Hello, fairytale creatures!
Are you ready for our 7th Trip of the year? 777! This time, it’s a trip to Alanya! If you plan to visit, Alanya Travel Guide is for you!
A New Adventure Begins: Putting Our Trust in a Travel Agency
I hope you enjoyed reading about our recent adventures in Budapest, Vienna, and Bratislava. It was quite a journey! But this time, we decided to do things a bit differently and put everything into the hands of a travel agency.
WOOOOOOOWWWWW, HOW DID YOU DECIDE THAT???? WHY??????? YOUR PLANNING WAS AWESOME. HOW COULD YOU GIVE YOURSELF TO THE TRAVEL AGENCY’S HANDS?????????
Explore our past self-planned adventures.
Alanya Travel Guide: TOP 5 Things to Do, Attractions & Tips
Our Trip Introduction: Bratislava, Vienna, Budapest
Trip to Bratislava: Unraveling History, Facts, & Local Delights
Trip To Budapest: Thermal Baths, Danube Cruises & Buda Castle
Trip To Vienna: Best Places to Visit, Local Vibes & Architecture
Trip Report – Budapest, Vienna, Bratislava
If you’re wondering the same thing, well, so am I
But fear not! This Alanya travel guide is about using travel agencies in Alanya for better planning. We will share our opinions on this.
If you’re planning to explore Alanya’s best places without a travel agency, our experiences might be of assistance. We managed certain aspects on our own to provide valuable insights.
So, make the most of this chance to gain fresh knowledge, and you certainly won’t want to miss the story either! Back on track!
Back on track!
The Pros and Cons of Agency Travel: Lessons from Alanya
However, we tossed aside those plans when we realized the expensive cost of renting a trailer in the summer. So we decided to go with a more authentic approach and camp with a tent. The post about the Yaga gathering will come as soon as possible, so stay tuned!
Donatas and I decided to abandon the camper plan. We wanted to take a break and explore last-minute travel deals through an agency. July was already pretty intense, but why not make it even more exciting? We came up with the idea of a trip to Alanya!
We immediately started looking for a new adventure after returning from our trip to Budapest, Vienna, and Bratislava. On the 27th, we stumbled upon a deal offered by “Travel Academy” in Lithuania.
The deal included flights, transfers, and Saritas Hotel for 316.83. The cost is EUR per person. The cost is EUR per person.
We will depart on July 4th and return on July 11th. This is right before the NATO summit in Vilnius and the festival that we were excited about.
Usually, we inspect Saritas hotels before making a reservation. However, this time, we assumed the travel agency had already conducted the necessary research. We believed they would not provide us with a subpar hotel for the price.
Well, guess what? We got a lousy hotel – Hotel Ipsos in Beldibi, Turkey.
Cost of Living in Alanya: Balancing Budget & Comfort
We thought this hotel would be bad, but it turned out to be the worst for a 7-day vacation. We wanted to relax by the pool, but it felt like a place to work instead.
We immediately tried to find a solution and called the assigned agent. At first, she didn’t want to help. However, she soon realized that she had two options.
She could either lose over 300 euros and cancel the trip or switch hotels.
Luckily, the agent agreed to ask the travel agency they bought trips from if it was possible to change the hotel. And thankfully, it was! We had to pay a bit more but opted for a more decent hotel – Saritas Hotel. It’s not a 5-star hotel, but it’s much better, and I’ll share more details about it soon
The agent was kind enough to facilitate the exchange for free, so we paid an additional 107.06 EUR per person for the better hotel. We realized a better option wouldn’t be available, so we went for it and slightly exceeded our budget.
As budget travelers, we have limitations, but IT IS WHAT IT IS! As I said, staying and working in a lousy hotel for 7 days wasn’t the best option for us. I thank the agent very much, as she did everything she could in this situation and didn’t leave us hanging.
So the total price for the trip to Alanya for one person is 423.89 EUR, so quick maths – 847.78 EUR for both of us.
So, coming to the beginning of our trip, hoorayyyyy!!
Our flight was very early, the earliest we’ve ever had on any of our trips – 04:20. Because of our luggage, we had to arrive at the airport earlier. The beginning of the trip to Alanya went well.
Navigating the Russian Language in Turkey
When we landed and passed passport control, we waited about an hour to pick up our luggage. Not so bad. Remember that this is the high season in Turkey in July.
Then, it was time to find where is our bus. We found the travel agency’s table outside. The lady gave us a piece of paper with our bus number written on it.
After going for about 10 minutes, we found that bus finally! We didn’t think we would find it, but we had to walk to the end of the long line of buses.
Our first surprise when we reached the bus was that the agent was talking ONLY in Russian. It would be nice of you to know some essential words in English. I felt disappointed with the agents of Join Up company because they couldn’t speak English and refused to do so.
I was just speechless as I didn’t like it at all. The trip to Alanya started like this. How cool that I was pissed that we could not communicate in a language we all understand.
Luckily, I know some Russian from school and can understand a lot. I just listened to the important things she told us.
They informed us that our agent would meet us at the hotel. Our agent would inform us about the bus schedule from the airport. The agent mentioned her name.
That’s all. She talked about Turkey and did a quiz, but I didn’t want to join, even though I understood her.
It wasn’t nice to assume that all Lithuanians and everyone who comes to Turkey for a holiday speak Russian. It was a terrible experience.
Saritas Hotel Review: Sun, Sand, and WiFi Quality
So, around noon, we finally reached our Saritas hotel and checked in. Of course, we got the worst possible room.: D We got it on the 5th floor, the only floor needing renovation. How cool is that? See it for yourselves
The Saritas hotel “was clean”, and the food was decent, which was surprising because I thought it would be worse. The alcohol, including beer and white and red wines, was also good. Thumbs up for that! Cocktails – well, I didn’t try them, but Donatas wouldn’t recommend drinking them as he said it was just shit
This post first appeared on Tales Of Empty Chairs | Adventure Blog, Stories & Tips, please read the originial post: here
