I don’t know about you but if you have kids going on holiday in half term is expensive!Just back from my holiday at Land of Legends in Belek, Antalya Turkey. Without joining the Family Holidays with Kids Facebook group I wouldn’t have known about loveholidays which we booked with. Here is a short review with photos of course (taken on an old pocket handbagged size digital camera and only a 2MB memory – after all who wants to be bogged down all holiday with a SLR and lenses)!
Short version: We had a good time and enjoyed ourselves. The end.
Long version: Flew in with Thomas Cook (now of course they have ceased trading). Their plane was like being squashed in like a sardine. On the way back it seemed a little bit bigger maybe because we were at the back?
Arrived at the hotel at 10pm. (My advice would be to travel earlier as dinner finished at 9pm.) Had private transfers from airport arranged via loveholidays/holiday taxis. Checked in. Given a list of what was included in the all inclusive and told the man over there would give us the rest of the information. We thought it was the bellboy but he had meant the GUEST INFORMATION desk. This confusion led to us not getting our wristbands till the next morning. The wristbands are given out from the Guest information desk, and you need them to scan into the park entrance and pay for everything extra you need in the park. You can top up the bands at the guest information in the park and get the change refunded when you leave on your last day.
Also there is a Land of Legends souvenir shop OUTSIDE the park which is slightly cheaper than inside the park on some things. Fridge magnets are 10 Turkish lira each of the characters in the park.
The game cards to use the arcade you get from the green desk on the lower ground floor opposite the Nyssa bar after 10am every day and have to be returned by 10pm or midnight. I was always returning them the next day and it was fine. You have to get new ones everyday. You can also ask for Playstation controllers to play in the huts in the arcade by giving them your room numbers. The only downside of the arcade is that most of the kids are not supervised by parents so kids can hog the machines or occasionally get rowdy with each other in the evening after dinner.
There is a Playstation 4 in your room. If you want the controllers you have to put down a refundable deposit of $100 or 100 euros at reception. Or in my case a 500 Turkish lira on my card.
The Nyssa bar is 24 hours but I have only seen two people working in there. When it gets busy, it can take a while to get served as they are also making drinks for the people sitting outside and in the lounge area. The Eternia restaurant serves breakfast and dinner. They did open it up for lunch twice in the week as it was raining. There is always a different grilled meat every night, one night there was fish and chips. You can have chips and ice cream for breakfast if you want as it was available. There were American style pancakes and crepes. You could have your eggs many different ways. Bread, pastries etc. There was a guy baking what looked like pitta bread fresh – this would go like hot cakes! A nice touch was that there was baby food in jars available in the fridge as well as carton milkshake and yogurts. One of the things I say if you are sitting in the restaurant or conservatory try not to sit near the door as the waiters are always carrying loads of drinks (Cokes in glass bottles) and there have been a few time when they have dropped them and the glass smashes on the floor.
In the theme park, your bags are searched before you go in and all food is thrown away. (So don’t nick something from breakfast!) We ate Pizza Express in the park were served by Yasmin. She speaks English and remembered what we liked to eat. The pizza was delicious. Brought some Pringles at Zipline Coffee and it was bout £2.50 for a small can! Ate Fast and Good that was ok too.
Managed to get through nearly all the rides at the park as it was not busy. Most people started coming in to the hotel around Wednesday for Easter. Their flagship rides do make you question why you got on them in the first place – Hypher Coaster (200 feet drop!), Lagoon Coaster (a lift to the drop! Do this in your swimming costume because it hurdles through the water at the end and everyone is soaked!) and the Skywalker (spinning round with NO floor and NO restraints and only G force sticking you to the wall!) The most popular one was the Sky fighter plane ride. The staff at the park are very strict on height and will not let on kids smaller than the minimum height. There is a height measurement ruler at the entrance and every ride so you can check. Bags can be left on a shelf on the side next to ride and flip flops/sunglasses have to be taken off. Only one of the splash parks was open for small kids.
There is a whale and walrus show every day at 2.30pm. The park quietens down at this time so you can get on empty rides or have a peaceful lunch.
Check out took about 5 minutes! Taxi turned up when it said it would. The hotel put a note under my door telling of taxi arrival time and Holiday Taxis sent a text.
