Barut Goia

Overall Impression This resort has all the foundations to be a fantastic 5-star property, but it is currently let down by poor staff attitudes and subpar food quality. Pros Excellent Family Accommodations: The rooms are clean, spacious, and perfect for a family of four. Great Layout for Young Families: The resort size is ideal. The four pools (two large, two baby pools) are well-distributed across the property. Superb Baby Concierge: The "Bary Star" service is brilliant, allowing you to borrow essential items like prams, monitors, and toilet training seats. This doesn’t need to be rebooked. Fantastic Kids' Facilities: The playground and kids' club are excellent for ages 2–6, and the water slides are great fun for both adults and children. Buffet Highlights: The salads and baklava at the buffet were consistently delicious. Sunbed Availability: There were always plenty of sunbeds available (we visited in June, just before peak season). Cons Disappointing & Repetitive Food: The food was quite bland, repetitive, and heavily catered to Russian tastes with a lot of beef-heavy dishes. Tasty vegan/dairy-free food is extremely limited (think porridge at dinner and boiled meat) While there is a separate dietary menu available upon request, it is lacklustre at best. Invisible Management: The catering manager spent a lot of time lurking around the buffet rather than addressing food quality—in the three times a day I saw him, he never once greeted a guest. Unprofessional Entertainment Team: Daytime entertainment is lacking. The entertainment staff (who also run the kids' club) spent most of the day walking around in inappropriate outfits more suited for a club rather than engaging guests. This extended to the kids' mini-disco, which felt unprofessional and oddly seedy, especially as the same staff would head straight off to dance with guests in the nightclub immediately afterward. Abrupt Service: Most staff members seemed abrupt and unfriendly. However, there was a small sprinkling of staff who went out of their way to help—a special thank you to Mehmet at dinner! Substandard Housekeeping: For a 5-star hotel, room cleaning was poor. Most days, only the bins and towels were changed. I had to complain twice to guest services to get the room properly cleaned; when they finally did, they used a dirty pool towel to make "towel art" on the bed. Pool Maintenance & Safety Issues: There is a lot of loose grout around the baby pool. I raised this with guest services multiple times, but they failed to acknowledge the issue. Furthermore, the pool floors felt dirty because staff spray-wash the deck daily, pushing debris directly into the water. Lack of Supervision & Spill Cleanups: There were no regular lifeguards on duty. I also dropped a drink by the pool and asked two separate staff members for assistance to clean it up—no one ever came, and the spill was left for the entire day. In Short: If this resort improved its food standards and hired professional, attentive staff who care about hospitality, it would be a fantastic hotel.

We had an amazing time with my family at this hotel! The staff were so friendly, the entertainment and music was great, there was a lively atmosphere all day. The staff were incredible. The cleaning lady Gonca was amazing and so friendly towards us. Great for travelling with a baby or toddler, they have everything you need from baby baths, to travel strollers, sterilisers, baby food available and made on request if you’re all inclusive. The food was amazing and entertainment was thoroughly enjoyable. All in all we had a great first holiday with our 9 month old baby.

To summarise, my partner and I had a fantastic holiday at Barut GOIA. We’ve stayed at quite a few all-inclusive hotels across Europe, but for the price range, this may well be the nicest one we’ve experienced. The hotel facilities were exceptionally clean, modern, and spacious, including the rooms, which were cleaned daily to a high standard. The buffet offered plenty of variety at both lunch and dinner, with a good selection of tasty dishes. In fact, we only ate outside the hotel once during our stay in Side Old Town which is think says a lot. It was much better than other all inclusive buffets we have had on previous other holidays. We also thought the table service for drinks was a nice touch. The hotel's à la carte restaurants, Olea and Fely, were both excellent and well worth a visit. I'd particularly recommend the steak and the Pad Thai! The beach is only around a five-minute walk from the hotel. There is also a complimentary shuttle service running throughout the day, which is convenient as you need to cross a busy road to get there. The beach club itself is fantastic, with sunbeds, drinks, and a snack bar all included at no extra cost. We never had any issues finding sunbeds around the pools, thanks to the hotel's two large, identical pool areas located at either end of the resort. All of the staff were attentive, friendly, and helpful throughout our stay. I'd especially like to give a special mention to Okan, Musa, and Latif at the Ivy Bar. They kindly made us off-menu spicy margs all week and even ensured the necessary ingredients were stocked at the bar every day. Thank you for going above and beyond! Overall, I don't think you'll regret booking a holiday at Barut GOIA. We thoroughly enjoyed our holiday and are already hoping to return one day. 5/5 – Highly recommended.

We have just returned from a 10-day stay at Barut GOIA and, overall, had a lovely family holiday, although it didn’t quite meet the five-star standard we were expecting. We arrived late at night and appreciated that the buffet was still open. The food was a little bland, but given the time, we didn’t think much of it. What did surprise us was the lack of any welcome or introduction to the hotel. Even a bottle of water and a quick overview of facilities would have been appreciated. Previous hotels we’ve stayed at have offered a welcome drink and a brief introduction to the facilities, which helps you settle in after a long journey. The room was excellent. We stayed in a two-bedroom apartment (Room 1125) with a large balcony. It was quiet, spacious, spotlessly clean and had more storage than my house back home. Fresh towels and water were provided daily, and the minibar was well stocked. A lovely touch was the birthday cake and card left in my room during our stay. The hotel facilities were perfect for our children. The pools, slides and playground are well laid out, making it easy to keep an eye on everyone at once. We never struggled to find sunbeds, although we visited outside peak season. The towel service was also very convenient. Unfortunately, the food was the biggest disappointment. The buffet was repetitive and lacked variety. Chips appeared at almost every meal, including breakfast, which led to daily negotiations with our children about why chips are not a suitable breakfast food. Staff in the buffet restaurant were generally difficult to find when you needed a drink or a table clearing. Strangely, the only day service became extremely attentive was our final day. The kids’ club was another let-down. On our first full day, our 8-year-old and 4-year-old attended the pizza-making activity. There appeared to be only two staff members supervising more than 35 children, and there was no obvious sign-out process. The staff seemed overwhelmed rather than uncaring, but it didn’t inspire confidence. Neither child wanted to return, and the activities on offer throughout the week felt quite basic. Evening entertainment was very hit and miss. Some of the visiting acts were genuinely excellent and very talented. The mini disco beforehand was what you’d expect fun, lots of happy children dancing away while parents recorded memories they will treasure forever. One small observation: some of the outfits worn by the entertainment team felt more suited to a nightclub than a children’s mini disco! Unsure who they were performing for at points!! Kept some of the dads happy though! My biggest criticism of the hotel overall was staffing levels. The staff who were there worked incredibly hard and were generally friendly, but there simply didn’t seem to be enough of them. Bar queues were common throughout the day and evening, often because only one person appeared to be serving. Hopefully this was due to staffing shortages during our stay rather than the norm. A special mention goes to the lady at the waffle station, and the lady in terrace bar both consistently friendly, welcoming and fantastic with guests. We visited Side twice during our stay and would highly recommend Carpe Diem for a meal, drinks and a beautiful sunset. They’ll even come and pick you up from the hotel for free! The holiday finished with one final adventure when our transfer to the airport arrived around 45 minutes early and left without us. After a slightly frantic phone call, the driver returned and apologised, so thankfully we made our flight home without any further drama. Overall, we had a wonderful holiday because of the time spent together as a family. Our children made new friends, we created some fantastic memories and managed to switch off from everyday life. The rooms and facilities were excellent, but the food, kids’ club and staffing levels prevented the experience from feeling truly five star.

We have previously stayed at the Lara Barut and were so impressed we thought we would try another Barut hotel. I would say Goia is amazing if you have small children as the entertainment is fantastic. We have a 14 year old and she did enjoy the shows and live music etc but for us service is more important. We felt this lacked the luxury feel, I don’t think you can compare Goia as 5 stars with Lara Barut as that is on another level. We never had to wait for drinks at Lara and there was always table service there, even at the pool. Don’t get me wrong we had a great week but I would only recommend going back if we had small children with us. I would put this as a 4 star, certainly not 5 star due to the lack of drinks service. I must say the girl at the sunset bar is unreal though. She made the best cocktails. We will return to the Barut hotels but I think the likes of Anda and Lara are more suited to us.