Botanik Hotel

This hotel used to be in premium segment for European tourists. Not anymore. It is occupied by russian tourists and personnel. Some personnel does not speak English at all. I would recommend to select another hotel unless u r russian vodka fan ;)

P.S. respect to Turkish personnel who seems also suffering.

We travelled as a family and were assigned rooms in the "Rose"-building. All facilities and restaurants were shared with the Botanik Platinum, where we also ate our meals.

Pros
+ The hotel was very clean and maintained well. Room, common areas, and outside were all really clean.
+ Internet connection had both wide coverage and good speed.
+ The guest relation staff were proactive in asking for comments.
+ There was a lot of staff at hand at all functions.
+ Staff interactions were almost all pleasant.
+ Plenty of facilities for kids.
+ The beach looked good, was well organised and had good facilities (e.g. showers).
+ The pools looked good, and were comfortable to swim in. There was one heated pool outside.
+ It was easy to find free loungers no matter time of day.
+ There were two separate areas with water slides: One for kids and one for bigger people. Both had plenty of options and fun slides.
+ The buffet had a very big selection of dishes.
+ The a la carte restaurant meals were nicely presented and we had access to a la carte restaurants every day (except Saturday when they were all closed).
+ Plenty of bars to choose from, both inside and outside.
+ Besides the bars, there were wagons setup with refreshments around the outside area.
+ There was a good selection of non-alcoholic cocktails.
+ Queueing usually wasn't needed, most of the times we were able to get service directly.
+ Bar-staff made frequent rounds to loungers and chairs to take drink orders

Cons
- The two main languages heard among guests were Russian and German, meaning that some staff did not speak much English but instead Russian or German.
- With the big influx of Russian guests it seems staff sometimes adapted to that culture: Case in point was a Russian woman very clearly cutting in line at the reception, but anyway being served first by the receptionist.
- The hotel shop was full of counterfeit brand goods (clothes, bags, etc.). I pointed this out to the shop owner who refused to acknowledge, claiming the merchandise was original. I would have expected this at an outside market, but not inside a high-class reputable (?) hotel.
- There was no overview presented of what services were available where and when.
- A la carte table reservations had to be made 9-17 the day prior. In practice, the restaurants were fully booked already in the morning so to ensure you got a seat you had to start queueing at 0830 every morning.
- The a la carte restaurants' service was very stressed. Staff were running and you got your dishes served even too quickly.
- Drinks were very bad. Almost all drinks were basically just vodka + juice/soft drink (even Mojito was served with vodka instead of rum!). Negroni was literally served as gin + bitter syrup + cherry juice (instead of gin + vermouth + bitter liqueur). Visiting the "Irish pub" simply meant that you had beer mixed in every drink (see image).
- The evening buffet was pretty much the same every day, not much was varied.
- While there was a very big selection, many of the dishes tasted pretty much the same.
- There were plenty of outlets to get the desserts (bars, lobby café, restaurants, etc.) but they were exactly the same everywhere and of poor quality. The Turkish desserts (e.g. baklava) were pretty good but their tries to make cakes/mousse failed miserably with cakes being full of "resort cream" (instead of real cream) and mousses being almost bouncy rubber.
- Outside there are almost no places that are quiet. The main pool has speakers so loud that they are heard to all other pools and outside areas.
- In the evenings the shows were so loud that even though our room was facing away from the entertainment venue, we could clearly hear what was going on on-stage even with balcony door closed. This went on until late evening.
- Acoustics in the main restaurant was poor, which made for an unpleasant environment during meals.

To summarise:
The hotel is well-maintained, well-staffed and has good facilities. Food and drinks are a big letdown. I probably will not return to this hotel.