Хороший отель, но с недостатками Good hotel but with flaws

We stayed in this hotel for 11 days as a family. We chose exactly one of the hotels of this chain, because we had already been to the family of hotels several times before and only positive reviews remained.
Hemera was chosen based on good reviews, photos of the green area and the sandy beach.
I really liked the hotel itself: a green area with various unusual plants, which are well looked after and grown near the hotel (you yourself can visit the greenhouses in front of the hotel on the right side). On the territory you can see how bananas, oranges, pomegranates, tangerines grow. Near the greenhouses there is a "house of cats" (an enclosure in which cats live, they are looked after and fed, and during the day they are on the territory of the hotel, which is very popular with all visitors).
The well-maintained hotel buildings, good rooms, beautiful lounge areas and restaurants with a beautiful interior are also a plus.

The staff is very friendly, attentive and responsive. I liked the staff of both the bars and the waiters of the restaurants, the staff of the cook and serving dishes in the restaurant, very attentive cleaning staff - here we give the highest score, because everyone is smiling and helpful, and this is not in all hotels.
About the room: cleaning every day and very good, and there is always enough water in the room, a full free bar with cold water, Cola, Fanta, Sprite, juices, apples, beer. Each room has a beach bag with 2 towels, a branded bag made of natural materials and it is given as a gift (you can buy extra for 5 euros). The room has a safe, bathrobes, slippers, and bathroom kits (shampoo, shower gel, cap, washcloth, comb), hair dryer. They also gave us a babysitter and a potty for the baby. True, we changed our room on the second day, because there was a laundry not far from the first room and it was very noisy at night - we are grateful to the Manager, he changed it without questions, otherwise it would be difficult to sleep in it with a child at night. In the second, everything was great: a view of the park (green zone), not hot (they did not use air conditioning), there were no mosquitoes in the room, although there was a green area and a lot of shade.
Regarding the beach area: always a clean sandy area, a lot of sun loungers, but many are already occupied by towels by 9 in the morning (towels are a separate issue : )). The sea was warm for October and often with small waves, but it was only possible to go swimming in the sea from the hotel beach from the pontoon (pier) or go to the right to the neighboring beaches of other hotels - there are a lot of stones in the sea of ​ ​ the beach of this hotel, which was dangerous for bathing. True, for several days in a row, the hotel staff took out large stones in the morning with an excavator (perhaps they can be removed by the end of the season).
What we really didn’t like was the situation with towels: they are issued freely, not on cards (as in other hotels), this is a plus that you can take at least a few pieces, but, as we understood that many vacationers took a lot of them and a few borrowed sun loungers by the sea early in the morning, and with others they could relax by the pool (we could see that no one comes to the beach for half a day). And some other nonsense with the time of issuing towels, they were given out only from 10 to 12 in the morning and from 16 to 18, that is, if you passed in the evening, and in the morning you won’t take it closer to dinner.

We still didn’t really like that refrigerators with water were not visible on the territory: you could take it at the bar, and we saw a refrigerator at the bar near the pool only at the end of the holiday (just in other hotels of the same chain, there were a lot of them on the beach, and on the territory, and in addition to water there was also ayran, but at least there was more with water, because even in October the air temperature was about 30 degrees, or even higher - water should be more accessible).
Regarding the kitchen itself: we chose a hotel of this particular chain, because we knew that there would be no issues with this. But we checked in at lunch, so we had lunch and dinner in the main restaurant, on the very first night I became very ill and from half past midnight until the morning I suffered from poisoning. When I went to the doctor in the morning, he confirmed the poisoning, put a dropper and I took an antibiotic for 5 days. The doctor was very surprised that this happened in one of the Barut hotels, but said that it still depends on the season, but for September-October it is likely. Moreover, I saw it myself, because at the same time about 10 people from other hotels came in with the same symptoms. What the doctor suggested on products that could cause poisoning is watermelon (they always have a lot of nitrates), fish-meat. I really ate both fish and watermelon (a child also ate with me, who also complained of pain in his stomach at night, but in the morning he felt better and we did not go to the doctor with him). I can say that in the future we ate different foods, including fish and meat, but apart from watermelon, there were no questions, so I think that the hotel has no problems with storage and cooking, perhaps it really was a watermelon.
The menu was varied in the restaurant, but I didn’t immediately find a table with dietary food, it appeared later (maybe at someone’s request), as there was no separate department with food for children (milk porridge also began to appear for the last 4-5 days) . Honestly, I was delighted with the usual buckwheat, boiled chicken and vegetables, because earlier the child could not offer dishes with a lot of spices, in the morning there was no milk porridge - previously they ate only pasta or spaghetti. Then we met mothers from Vilnius, Russia, and they had the same question about children's nutrition - children after one or two days refused to eat meat or stewed vegetables, because they were not used to food with so many spices.
There is an abundance of greens and vegetables, as well as fruits: there are a lot of greens and salads, and from fruits I liked plums, figs and grapes, although there were always apples and pears, grapefruit, oranges, kiwi, melon, which are also delicious, but what bananas - something tasteless.

There were a lot of yoghurts for breakfast, both store-bought and natural, most likely prepared by the hotel. There was one morning a nuance: I often took blackberry yogurt for bottling to the child and several grains of black pepper came across in it: (I could not understand why the child began to sharply spit it out until I tried it myself and really got peppercorns. I went up to the restaurant manager and showed - he apologized and said he clearly shouldn't be there.
I liked that there was a table with dried fruits, halva and nuts, but only walnuts, but I would like almonds, hazelnuts, although I am very grateful to the hotel for this.
Bakery products here are always tasty and fresh, there are pastries from the oven (we liked it very much), croissants.
With sweets, everything is also fine here: both in the main restaurant and in the cafe there was always a good choice. True, the pasta confectionery here was almost always not quite fresh - there was a lot of it, but they were dry and therefore hard, and the rest (cakes, pastries, eclairs, profiteroles, oriental sweets, homemade cookies) were always fresh and original.
We really liked the animation in the hotel. We got to 2 holidays "Turkish Days" - original performances and performers, as well as Oktoberfest. If your rooms are located near the pool bar, then it is very noisy there (loud music and for a very long time), our room is closer to the bar near the sea and the main stage, then it takes a long time (until 12 at night, or even up to an hour) just a couple days it was very audible, but it was more or less quiet.

We were often in the Mini Club children's room. I liked the Russian-speaking animators - they are polite with all the children, but the rest could sit in the room for some crafts, and they didn’t look at the children at all around the territory and the children did what they wanted, they could often break something, push the younger children, indulge on the trampoline and eat there, although it is prohibited. We were always with our child, and many parents simply left the children, and they could go outside the territory - as we understood, the animators are not responsible for this. There were not many toys in the room (withdrawn due to the Corona virus), but there was a trampoline, slides and swings, which the children liked. In the evening at 20.30 animators with children were at the children's disco - the children really liked it, and after that they could watch a cartoon on the projector in the children's room.
Separately, I want to tell about the Doctor, who is in the hotel. When I felt bad on the first night, my husband explained that it was more likely a poisoning, turned to the reception with advice, and I was sent to the hotel doctor, who was told to take it from 8 in the morning. Previously, when we were on vacation, we never went to the doctors (there was no reason and this was the first time), although we always made an insurance contract with full coverage without a deductible, so we turned to the reception. I felt very bad, but the doctor came not at 8, but at 9, although at the reception everyone said to wait another 15-20 minutes. The doctor is not Russian-speaking, with an interpreter he asked me what was wrong with me, asked if there was insurance and said that I needed to see a doctor, and he was a honey. brother: ))) Why the reception does not say this is not clear that there is no doctor in the hotel. And the "doctor" said that only if I pay 100 dollars, he will call a doctor, or you need to call your insurance company, which will compensate them for this. I waited an hour for the "doctor" to find out, if only the hotel would explain something... Maybe I unknowingly slander the doctor in vain, but I had severe poisoning (I will not describe all the terrible details of the night), despite the fact that I control my diet, as I generally eat according to separate meals, but when they ate, waiting for the morning, they realized that they would not provide assistance at the hotel...
Later, we realized that alcoholic drinks in the hotel are not always foreign-made, but often given by locals, because the spouse rarely drinks and sometimes cognac, or less often whiskey, but he was not the best and he didn’t feel very well afterwards. But this is not only in this hotel, so this is not news to us.
Cocktails took more often non-alcoholic mojito and sometimes a cocktail with Martini - everything is fine in cocktails!

In general, I can say that the hotel is normal, for rest everyone chooses what is more important to whom, but we will definitely rest in the Barut chain, just choose another hotel on our next vacation.