stay because you could never fully let your guard down without worrying that another salesperson was about to corner you.
The tipping culture here is unlike anything I have encountered, with staff expecting tips upfront for the most basic interactions before any service has even been provided, making every single encounter feel purely transactional rather than hospitable. For Europeans who are used to service being included in the price and provided with genuine warmth because that is simply how things work at a properly run resort, this constant hand-out expectation is jarring and honestly quite uncomfortable, especially when you are already paying over a thousand dollars a night and feel like you should not have to bribe someone just to get a drink brought to your sun lounger.
The food deserves its own chapter because for a resort that markets itself as offering gourmet dining, it is staggeringly mediocre across the board. The buffets are the biggest disappointment, being chaotic, repetitive and clearly designed around feeding as many people as possible rather than providing any kind of quality, with the breakfast buffets across the three resort sections being essentially identical every single morning, always the same pastries, the same omelette station, the same lukewarm dishes recycled day after day until you are bored of it all by day two.
The Grand dinner buffet is marginally better but still nothing you would ever write home about or consider acceptable at a resort in this price range. Most of the food we had throughout the week was either too salty or completely bland, and the drinks were far too sweet as if they were trying to mask cheap ingredients behind sugar. The sit-down restaurants are not much better, with slow and unresponsive service and dishes that taste like they came from a canteen rather than a place that is supposed to justify these nightly rates.
The room service situation is basically a joke despite being advertised as available around the clock, because we went three full days without having our shower gel or drinking water replenished, and the fridge was never restocked while soap ran out and basic amenities were simply forgotten about, as if the housekeeping team is so completely overwhelmed by the sheer size of the property and the number of guests that they have just given up trying to keep on top of things, and nobody in management seems to care enough to fix any of it.
The pools were visibly dirty during our stay and the beach is honestly one of the most disappointing things I have ever seen at a resort of this supposed calibre, with murky water choked with seaweed and algae and a smell that at times drifted all the way over to the pool areas, which is probably why the resort does not even bother providing proper beach service since they clearly know themselves that the beach is essentially unusable and have just accepted it rather than doing anything about it.
You can feel the cost-cutting absolutely everywhere throughout the property, from the rooms that look dated and tired with their generic beige marble and dark wood that might have seemed elegant ten years ago but now feels like a budget business hotel trying desperately to pass itself off as luxury, to the broken water slides in the waterpark that nobody had bothered to repair, to the gift shop charging obscene prices for the most basic items, all of which tells you that management is squeezing every last penny out of guests while investing as little as possible back into the actual experience.
This resort is incredibly lucky that geography works in its favour, because if it had to compete with a five-star all-inclusive in Antalya or Bodrum, or a proper resort on the Costa del Sol or the Canary Islands or the south of France or the Italian coast, it would fold immediately since all of those places offer superior food, pristine beaches, beautiful and genuine service, and absolutely no aggressive membership sales harassment, all at half the price or less. Europeans, do yourselves a favour and avoid this place entirely, because you will only be disappointed when you realise you have paid luxury prices for a mediocre, exhausting and deeply frustrating experience that does not come close to what you can get back home.
