Mark Warner Phokaia Beach Resort

Firstly, the positives:
1. Lovely looking resort
2. Good range of activities included
3. Childcare options very good (Hannah the childcare lead was excellent)
4. Friendly staff in general

Negative:
1. The noise level from the bars was unnecessarily loud. If they had turned the volume down by half, it still would have been extremely loud. The volume was too high for the events and was detrimental to the quality of the sound. No matter which bar the events were running in, you could hear it across the whole resort.
Unlike the rooms on the rest of the resort, our room was in the main hotel, directly above a bar. When an event was on here, you could feel the vibrations of the noise within the room as well as the very loud noise itself (our kids were on a sofa bed so they found it really hard to settle down for the night, ages 7 and 4). We chose Mark Warner as a quieter, family resort that did not offer lots of evening "entertainment" so were shocked when there were events every night that were all extremely loud and would go on past 11pm at night.
2. As the hotel is not exclusive to Mark Warner there is separate management, with different protocols (Mark Warner and Local Turkish company). This meant that any concerns or issues raised were impossible to solve as there didn't seem to be any effective communication between them (with each blaming the other for not being able to solve the issue)
3. Beach had been taken over by a boat event which meant that the majority of the beach was covered in boats, racers and staff. The Mark Warner management said they were not even aware of this as the Turkish management did not inform them so it was out of there hands.
4. We had paid full price (and had actually had to move our date due to recovery from a major operation and had to pay an extra £2k to move to the Oct date) but it became apparent after speaking with many other families and guests at the hotel that most had booked a last minute deal and in their words "for the money, it's good but I wouldn't want to pay full price". This left us feeling pretty resentful towards Mark Warner when we approached them with our concerns mainly over noise and lack of beach/swimming area because of the boat event, stating that we felt we should be offered some compensation as the holiday was largely not as advertised and the noise was a HUGE negative for us. We followed their protocol on who to raise the issues with and were basically dismissed.

In summary, even though there were some really good things about the resort, I have left a 1 star review because of the way we had been dealt with by management both during our stay and afterwards. We waited to leave a review to see how they would handle things on our return home, hoping to leave a better one but I'm not sure there handling of the situation could have been worse.

We're a family of four with 2 small kids (4 and 7) and we stayed here in the final week of the season and unfortunately we had a negative experience. The two main issues were the very loud noise from the bars which went on past 11pm and a boating event that took up around 80% of the beach area we were normally allowed access to but were blocked from.

Noise - similar to quite a few reviews here, our room comfort suffered hugely due to loud music/karaoke/quizs that ran late into the night (past 11pm). Sadly our room (Superior Suite in the main hotel) was positioned above a very noisy bar. When we raised this with hotel management (separate from Mark Warner) they were rude and dismissive of our pleas, at one point suggesting that we should stop complaining and go to the bar with our young children (even though it was nearly 11pm and they were extremely tired and just wanted to sleep). Its worth noting that Mark Warner management don't live onsite so, in the evening, your best hope is a telephone call to them (which they say is accessible 24/7 but we were told on a couple of occasions by hotel staff that they were not contactable) or face to face the next day. When we did speak to Mark Warner management they were in some ways sympathetic but its seems powerless as the late night events carried on. On return The Head of Customer Services has also been similarly dismissive of our complaints to the point of saying he didn't believe there was a noise issue (despite a lot of reviews on here saying the same and many other guests agreeing with us).

Boat event - On arrival we noticed the hotel was very busy (which was one of the reasons we were refused a room change to escape the noisy bar) and later it was confirmed, for the first time, that there would be a boat event taking place during our stay. This seemed fine enough until we discovered that all the boats were parked on the beach, leaving a fraction of the normally very wide beach available for guest use. The recording attached shows the impact of the event on the beach area.

Mark Warner - One thing I didn't expect though was how Mark Warner deal with any issues like these. They say to mention any problems to their staff on site as soon as you can and then follow up when back home. We did this and followed their process but it seems to come to nothing, even being told by the Head of Customer Service that they don't believe us, which was shocking. At a complete loss really. We'd actually had to change the date of our holiday from earlier in the year due to a health concern (and had to pay an extra fee in the process as only superior rooms were available) and then to be told your concerns that you raise following their process don't matter or worse still that they don't believe you is very disappointing.

This was our first time with Mark Warner and we had high hopes but both the onsite issues and the way our complaints were handled have made us look to other companies in the future, there's plenty of better options.

The hotel is in a nice setting and offers a lot of activities for all ages. However, for a family resort the hotel is unbelievably noisy at night. The family rooms are basically right behind what seems to be the party area and the music will blast (!) until well after 11pm at night. I would not mind a bit of music in the distance but this is absolutely unacceptable for a place that advertises itself as a family friendly hotel.

Nice place but terrible approach to the childrens' activities. Total refusal to put children in appropriate activities for their developmental stage. Multiple families in the resort at the moment in the same situation and not able for their children to access the activities.

I actually really like this Hotel but what I have experienced today was an absolute nightmare! We came here, 2 couples to have a nice and calm time at the beach. They have charged us 1000 Lira per person WITHOUT telling us that there is going to be a sound check going on for 3 hours straight!
The boxes and microphones were so loud that we had to go to the reception. At the reception, the girls were nice but the sales manager was REALLY RUDE, he said it’s a 5 star hotel and that’s its normal that things like this happen and has not managed to give us our entrance money back or another solution for customer satisfaction!
When I came back to the beach the boxes were again so loud, 2 other people complained about it and said they will unplug the boxes if it carries on like this!

THANK YOU FOR NOTHING! I wish I could upload videos here !