Having always wanted to stay at the Aqua, Icmeler, we booked it for a week's holiday 20-28 September 2007 with half board.

The hotel is beautiful. The good bits were:
- The Spa centre with Turkish bath, massage, steam room - this was excellent and the massages (you had to pay but they were good value) were excellent. Would highly recommend the body peel and foam massage - heavenly.
- The hotel grounds were beautiful set all around a lovely big pool with plenty of sunbeds and free towels
- The staff on reception were helpful, friendly and attentive
However, the bad bits:
- The room was lovely - but, and it's a big one:
- the housekeeping (maid service) was awful - we discarded the throws on the bed as it was too warm only to come back to the room and find them screwed up in a corner by the maid (not even folded). We had to ask for the slippers and bathrobes from reception (it was impossible to get housekeeping on the phone). The bath/hair gel fell off the wall and was dumped in the bath, empty and never replaced (we had brought our own so used that). Tea cups were not washed every day or replaced with clean ones. The mirror, which had some cream splashed on it was not cleaned (until I did it myself after 3 days).
- The breakfast would have been good but with only one (ocassionally 2 chefs) cooking eggs/bacon/omelettes the queue was usually long so it was either hard boiled eggs or a cold breakfast. If you wanted freshly squeezed orange juice you had to pay, not much 5 lire, but for a five star hotel, not very impressive. Also it was made by a man with a manual squeezer so, again, it took ages, even when there wasn't a queue.
- The evening meal was awful - we gave up after 3 nights. Everything was buffet, in bain maries and regardless of whether you went down early or late was lukewarm and pretty tasteless. There was a chef one evening cooking chicken escalopes, which were OK, but overall 1 out of 5 for food. The staff in the restaurant were useless. Slow and unhelpful, with a less than basic knowledge of English which was strange because in most of the bars, restaurants in Icmeler the staff spoke great English. We do try to learn the basics of languages whereever we go, but with Turkish getting beyond cheers and thank you is quite difficult.
One morning I was taking croissants to our room to have breakfast on the balcony and was accosted by a waiter asking ''where do you think you're going? You can't take that to your room'' English was OK then, and for a hotel with 24 hour room service, it shouldn't have been a problem to go to the room with my breakfast. I ignored him and took it up anyway.
- As I said the pool area and gardens were beautiful. However, although there was a tiny paddling pool, the pool was so deep, everywhere, that even my husband 6ft 1 could only find one place to stand on tiptoes - a shallower bit would have been nice.
- The pool bar, again a lovely setting, but with the same appalling service as the restaurant - the food however was better, but you had to pay for it.
Overall - Go for B&B, but if you like good food, don't do half board when there are some absolutely fabulous restaurants in Icemeler serving top class food at exceptionally reasonable prices.

A clean respectable hotel, very friendly staff , lovely grounds

Really enjoyed the Aqua hotel. The food was great, all you can eat breakfast and dinner buffet with a LOT of selections. Fantastic! Entertainment was nice as well. The pool and the scenary was fabulous. The hotel is on the beach. Beautiful beach, not fine/white sand but it's still nice. The rooms were great, bathtub a little small. Perhaps some parts of the hotel (lobby decor) needed a little updating. I would stay here again. A definate 4 * by North American standards.

We have just returned after 1 weeks HB stay at the AQUA .
Overall we were very satisfied. This hotel location is fab!!! right in the centre. Food was very good, varied. Hotel grounds really lovely. My only complaint is the rooms in this hotel are very basic (NOT 5*) however as you don't spend any time in your room its not that bad!!! Cleaned everyday.

The pool area is very nice but I thought perhaps you could have ordered drinks/ice creams around the pool but there was not this facility - no waiters to be seen (usually this is available at 5*)

If your thinking of going - GO its worth the money but just don't expect pure luxury !!

Paula - Liverpool