Acanthus Cennet Barut Collection - Ultra All Inclusive

We spent 10 days here at the beginning of August. The hotel is small compared to others we have stayed at in Turkey, however that is something I prefer. Th hotel itself was absolutely spotless and constantly being kept clean by the extremely hard working staff. The staff are pleasant enough, some did come across as just plain moody but I put that down to working long hours in blistering heat, some particularly at the pool bar during the day, were just down right miserableand unwelcoming, which didn't make for a pleasant experience. Whilst I don't usually single out staff, the young lady working evenings in the lounge bar (she wears glasses, apologies I didn't get her name) was outstanding, always welcoming and a had a levley smile and was friendly who interacted with all guest, the second mention is to the young chap who works in customer relations, again outstanding service, always haa a smile for guest, I was impressed with all the staff working on the customer relations desk they were great. Reception, as per normal staffed by unhelpful and unfriendly staff, they either need further customer service training or re-evaluate their career choice. Staff in the main restaurant as always extremely hard working, and even those who spoke little to no English made the effect. Staff in the bistro by the sea not the most welcoming or attentive, a bit of racial profiling going on in that they tended to ignore the English guest, which given this isn't the cheapest of hotels to stay in, is totally unacceptable. Food - the standard of food isn't bad considering the amount of people they are catering for. The scrambled eggs they do which either had a turkish sausage in or the one with tomatoes was a bit too runny for my liking and looked under cooked at breakfast. One thing I would mention is I was surprised at the number of mornings I went to breakfast that the food was stone cold, and this was within 15 minutes of breakfast starting, not good. Lunch they had a pasta station where it was cooked fresh and a hit with the child and her friends. Otherwise lunch was repetitive the same thing everyday and not really to a good standard either. Dinner, they did do some theme nights, the best one being the Turkish night, which to be hoenst I would have liked to have seen more than once a week. The bistro by the beach, we had lunch here twice, first time I had fish and chips which was disgusting, unfortunately cold in the middle, second time I had the pub basket mix which was amazing, so highly recommend that, watch the jalapeños stuff with cheese, these were hot (spicy) but delicious, a handy wou,d be handle to blow your nose after eating these! The Al cartes, we tried all three, the steak one was amazing we went twice,and excellent service. Again the fish restaurant was outstanding with excellent service. The Italian one wasn't good at all, I went for the beef rib which unfortunately they hadn't cooked for long enough and it was tough and chewy so I sent it back, the waiter insisted I have some ravioli, which I would have ordered that if I liked it, I did try a price just to be polite and no I didn't like it, the cheese was grainy and there was no taste just extremely bland. Service wasn't very good either, again not the most welcoming I found. Yes we did tip all the waiters at all locations and house keeping, we tip as we appreciate the hard work the staff do and the service they provide us and like to show our appreciation. Pool: The pictures don't do it justice, it is bigger than it looks and a great way to relax. It's the usual situation with sunbeds. I am a early riser and usually down there by 07:00 so I can get a couple of hours of reading in. It was amazing to see the number of beds taken by 07:30 with no one at them, a woman got two beds next to me one morning before I got down at 07:00, she sat there for half an hour and scarpered and did not return to that bed untill 14:00 which did pee me off abit,especially when people where looking for beds. We did spend the last day on the beach, wow we have been missing out, plenty of beds, far to hot to sit on the bed for longer than 10 minutes at a time for us but being in that sea was a game changer. The beds aren't the most comfortable and even the newer ones are not much better, the beds on the beach have mattress on them which make them much ore comfortable. Entertainment- I was extremely disappointed with the entertainment here, given the number of stars and price paid, the entertainment was a big let down. The acts where mediocre to say the least, one night I couldn't help but laugh as it was that bad, there was a male singer and female singer and the male singer was so out of tune I thought it was karaoke, can't believe they paid this person to perform, luckily the female singer was better than him, and the night before they had a male and female singer, the male was good, wasn't sure why the female was there as she wasn't a very good singer unfortunately. Room- we just booked a standard room for two adults and a 1 0 year old. I cannot fault the room. It was surprisingly spacious for the 3 of us, which was a plus. It was clean the beds were extremely comfortable. I was impressed with ample amount of storage and the shower as powerful. I did read someone's comments about the air con, yes it didn't go lower than 19 degrees but for me this made the room comfortable enough to relax and sleep into. My only suggestions to the hotel, apart from some customer service training for those mentioned above, is to put some fans on the balcony of the lounge bar as its a lovely place to sit and relax at night without having to sit inside, but unfortunately due to the heat you can't sit there for too long, which takes some of the relaxation away. Overall we have a great stay here and would definitely stay again, given the price I would expect some of the small niggling issues to be looked at. The location of this hotel is ideal for walking into Old Side. We have booked another Barut hotel in Side for next year as it always good to try another in similar price range to compare to.