Hotel Villa Mahal - Adults Only

We’ve just returned from 10 lovely days at Hotel Villa Mahal in Kalkan. After visiting Kalkan 6 years ago and spending a day at Mahal beach club, myself, my mum & sister couldn’t wait to stay at Mahal this time around. Our room was near the top of the hotel and had beautiful views over Kalkan bay - definitely the best balcony view we’ve ever had. That did mean lots of steps up and down to the restaurant/beachfront, but if you’re generally active this is very doable and shouldn’t put you off. The breakfast/lunch hotel staff absolutely made our stay and deserve a huge shout out, particularly Burhan and Hasan who were so friendly and attentive every single time we saw them, memorizing our orders and helping us with whatever we needed. Big thanks to you both - you’re amazing. Someone else who deserves a shout out is the member of staff (so sorry, I didn’t get his name, but he likened himself to Rambo!) that helped us with our luggage. We had 3 heavy cases and he carried them down to our room on arrival and up when we left with ease! We were so grateful for the help and he was absolutely lovely, always saying hello throughout our stay when we saw him. It was great to have a private area for hotel guest sunbeds at the beach club, as it meant there were always beds available. We also loved taking the free water taxi over to Kalkan in the evenings. There are a few negatives that I feel I should mention: 1. The room was advertised as being able to sleep 3 adults. In practicality this meant one double bed and one very small fold out camp bed. I am 5”3 and with my head at the top of the camp bed my feet were off the end. I wouldn’t say this is suitable for anyone taller than me, and it wasn’t the most comfortable nights sleep. 2. The maid service didn’t attend our room the day before we left. This meant that there was no water provided (as there was every other day), and no toilet roll. It also meant that the bathroom bin (which you put used toilet roll in, as the plumbing can’t handle toilet roll down the loo) wasn’t emptied, which felt a bit unsanitary. 3. Perhaps the biggest let down was the treatment we received from Ōznur, which left us feeling very uncomfortable. I had prebooked dinner at Mahal restaurant for the Friday evening. A few days before, I asked at breakfast to cancel this, and rebook for Saturday instead. I was told this was fine. At Saturday breakfast, we were approached by an evening member of staff who asked why we didn’t come to dinner on Friday night. I explained that we’d cancelled and apologized that this wasn’t communicated to them, they said everything was fine and they just wanted to check what had happened. On Saturday afternoon we were sent a text message to ask if we were attending dinner that evening, as we hadn’t gone on Friday. We confirmed again that we would be attending, and that we had cancelled the Friday evening a few days previously. When we sat down for dinner, Ōznur came over to our table and very loudly said ‘there is a problem with your table, you didn’t show up yesterday’, at which other tables and staff started staring at us. She made us feel extremely uncomfortable and it seemed as if we weren’t going to be allowed to keep our table, despite doing everything we could have done to cancel on Friday and confirm Saturday. There was no need to come over and tell us off after everything had already been confirmed with other members of staff, and it negatively impacted our whole evening. The meal at Mahal was nice, but the food we’d been eating in town was better, and after the way Ōznur spoke to us I wouldn’t recommend eating here. Overall we had a lovely time, and the positives far outweighed the negatives, but they’re worth mentioning.