Kusadasi isn't the place to be.
- Onura hotel (where we stayed for the week)
When Steven and I booked our second holiday together, the first thing on our check list was to find a website that did cheap package holidays for an all inclusive board. We were told Turkey would be our best bet for that, so we looked into it. Long story short, we booked the Arora hotel (4 star) in Kusadasi, just outside Bodrum.
We booked in February so we figured we had given ourselves enough time to save up the money we needed. That went smoothly apart from me not having spending money due to the amount I spent on my graded unit. So Steven agreed he would do the spending money as I did it last year. Besides, we were going to somewhere which uses Turkish lira as well as the Euro, plus we were all inclusive, so we figured we wouldn't need much spending money.
Excitement kicked in when I had handed in all my college units and I kept looking up places around the Kusadasi area we could visit during our stay. Everything was smooth until two days prior to departing Glasgow Airport, we received an email and a phone call from the travel company (low cost holidays) saying the hotel we booked had went on fire and couldn't accommodate us, so we were being transferred to another hotel (Cande Onura 5star) and £40 compensation for the last minute change. We weren't too worried considering we were trading up for a cheaper price.
Everything was going smoothly at the airport. Stuart had bumped our seats up to get more leg room on the plane (thanks Stuart!) and we were anxious to see the new hotel. When we arrived at Bodrum airport however, that's when it all started to go downhill...
We were told as soon as we got off the plane that we needed to pay £10 each for a visa to get into Turkey. This seemed pointless considering we were only staying a week. We didn't have GBP though, so we had to pay 50 TL (Turkish Lira). Once we finally got our "visa" (A sticker on the inside of my passport saying I could be in Turkey for 90 days but not work) we went to passport control. Of course Steven got through fine, but no not me. They didn't believe that my passport was mine. Trying to describe to the guy that it's a five year old passport and was 14 when the photo was taken was a nightmare as he didn't seem to understand a word of English. Eventually, he gave in and let me through.
We collected our luggage and went outside to find our transfer. Little did we know that the transfer was under a different name and we had no idea where to go. So many people getting thrown about to different transfers added to the confusion. We gave up and asked a Thompson rep where we were to go. Eventually we found our transfer rep and he put us on a very tiny bus and explained that he heard about the fire in Arora, but wasn't aware we had been transferred. 2 and a half hours later we arrived outside Onura, noticing that Arora was right next door to the new hotel (and didn't look like it had been on fire). We got checked in no problem and headed up to the room when Steven realised he had forgot his contact solution and had to head out onto a bus at 8am to find an opticians or a Chemist. This proved difficult because nobody knew what we were talking about (Later on when it wasn't much use to us we found out Chemist/Pharmacy is "Eczane" in Turkish). However the bus service was easy and looking out for an opticians wasn't difficult.
After this we headed back to Onura where we met our rep "Ersa" (Why would you call your daughter that?!) Who did the usual excursion stuff and then told us that two days before we leave we were to ask for a transfer fax at the reception desk. Which we did, but no fax was there for us. We tried phoning the help line but we couldn't get through at any point over the 2 days we tried phoning.
Steven was down at reception on our last day finding out about the transfer. He came back up with a furious look on his face and said "we don't have the late check-out we paid for. We need to pay 80 TL if we want late check-out but we still need to move rooms" Raging, we packed quickly and got down to the lobby where they were nothing but rude to us.
Just as we were about to pay for the late check out, an older English couple we met said we could shower in their room and keep our bags there until we had to leave. That saved us a lot of money so we cheered up when they gave us their key to get showered etc. However the problem with the transfer still hadn't been sorted. We sat in the lobby for hours until the English couple had to leave for their transfer at 10 past 8. They said they would see if they had spare seats so we could get on it to at least make sure we got to the airport. Luckily there was and the transfer rep was happy to take us. But when we got on the bus he told us that no bus was coming for us as they didn't have our names down so we had to pay a fee of 90 TL. We didn't care at this point - we just wanted to go home. However arriving at the airport the rep didn't have change and we gave him 100 TL and he kept saying "cmon do you really need the change?" I thought Steven was going to strangle him.
We got into the airport and of course we were two hours earlier than we needed to be so we sat while all the English passengers checked in. An hour later Glasgow appeared on the screen as "delayed". Another hour later, it told us "140 mins delayed" aka 2hrs and 20 mins. All we could do was laugh at that point. We were fed up, tired, hungry and wanted to go home.
Eventually at home, I can honestly say I will never go back to Turkey. As much as there was good times, it was shadowed by the stress which we wanted away from when we left. Instead of tans and excitement, we are burnt really bad and overtired.
Oh, and to add to the "stress-free holiday" My camera broke on day 2. I have hardly any photos of the "good times". I'll be lucky if I remember them in the next few years.
