Ducale Lara

Recently stayed at this property expecting a premium experience given the high prices charged, but it fell completely short of basic hospitality standards. Do not waste money on this property under the impression that it offers a luxury or high-end experience. Destinations like Philippines, Thailand, Bali, or Sri Lanka offer far superior accommodations, exceptional service, and true value for a premium price. Facilities & Room Quality: The rooms are severely outdated and poorly maintained. Shower heads are broken and hanging, furniture is broken and damaged, bathroom fixtured are either broken or fixed by a 5 year old (as shown in the attached photos). Service & Hospitality: English language proficiency among general staff is extremely limited, making basic communication difficult. Out of dozens of staff members who served us, I found only two who showed genuine warmth or hospitality. Reception & call center staff were exceptionally rude, unwelcoming, and unhelpful. Front Desk & Check-In Process: . The check-in process took an unreasonable 45 minutes. Dining & "Ultra All-Inclusive" Value: The "Ultra All-Inclusive" package is a major letdown with very limited, low-quality options. The Burger House restaurant, in particular, served terrible food. Safety Concerns: Beach lifeguards off-duty at 6:00 PM, despite sunset occurring around 7:50 PM, leaving guests without safety monitoring during peak evening swim hours. Overpriced & Restrictive Transport: The hotel inflates transport prices significantly, charging double the standard rate for airport transfers. Additionally, management blocks ride-hailing services (such as Uber and BiTaksi) from entering the property for pickups, forcing guests to rely on their expensive private transit.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ DUCALE LARA – OUR HONEST REVIEW ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ We’ve just returned from Ducale Lara and overall, we had a really lovely stay. It’s a beautiful, huge complex with plenty going on, but it’s also spacious enough that you don’t feel like you have to play Hunger Games at 7am to get a sun lounger 😂 — have a sleep in! 🍽️ FOOD The food was really nice, with lots of fresh stations, fresh breads and some lovely desserts. Breakfast was a particular favourite. The pastries were freshly baked and delicious, and the omelettes made to order were a great touch. The à la carte restaurants are also a nice addition. We tried the Italian and really enjoyed the food. It was also catered nicely for children, which is always a bonus for families. Shout out to Emre and ‘Kevin’ for looking after us 🏨 ROOMS & CLEANLINESS The rooms were really nice and comfortable. The beds were absolutely fine — no complaints from us! The TV had Netflix as well as a few English channels, which was a nice bonus for relaxing in the room in the evening. Our room was cleaned every day and we honestly couldn’t fault the cleaners. Fresh towels were provided and the minibar was regularly restocked. We upgraded to a swim-up room for the last few nights, which cost us around £110 per night, and for us it was absolutely worth it. Having the swim-up pool was such a lovely extra and made the last few days of the holiday feel even more special. 🍹 POOLS, BARS & BEACH The swim-up pool bar is lovely, and the waiter service around the hotel is a really nice touch. Especially the waiters/waitress on the roller blades delivering drinks, slushes and milkshakes. This was great! We hired a pier cabana and the butler team were amazing. Nothing was too much trouble and they really looked after us. The beach had a really nice atmosphere, with families enjoying themselves and plenty of water sports available. There were people simply relaxing, families having fun and generally really nice holiday vibes. The beach bars are lovely too — and the caramel iced lattes 👌🏼 were a particular favourite! 🎾 THINGS TO DO There’s plenty to keep everyone occupied. The padel courts are available to use — you just leave a €20 deposit and get it back when you return the rackets. The water slides were brilliant and very well manned by the lifeguards. They definitely run a tight ship! Entertainment for the younger children was nice, with a show most nights. We also enjoyed the live music outside the Piazza Bar. It was a chilled atmosphere with waiter service, which made it a lovely place to sit and have a drink in the evening. 🚌 GETTING OUT & ABOUT The shops are around 10 minutes away in a taxi. We actually used the bus, which was only 50p per person, and you can even use Apple Pay on there, which made things really easy. ⚠️ THE NEGATIVES There were a few things that we weren’t so keen on. The hotel seemed to be predominantly Russian and Turkish while we were there. This isn’t necessarily a negative in itself, but one thing we did find difficult was the lack of queueing and order in the restaurants. People would often push in rather than wait their turn, which could be frustrating, particularly at busy times. Smoking is also very common throughout the resort, including around the pools, bars and outdoor seating areas. If you’re sensitive to smoke, it’s definitely something to be aware of. Unfortunately, we also experienced something we’ve never experienced on holiday before — a pool being contaminated on three separate occasions. Apparently the affected pool was closed because of contamination, but there weren’t clear signs explaining why it was closed. This meant people could potentially return to the pool without knowing what had happened. For us, this was probably the biggest negative. It would have been much better if the hotel had clearly communicated what was happening and why the pool was closed, so guests knew to stay away. ⭐️ OVERALL Despite those negatives, we really enjoyed our stay at Ducale Lara. The hotel itself is beautiful, the complex is huge and there’s plenty to do, but it never felt like you were constantly fighting for space. Our highlights were definitely the food, swim-up room, swim-up bar, beach bars, pier cabana, water slides and the overall chilled atmosphere. The staff we personally dealt with were lovely and couldn’t have been more helpful. Would we go back? Yes — but we’d definitely go back knowing about the few negatives mentioned above.

Stayed for a week 2 adults and 2 children aged 13 and 9. Pools - fantastic pool areas kept very clean and big enough not to feel crowded. Water slide park great but does close at times and gets crowded. Didn't use the adults pool. Hired a cabana for the day, 110€. No major sunbed wars as there are so many, no one queueing at 7am or anything like you get elsewhere. Food - all the food we had was really good for an all inclusive hotel, the main buffet restaurant is well varied but does get extremely busy at certain times and you’ll struggle to get a table, but 15 mins can make all the difference. A lot of guests very greedy taking and wasting too much food, but not the hotels fault. Waffles in the afternoon are lovely, and there is ice cream available pretty much all day and evening from somewhere. Staff - on the whole extremely friendly and welcoming, most speak English well and will always fetch someone else to help if they don’t. Rooms - we had a standard room which overlooked the car park and the hotel next door with a very narrow balcony, I knew I’d booked the lowest room class but I’d probably spend a little more next time and get at least pool view which have a bigger balcony. We had one night of loud noise from the next door hotel laundry late into the evening which would have been an issue had it been every night. Room cleaning was a little hit and miss, sometimes good sometimes things got missed, not the end of the world. Local area - we came for a week of relaxation so only went out once into Lara shops which was the usual chaotic Turkish shopping experience, unless you travel further into Antalya there isn’t much to see, and nowhere walking distance. This wasn’t a downside for us as we were here to relax but worth bearing in mind if you want to get out and about. Taxi 30€ return into Lara and the driver waits with you, but does take you to what feels like ‘his friends shop’ initially…! One thing I will mention is the smoking situation, people smoke everywhere (literally) outdoors and there is a constant smell of smoke wherever you go. No regard is given to children being around, and people are happily smoking away next to the kids splash park. I’m not massively anti-smoking, as long as it’s done away from others I’ve no issue with it at all, but this aspect alone would stop me from returning here. The clientele appear to predominantly Turkish, Russian and Middle Eastern, the British are very much a minority at this hotel, not a problem for us, but perhaps the smoking element is a cultural thing? All in all we had a great week and would recommend the hotel happily, with the caveat that you must enjoy smoking!!

We stayed here as a family of four (two adults and two kids age 13 and 10) the third week of August. We were a little wary having read some of the recent reviews but honestly, we needn’t have been – we had an absolutely brilliant time! Food – we ate in the buffet every breakfast time, which was busy but no more so than other all-inclusive hotels we’ve stayed in. We always found a table with no fuss, the quality and choice of food available was really good, and the waiting staff friendly and helpful. For lunch, we always ate in one of the on-site restaurants with our favourite being the Turkish one, the pides and rotisserie chicken being particular highlights. For evening meals, we ate in the steakhouse a-la-carte once which was amazing, and ate in the Italian a-la-carte twice which was very good. We ate in the buffet restaurant twice and it was very hectic in the evening. Again, we always managed to find a table okay, but the queues for some of the food stations were long, particularly the grill stations. The lamp chops and adana were worth the wait though! Drinks – no shortage of bars in the hotel buildings and around the pools, and the service was always quick and friendly. The Tuborg on draught was fine although tended to go a little flat due to the plastic or paper cups around the pool areas, the Irish bar and beach bar served it in bottles though which were much better. The cocktails were fine, typical all-inclusive type, and they did make us cocktails that weren’t on the list. Facilities – room was fine if a little small, beds were made and towels replaced every day. As I say, there are a lot of bars in the hotel and they all had plenty of space to sit and have a drink. The main pool was massive so plenty of space for the kids to play on floats etc. The beach was nice too with plenty of staff around and available to help with anything. My daughter had a tiny graze on her foot one day and wanted a plaster, and one member of staff and two lifeguards turned up to see to her! Entertainment – the daytime entertainment was the usual pool games like water polo (good fun!); darts, football etc. The evening entertainment wasn’t as good as in other hotels we’ve stayed in and mainly featured dance acts, some better than others. Extras – as I say, we booked the a-la-cartes for three of our nights and would have happily ate in them every night, the food was very good and the waiting staff really polite and pleasant. We also booked a pier cabana for one of our days and absolutely loved it, couldn’t recommend it any higher! Shoutouts – as I said, we found literally every member of staff we interacted with to be nice and friendly. Particular shoutouts though are to Kenan who does the entertainment and was friendly, chatty and fun, and to Mete Can who looked after us brilliantly during our day on the pier cabana. He literally couldn’t do enough for us – despite having a stocked fridge in our cabana, we ran out of bottles of Tuborg and asked Mete could we have a beer each, and within minutes he turned up with an ice bucket full of beer! So overall, we were perfectly happy with our stay and are already looking to rebook for next year!

Amazing Exceptional 👍👍👍👍 Me and my family travel alot at least 4 times a year as its the only time we can spend all together. I must say Ducale Lara is by far one of the best resorts i have been to in the many hotels i have been to in turkey italy cyprus ect. It is definitely a 5star hotel with excellent service and staff, especially the hygiene and cleanliness of the hotel all over in and out the hotel the rooms and lobby the restaurant also. Me and my family spent 2weeks all inclusive and never got bored once from the hotel or the food as there is so much to choose from. The location is perfect also to all the bazar areas and shops. The pool is amazing with a bar in the middle and right out by the side the area is cleaned during the whole day and every night and made spotless. The in door pool with air-conditioning is like heaven if you have had a long day under the sun and need some peace and quite in the chilled atmosphere. We usually feel that we have had enough on our 10th day every year but this year was a blessing we never felt like we had enough and want to go back home, i work very long hours and honestly for the first time had one of the best relaxing and refreshing holiday i vould have had we are all recharged ready to go back to work and school. I stayed in Titanic a 2years ago which is a very well know 5 star hotel which is 10mnts down the road from Ducale and I must say the staff and hotel are alot better in Ducale the food and calmness, the fact you don't need to run around for spaces at the pool and beach is a bonus they have honestly thought every possible thing for their visitors in the rooms in every part of the hotel. Any problems and all staff are ready to resolve and rectify anything. I will be back most definitely. I can assure you that this holiday has been unforgettable very restful and full of things to do with the best of everything to be expected from a hotel.