Mark Warner Phokaia Beach Resort

I stayed with my sisters in connected rooms. Foça has mossy beaches, but you can view a magnificent sunset. Even though there were fly whisks, it took me days to recover from mosquito bites. All inclusive meals were delicious, since food prices are over the top in Turkiye, I ate so much and even gained weight. Hotel staff was polite and friendly.

I generally liked the hotel's breakfasts, lunchs and dinners with various options and the staff was very polite. However, there are a lot of mosquitoes in Foça, I was itchy for days after leaving the hotel, so I don't think of going to this seaside resort again. The fly screen at the entrance of the small balcony is of no use, and when you close it, you will be boiling in the heat until the morning. That's why I left the air conditioner on until the morning one night. Apart from that, I didn't swim much because the sea bottom was full of algae. The sunbathing areas at the adult beach were also extremely dirty. The young people working as animator were polite, mostly British people stay at the hotel.

A really good holiday with pre teenage kids and family with toddler/baby. On arrival baggage was taken to the rooms while we enjoyed a welcome drink in the foyer. Nice touch, good service MW. Most meals were taken in the top restaurant, buffet, kids of all ages loved this as did the adults. The food was good, plenty of choice. I have not seen the kids eat so much salad before. Well done chef. The 17:30 kids meal at the beach bar was great to give the older kids enough to get to the 19:00 main meal. Pizza and chips type of thing. After a day of water sports, crèche or kids club this is really necessary. Extra meals at the bbq night, excellent, also at the beach bar. Again good. Rooms were for us in the main hotel, adjoining with twins for the kids. Fridge and good hair dryer. Clean, comfortable and mostly quiet. At the weekend the hotel fills any empty rooms with locals from Izmir wanting a night away or celebrating, this can get noisy and we did have to complain on that one night. The beach bar is where the late night party happens but we hardly heard it and our relatives near the tennis courts were also not effected. Sports, where to start. Sailing. Really good place to sail, learner or advanced. It’s windy and sheltered by a land spit and island. Really impressed by the equipment and the staff were top notch. Picos, Laser, Quest, Bahia, Dart16 and foyle laser. Special mention to G the head instructor, great instruction and the girls think your great. Cycling. Bring your peddles, shoes and lid. Bikes are not the Cannondale the website claims but Specialized Diverge road bikes. The quality of the bike was reasonable although late in the season Tariq was having to scrounge extra tubes. His guiding was really good. Limited routes due to the military ranges and I wouldn’t bother mountain biking here but for the road it’s ok. Tennis and Pickle ball. We played but didn’t have coaching. Courts and racquets all good. Fitness room, classes and pools got no complaints from any of us. We highly recommend this holiday at Foca and would return. That says it all.

My partner and I have just returned from a fantastic week at Phokaia Beach Resort Turkey. This was our first Mark Warner holiday together, and we loved every moment. The activities were plentiful, the food was great, the staff were brilliant and the resort was beautiful. Our sport of choice is cycling, which we did lots of (guided and on our own), but we also did lots of other things (our new favourite sport is Pickleball). Special mention goes out to Tarek and Enes, the bike crew. They were great fun and attentive to everyone's ability. We will definitely be returning.

Pros The English staff at the beach club and all other areas are superb! The care for children and their enjoyment is second to none and if your family love adventure then this is for you! The beach area and tiki bar is great Good food options for kids - adults it can get a little repetitive and unimpressive Cons Price on wine and cocktails at £30plus and £10 plus is unnecessary and I think they continue to change prices as the GBP/LIRA rate moves rather relying on local prices and availability. If they were cheaper I think there would have been more people at the bars. Noise at night is unacceptable especially in the family rooms by the beach / lack of sound insulation and with younger children they are tired by 10pm - music seems to be turned up to the max until 12/12.30 - night club level of noise - came close to complaining one night Feel that the Turkish part of the staff are not as accommodating as the English staff and are much more welcoming to Turkish holiday makers Beds could be a better quality. Wifi is a bit hit and miss but get multiple log ins and it works better but not work strength! In summation I would return but no where near the beach due to noise issues and with the cost of the holiday maybe wait for a last minute deal. With a couple of tweaks it would be brilliant!!

What a brilliant time we have just had at the Mark Warner Phokaia Beach Resort. We did seven days there, actually six once you factor in the 12hr door to door travelling and it was just so fun, as I believe is the term now. We have been on Mark Warner holidays before (including to Phokaia) so knew the form. A nice rep came to meet us at the airport (late on Sat evening) and explained to us, with the help of timetables and schedules, the format for the coming week. In short, activities for everyone every day. My 13-yr old son was packed off to the Kidz (sic) Club and there met a great bunch of like-minded children, while my wife and I picked and chose between lounging by and a few lengths of the pool, swimming in the sea, tennis, and water-skiing. Actually my son is the waterskier and Cagatay and Tunc (sorry for the spelling) who were running the skiing really made the holiday. They were just fantastic. Understanding of and taking it more gently with me (coming out of a recentish hip op) and encouraging my son to go further, seeing that he is impatient to do more and so challenging him which he responded to brilliantly (well I would say that, wouldn't I). We had such fun with those guys. Now, the water at Phokaia isn't necessarily the best for waterskiing (Paleros, Sivota much better) as the wind really does get up. There were also zillions of (barrel) jellyfish in the sea which provided added incentive to get up quickly and then not to wipe out but they were a minor distraction. Despite the wind and the jellyfish, however, it is the staff that make it and we weren't going there to run a slalom course, just to have fun, and that's just what we had from Cagatay and Tunc. Smiles all round every day. I attended the social tennis in the afternoons. There are also morning formal courses which I vaguely remember as being complimentary elsewhere or previously but not here (I think they were around £100 for the week, could be £120). I am a very mediocre tennis player (hi guys if anyone is reading this from the group) and both my fellow guests and the staff there, Steven, Will and Karay (again apols for the spelling) were super supportive. I took part in an "after hours" (ie 6pm) server clinic (group, charged for) run by Will and in that one hour he completely transformed my service. If I could apply what he told me every time I served I would be a slightly less very mediocre tennis player so huge thanks for that. What else? The food is, as with these places, reliable and plentiful. I tried and failed not to overeat so attempted to have vaguely sensible things - I might have eaten the resort out of its fantastic grilled (right in front of you) sea bream. Perfect with the local Angora white wine. I am a decaf coffee drinker and that was provided (in jars) but it might have been nice to have proper coffee decaf but I'm perfectly happy with what was there. Of the restaurant staff, Emin and Berk were particularly helpful and friendly. We didn't venture

What a brilliant time we have just has at the Mark Warner Phokaia Beach Resort. We did seven days there, actually six once you factor in the 12hr door to door travelling and it was just so fun, as I believe is the term now. We have been on Mark Warner holidays before (including to Phokaia) so knew the form. A nice rep came to meet us at the airport (late on Sat evening) and explained to us, with the help of timetables and schedules, the format for the coming week. In short, activities for everyone every day. My 13-yr old son was packed off to the Kidz (sic) Club and there met a great bunch of like-minded children, while my wife and I picked and chose between lounging by and a few lengths of the pool, swimming in the sea, tennis, and water-skiing. Actually my son is the waterskier and Cagatay and Tunc (sorry for the spelling) who were running the skiing really made the holiday. They were just fantastic. Understanding of and taking it more gently with me (coming out of a recentish hip op) and encouraging my son to go further, seeing that he is impatient to do more and so challenging him which he responded to brilliantly (well I would say that, wouldn't I). We had such fun with those guys. Now, the water at Phokaia isn't necessarily the best for waterskiing (Paleros, Sivota much better) as the wind really does get up. There were also zillions of (barrel) jellyfish in the sea which provided added incentive to get up quickly and then not to wipe out but they were a minor distraction. Despite the wind and the jellyfish, however, it is the staff that make it and we weren't going there to run a slalom course, just to have fun, and that's just what we had from Cagatay and Tunc. Smiles all round every day. I attended the social tennis in the afternoons. There are also morning formal courses which I vaguely remember as being complimentary elsewhere or previously but not here (I think they were around £100 for the week, could be £120). I am a very mediocre tennis player (hi guys if anyone is reading this from the group) and both my fellow guests and the staff there, Steven, Will and Karay (again apols for the spelling) were super supportive. I took part in an "after hours" (ie 6pm) server clinic (group, charged for) run by Will and in that one hour he completely transformed my service. If I could apply what he told me every time I served I would be a slightly less very mediocre tennis player so huge thanks for that. What else? The food is, as with these places, reliable and plentiful. I tried and failed not to overeat so attempted to have vaguely sensible things - I might have eaten the resort out of its fantastic grilled (right in front of you) sea bream. Perfect with the local Angora white wine. I am a decaf coffee drinker and that was provided (in jars) but it might have been nice to have proper coffee decaf but I'm perfectly happy with what was there. Of the restaurant staff, Emin and Berk were particularly helpful and friendly. We didn't venture

This was our first visit to Mark Warners Phokaia Beach. We were warmly welcomed at the airport by the MW team. Upon arrival to the resort itself we were greeted by the Staff there and enjoyed some welcome drinks. In the meantime our bags were being dropped to our rooms which we hadn’t experienced on a MW holiday. This was an added bonus! We were in block 5. All the rooms that we had were very clean and well maintained. Some mornings you could hear the tennis lessons taking place which did wake us up a few times. The waterfront team were excellent. The choice of equipment was great. The wind did fluctuate throughout our two week stay which made interesting conditions to sail/windsurf in. If you go out further in the sea there were lots of jellyfish but reassuringly we were told no one had been stung yet! Some early risers in the group saw dolphins in the water one morning. I did several different cycles during the stay. I would recommend the breakfast cycle. It’s a nice morning ride and of course you stop for breakfast after some steep uphill climbs! Town is nearby. You can take a taxi for roughly 90/100 Turkish lira. Market day is on a Tuesday so you can go into town to experience some Turkish culture or buy some fakes. The food in the restaurant was good. The freshly cooked pasta choice changed every night and the pasta chef was excellent. The local staff in the restaurant spoke little English, which created a problem when dealing with food allergies. It’s not easy trying to explain this through Google translate! Whilst the English mark Warner staff were excellent in helping us, more needs to be done by the Turkish resteraunt staff to accommodate for these needs. Within our party of 14 people many did experience a upset stomach at some point during the stay. Talking to other people on resort it seemed like this was a issue a few were facing. Evening entertainment was not as good as previous years with MW in other locations. Although Leah did run a great music quiz on Tuesday night. There was an abundance of activities to get involved in, from aqua aerobics to beach volley ball every afternoon and water polo. Not to mention the non stop fitness classes. Pickle ball was a new game which we hadn’t played before this holiday, it’s similar to tennis but on a smaller court. Every Monday the tennis team organise a pickle ball tournament which I would recommend getting involved in. On Monday nights we didn’t eat in the main restaurant as it wasn’t included so one week we went into town to eat. The following week we went to the Jeti Bar which does lots of different options . Wraps, burgers etc… The service in the Jeti Bar was a bit slow and we had to share one menu for a table of 10! The sunset view was a beautiful setting. All in all we feel that this is the largest, most luxurious and clean Mark Warner we have stayed in, from the beach, to the pool and accommodation. Overall we had a fantastic stay, but some small flaws overshadowed