Calis Beach and Fethiye Turkey Discussion Forum
Calis Beach Forum => Calis Beach Questions and Information => Topic started by: Scunner on November 01, 2014, 11:00:27 AM
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As someone who is always asking for member holiday/hotel/restaurant reviews on CBF I though I'd better do something :)
We decided in 2009 that our 'main' holiday would be to ABT (anywhere but Turkey) as the girls had by then reached the age of 9 and had only been to the UK and Turkey (that they remember - they forget Menorca when they were 6 months old, selfish brats). So we have managed a different country every year since.
We have always tried to have a week in Calis and since the girls' surprise birthday party of October 2013, we appear to have created a 'tradition'. A tradition in our house is a way of ensuring we get to do things we like again :D
All this background information is leading somewhere. We have found it quite apparent that no matter where we go in the World, there is something about Calis/Fethiye we simply can't obtain. Especially for the girls, who slip effortlessly into chilled mode on arrival. They feel relaxed, at home, confident, adventurous, familiar, hugged and much missed from start to finish. We feel the chill factor too - and ours is added to by theirs.
So to the review itself. Started well as we normally save a bundle by flying from Manchester as our half term is earlier in Scotland so our already expensive airport flight costs jump for the school holidays to ridiculous levels - whereas Manchester is cheaper and it isn't the school holidays yet there so the hike hasn't happened. We can save £600 this way but it's quite a drive, especially if you land back in Manchester in the wee small hours. But this year we treated ourselves (slightly) by booking Easyjet flights from Edinburgh, the minute they were released for sale - 45 minutes drive rather than 4.5 hours.
First printed off visas, chaos anticipated but no, went through faster than ever and quite happy. That could have been the bottle of duty free Smirnoff that someone smashed while placing the bag on the floor while queuing and just left it there. Quite an aroma to greet us.
Outside treat number 2 - decided against A2B this time and Fethiye Airport Transfers were there to greet us and take our cases. No waiting around in a sweaty minibus waiting for other people who arrived on a later flight and decided to have a couple of fags before finding the bus. No strange route of drop offs. Straight to the hotel with complimentary cold waters and packs of wipes.
Greeted like old friends at the Hotel Oykun (we are, we stayed there last year too - it's now a tradition). We booked direct with Oykun and asked if it would be possible to have one double and one twin room near each other instead of one of their 1 bed apartments - in which the girls sleep on sofa beds, not ideal anymore - and they did us proud - exactly what we asked for but with a bonus interconnecting door. Privacy for parents and kids, but a door away - perfection. The Oykun has a difficult to pinpoint quality amongst the obvious things. Adjacent as it is these days to the 'new' dual carriageway where once there was a dead end, the tour buses and cars fly past, but once you enter the hotel you are in Planet Tranquil - especially in October where the staff are always friendly but not overly so and everything is so laid back. Breakfast is what you expect in a Turkish seaside B&B hotel, with the added bonus of having an omelette/fried egg station where finally, someone over there can cook a perfect fried egg. Beautiful Turkish eggs on beautiful toasted Turkish bread - sensational. Oh yes, other notable point, pool freezing - but with kids you have to do it.
Traditional arrival night trip to Frank Cannons - drop cases in room, Lynx attract to each armpit, out. Never disappoints (the restaurant not the Lynx).
Traditional first morning visit to Fethiye on water taxi.
Traditional first day lunch at Sahil Lokantasi next to Migros. Traditional 3 meals come and fourth when the first 3 are nearly finished. You can count on it, the only question is who's it will be.
Traditional first (full day) evening - over to Recep's in the fish market with our great friends Cenk & Olga. Several starters (too many), followed by the World's greatest Calamari, then the main course, a fish as recommended by Recep from the choice available. Several drinks.
Traditional restaurants, planned meticulously day by day even before we left the UK - the best meal in the World, a Mozaik Bahce mixed grill and having a bit of time with Nichola when things start to get a little less busy. A man who was leaving made a point to come across to our table to speak to Nichola. They were from Rhodes, and told Nichola "I wanted to come to tell you everything was perfect". It's tough being number 1 (on Tripadvisor and CBF!) and staying there, no substitute for hard work etc, but moments like that must feel like it's so worth it. And ours was perfect too, as usual.
After a tiring day at sea doing nothing we made our traditional visit to CBF's other number 1, The Meeting Point - Ahmet is such a lovely guy and the food always consistent - we were so knackered we turned down a drink on the house!
Traditional evening at King's Garden - lovely place to watch the sunset and of course memories of the girls' surprise birthday party last year there. It was substantially quieter this time!!
Traditional lunches/dinners at Pasa Kebap, the fabulous Mancero Kitchen, this year's non surprise birthday meal venue chosen by the childs themselves - it was always going to be Vojos who did us and them proud.
A special mention to Eyna Restaurant for a brunch that came in the form of their quite remarkable XL Full breakfast!!
A traditional boat trip with hand picked company - what a day. We used to do a Sunday boat trip every other week and I can't remember one as much fun and full of laughter as this one. Many thanks to Jerry Boat - we met friends old (Tinkerman) and new - met Keng and Menthol/Aisha for the first time.
But the greatest part of what Calis gives us on holiday that nowhere else does is exactly that - meeting our friends. Some planned well in advance, some you hope to bump into, and some you simply don't know are also out there until you get there. We saw all our friends that were in town, and so many that were pure chance - the number of people - and also specifically the number of people we haven't seen since maybe 2003/2004 who just happened to be walking down the same road, sitting in the same restaurant etc was stunning.
Calis Beach - You know exactly what you're going to get, except all the bits you didn't expect at all :)
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Super review and its sounds like the tradition will continue for many years to come !
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enjoyed reading your post scunno
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Great review Scunner. Really enjoyed reading that. :)
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Excellent post Scunner. As a relative "newbie" to Calis holidays (only been four times), it's interesting to see how you organise your visits in advance.
I've been to some of the restaurants you mention, spent a day on Jerry's boat, enjoyed the water taxi, but reading your post I feel that I've only scratched the surface of Calis and the surrounding areas. I've spent many happy hours at the Oykun hotel playing bowls but never stayed as a resident. However, the price of a holiday there seems to have escalated since Thomson took the lion's share of room bookings, so up to now I've stayed in apartments or in a low cost B&B (Tugay hotel this year).
For me, as for many people, Calis seems to have a "tug of the heart strings" which attracts me as soon as I begin to think about the next holiday. Long may the attraction continue.
Best wishes to you and your family. :)
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A very good read ans a laugh. Well done. 8)
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Thanks Dennis - for info the holiday week we had at the Oykun cost us over 50% less than the same week booked as a package with Thomson - flying from Scotland in both cases. If you fancy staying there contact Oykun (after whom the hotel is named) on info@oykunhotel.com - mark it for the attention of Oykun himself and mention me/CBF.
Ok it was mid October but we paid £325 (cash ;) ) for the two rooms, two fridges and one late check out room. So 7 nights at just over a twenty quid a room per night including 4x breakfasts.
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Great posting and it is a strange fact that Calis/Fethiye does hold a special place in our hearts too. We love coming over and seem to do less and less when we are over, just reading books, lying at the pool and having lovely meals in the evening, but we love the place more and more.
Also, this time, nice to meet your and the family. ;D
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A great read scunner - enjoyed it very much :)
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A lovely read Scunner
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The 'tug of the heart strings' mentioned by Dennis in his post above can be illustrated in our household over the last few days.
We have a big trip coming up next year, March/April time, to visit our youngest daughter and her husband, plus new grandchild due in February, in New Zealand. We'll be away 5/6 weeks altogether (oh the joys of being retired ;)) and visiting Singapore, Sydney, Hong Kong amongst other places. Very exciting times obviously.
But then we thought 'what about Calis?' Can we really miss going to Calis? ??? So we've just this week booked easyjet flights for middle two weeks of June {£380 including baggage which I though was pretty good), got an apartment at the Caretta, so all sorted! ;D
Tradition - yes!
Familiar - yes!
Comfy - yes!
Looking forward to it - you bet!!
;D ;D ;D
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I find that the "unknown factor" of Calis to be a pain in the a***! I often say at the departure gate at Dalaman that we won't be back - at least for a few years then as soon as the flights are released for next year I've got them booked!!
Calis will always be special to us - our girls had a wonderful childhood there from age 3 to 8 and despite fairly well documented efforts by a couple of people to devote much of their life to spreading slanderous stories and trying to discredit us with absolute lies, we wouldn't change those 5 years for anything - we had a wonderful life experience living there. We forget just how many people we know entirely because of Calis - people who we feel we've known all our lives, actually we met in 2003 or 2004 and without Calis would never have.
When we left in 2008 I thought we had met a handful of great people and dozens of absolute a***holes. Time is a great thing and now I realise we met dozens of great people and a handful of a***holes!
Anyway, we can't stay away for long - and spend a week dashing here there and everywhere meeting folk and having a ball. Damn you, Calis Beach.
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Very interesting read,same as Jacqui Keith it was lovely to meet you and your family properly...
My week was a very different one indeed to how I would normally spend my time in Calis as I went with a friend this time instead of hubby, and I must say seeing Calis and Fethiye from a "newcomers eyes" kind of made me realise that I have been taking the place for granted the last few years or so and it made me realise how much I love it all over again...Not enough to want to move over permanently that is not for me but has made me realise once I am finally retired that I do want to spend longer periods over there...
We shopped far too much bought loads of stuff that I did not need but could not resist had lovely pedicures and a great massage though beware if you have a massage at Nevada Su do not pay £52 for the lymphatic drainage/anti cellulite one as it is not worth anywhere near the money and on comparison it was the same as my aromatherapy one...
Ate lots of nice food my friend said the pizzas from Pizza Callisto were the best pizzas she has ever eaten and also the rices eggfried and shrimp were the best she has ever eaten (she is a really fussy eater and had warned me in advance!)she also loved the Turkish breakfasts of which I think she had three one at Guvens one at Vojos and one at Eyna, we had a lovely day on the beach at Guvens, two couples were trying to find the Surf club and I could not remember whether it was left or right from Guvens but said this is a nice place so they ended up staying at Guvens for the day and on leaving they said thank you it had been a good choice and they had enjoyed their day there...
On reminiscing I am now really wanting to be back there, the week just whizzed by... 8)
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Great post, made me feel like packing a case. :)
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Good write up Keith, felt like I was there. ;) :D
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It would have been nice to have seen you Baz ;)
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I wish I'd seen you both ;) x
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Easy to miss me, I'm only a shadow of my former self. ;D
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I did see some shadows, in the shadows.
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I really enjoyed your write up of your holiday in Calis Beach. It is a wonderful place to be and even now in November the sun is still shining. We have been to most of the restaurants that you have been to and we cannot fault them. There is so much choice here, even in the winter places are staying open.
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We have just returned from another week at our apartment in Calis and I just want to say we never tire of coming here. Keith helped us to buy our place nearly 7 years ago and we have visited 3 times a year since. We usualy come out early October and wondered whether the weather would be OK at this time of year but we were pleasantly surprised. We were sunbathing by the pool most days and had some runs off to Gocek Hisaronu etc. We met all the usual Calis characters and even Tinkerman turned up at Dawn Beach for the Man City/Man U match in his usual Chelsea shirt and it all added to the good banter. Roll on next April.
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great write up Keith, glad you all had a great time and thanks for the invite to the boat trip, great day out!
Maybe the reason for you all to keep coming back is the familiarity of Calis/Fethiye, you know the place inside out and have so many friends here, you probably haven't got that anywhere else apart from Perthshire.
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Strangely perhaps we have way more friends over there than in Perthshire - the girls are always amazed how long it takes us to get anywhere in Turkey as we are forever bumping into people we know - and plenty of hugs handshakes and chat.
In Perth we keep ourselves pretty much to ourselves. Nobody has an opinion on me, nobody has a story of scandal to share about me, nobody is interested in me at all really.
I like living in Perth :)
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In Perth we keep ourselves pretty much to ourselves... ...nobody has a story of scandal to share about me,
Ok, in Perth yes. Lets not forget the waitress in Dundee. ;)
JF
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Nice post, Keith.
It was certainly a pleasure to meet you, Steph, Abbie and Robyn on the boat trip. Thank you for my invitation.
Great to meet Lotty and Martin and Heather, Anne, Diverlady and I am very sorry but I have genuinely forgotten the names of the other people I met. I'm terrible at names - sorry! It was a lovely day out though.
And lovely also to spend time with Lotty and Martin when they popped round to mine for a cuppa. Cheers, guys!
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It was a wonderful day Keith and Steph, we also loved meeting everyone, a truly great bunch! The twins once again impressed us with their natural friendliness and ability to circulate and chat to everyone with such ease. A fantastic day to remember. x ;D :D
Menthol, it was lovely to come to your beautiful home especially with the unexpected bonus of seeing some of the practice Stars air display. Probably one of the best high vantage points! We've thought about you and hope you've had a lovely time with your sons this last week. x :D ;D
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CBF: Introducing people to each other since 2003 :D
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Great report! We feel exactly the same! However we also have a big soft spot for our place in Portugal, having owned our timeshare there about 12 years, made many friends and found so many lovely places to eat and visit.
However next year one of them had to give due to our impending US train trip and lack of holidays through work.
Calis won! Portugal will still be there the year after and our timeshare is now rented to friends next October.