{"id":20345,"date":"2024-08-22T19:15:06","date_gmt":"2024-08-22T18:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/?p=20345"},"modified":"2024-08-22T19:15:06","modified_gmt":"2024-08-22T18:15:06","slug":"my-review-of-doubletree-crowne-plaza-antalya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/2024\/08\/22\/my-review-of-doubletree-crowne-plaza-antalya\/","title":{"rendered":"My review of Doubletree & Crowne Plaza Antalya"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Trip.com had a BA 50%-off sale I bought two tickets, the first to Agadir<\/a> and the second to Antalya in Turkey. Turkey has become much more expensive than what I remembered, and the local hotels aren’t cheap. After some research I decided to remain with the international chains: two nights at Doubletree<\/a> and two nights at Crowne Plaza<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I picked Doubletree because of the $50 Surpass credit, and also some praising reviews I read online. The Doubletree’s location is non-typical for tourists – it’s near the town centre and far from the sea. It’s about 20 minutes walk to the old town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a few shops and restaurants nearby. If you want more options the town centre is 10 minutes away.<\/p>\n\n\n

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I received an automatic upgrade to a King Superior Room before my arrival, which was the best non-suite room. As the chance of suite upgrade was thin, and my flight was to land quite late, I did online check-in to secure a room I preferred.<\/p>\n\n\n

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There are two superior rooms at each floor, next to the elevator. The room is L-shaped.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Honestly I was a bit speechless when I saw the condition of this room, and wondered what reviews convinced me of it being a high-spec hotel. Unlike Europe, the standard of five-star hotels in Turkey should be pretty good.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Let’s go check out the spa in the basement.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The pool is a bit cold, not heated. Sauna and steam room:<\/p>\n\n\n

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There’s also a pool on the rooftop. It is not really outdoor though as the rooftop is closed up by glass windows, which I don’t think is wise – in July it’s constantly 35+ degrees every day and I feel like a steam bun in here!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Breakfast buffet:<\/p>\n\n\n

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In the second morning, the lady at the restaurant welcomed me very warmly as a Diamond member, and told me about my privileges: fresh juice and omelettes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, only Gold and Diamond members can have the “real” orange juice \ud83d\ude2c<\/p>\n\n\n

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I was also given a drink voucher – follow me to the Gao Club!<\/p>\n\n\n

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The restaurant has a Chinese name, but very fusion-y, serving Chinese, Korean, Japanese, pizza and pasta!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moving on to our next destination. Although Doubletree is at the “city centre”, most tourists will choose to stay by the beach which is where the Crowne Plaza is. The Crowne Plaza however is at a strange spot: there’s no other buildings, no restaurant or shop, within the 500-metre perimeter of the hotel. It wasn’t fun looking for place to eat in this hot weather!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, the hotel is easy to find and you have a clear view from here.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The hotel building is hollow and shows its age from the lobby.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The reception is much more enthusiastic than the Doubletree staff. I was briefed the elite benefits and treated to a cup of Arabic coffee whilst waiting for them to double check my room’s ready.<\/p>\n\n\n

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It didn’t take long and my room is on the fifth floor. I didn’t expect much of an upgrade, and only received one from the standard side sea view to the standard sea view.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The room is as dated as the Doubletree’s, but smaller especially the bathroom. Three faces of the hotel building have guest rooms, mine being sea front and the other two being sea side, so the upgrade at least comes with a meaningfully better view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welcome fruits and a small bottle of red wine:<\/p>\n\n\n

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As you can see from my room’s balcony, there’s an outdoor swimming pool which tends to be quite busy.<\/p>\n\n\n

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There’s also an indoor pool in the basement.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Interestingly there’s a Russian bath next to the Turkish bath, and I wonder what does that do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s a gym on the top floor.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The beach is close by but going there is a bit of a faff, as it’s a public beach. You need to fetch some towels by the pool first, go out of the hotel, walk around the building and cross a road.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Compared to the Red Sea in Hurghada<\/a>, the experience here is less satisfactory, but only because Hurghada was too great – here the water is very clean and there’s minimum wind, so good enough for an amateur swimmer like me. The main downside is the pebble beach – not comfortable to walk on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you’ve seen from the pictures above, the beach in front of the Crowne Plaza is very small, but walk either direction and in a few minutes you’ll find a much larger beach. They are however, still pebble beach so not a massive difference.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Breakfast time: the offering is of more variety than the Doubletree and they have an omelette station.<\/p>\n\n\n

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In summary, Crowne Plaza beats Doubletree in almost all aspects and is an adequate resort hotel. It’s not quite five-star though, and the location isn’t perfect, so you might want to check out the local hotels as well.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Antalya is very beautiful and I’m hoping to come back another time – but not in the summer for sure!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Trip.com had a BA 50%-off sale I bought two tickets, the first to Agadir and the second to Antalya in Turkey. Turkey has become much...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,43],"tags":[128],"class_list":["post-20345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hilton-honors","category-ihg","category-middle-east","tag-hotel-review"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20345"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20456,"href":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20345\/revisions\/20456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}