White City Resort

⭐ White City Resort – Our Honest Family Review

We’ve just returned from White City Resort and wanted to leave an honest review because there are some things this hotel does exceptionally well, but also some significant issues which ultimately mean we wouldn’t return.

Arrival & First Impressions

Our arrival day was extremely long. We travelled from around 10am until 1am due to runway delays and road resurfacing in Turkey. The journey from Antalya Airport took around 3 hours instead of the usual 1.5 hours.

We booked a private transfer rather than using the Jet2 transfer, which was definitely the right decision. We were told the Jet2 transfer would have taken over 4 hours.

Despite the journey, our first impression was excellent. The hotel is beautiful, modern, exceptionally clean and very well presented, with welcoming staff and late-night food available. The pasta, chips and pizza were much appreciated after such a long day.

Our room was clean and comfortable, with fantastic air conditioning and extremely comfortable beds. Unfortunately, the “side sea view” was disappointing — we could barely see the sea and mainly overlooked a building site.

🍽️ Food

Food was very mixed.

Breakfast was good, with lots of egg options, good omelettes and plenty of bread and choices for the children. Buffet coffee wasn’t great, but the patisserie coffee was exceptional. The sandwiches, croissants, ice cream, juices and smoothies there were also excellent.

The main buffet was our biggest disappointment. The food was far too repetitive, with very little variation between meals. Popular dishes weren’t always replenished and the buffet could be extremely crowded.

On one occasion, grown adults were elbowing my six-year-old out of the way for chicken and chips. We later tried arriving later, only to find food and even desserts being cleared before the advertised end of service. Our children didn’t get dessert that evening.

However, the buffet did improve towards the end of our stay. A Day 4 lunch was fresher with a slight variation, and the seafood-themed evening was genuinely excellent, with mussels, prawns, squid and fried anchovies.

So our issue wasn’t that the food was always bad — it was the lack of variety, inconsistency and replenishment.

🍴 À La Carte Restaurants

This was another major disappointment.

We booked believing there were three à la carte restaurants plus the buffet. On arrival, we discovered that guests could only use one à la carte restaurant once during the entire stay. We were also told the steak restaurant had been closed for some time.

This was very different from our previous all-inclusive experiences, where multiple speciality restaurants could each be used once. Had we known this beforehand, it would have affected our decision to book.

We used the seafood restaurant and unfortunately had the worst meal of the holiday — possibly the worst meal I’ve ever had.

The starters were already on the table when we arrived and didn’t taste fresh. The menu was on a damp, well-used piece of paper, communication with the server was difficult and our two children were given one meal to share.

The pasta was bland and inedible, while the salmon was overcooked. We were only offered one drink and weren’t asked again if we wanted anything. We left before dessert.

The beach à la carte was much better. The food was tasty, although the app ordering system was strange, with additional dishes being brought that we hadn’t ordered. We were also told we couldn’t take a wrap back to our sunbeds.

🏊 Pool, Beach & Facilities

The pool is fantastic. Great temperature and depth, and the children absolutely loved the slides.

The sea was lovely and warm too.

Sunbeds around the pool are reserved very early, so as late starters we never got one in the morning. From around 2–3pm, however, we could usually find beds once people left because of the heat. This wasn’t a huge problem for us as the kids had us on the slides most of the day anyway.

The games room was good and the children were given complimentary tokens, which they loved.

We didn’t use the spa, so can’t comment on it.

We also didn’t use Starbucks as it was only open for a few hours and the queues always appeared very long.

❤️ Kids’ Club

A special mention has to go to Brianna from the kids’ club.

Our children are quite shy and, as anxious parents, we’d never used a kids’ club before. Brianna made such a difference and completely put us at ease.

The kids absolutely loved being with her and clearly felt comfortable and happy, which made it so much easier for us to leave them knowing they were having fun.

They were so proud of their kids’ club T-shirts, presented to them at the mini disco, and couldn’t wait to wear them again the following day!

By the last day, they loved the kids’ club so much that they nearly made us late for our transfer because they simply didn’t want to leave! 😂

Brianna was exceptional with them and we honestly couldn’t have asked for a better experience. She turned something we were initially very nervous about into one of the highlights of their holiday.

Thank you, Brianna! ❤️

🎤 Entertainment – Outstanding

The best hotel entertainment I have ever seen. Unbelievable.

The entertainment team are incredibly talented, engaging and brilliant to watch. The shows were professional, energetic and genuinely entertaining.

The foam party was fantastic and the music was great. There was always something happening and the entertainment was easily one of the biggest highlights of the holiday.

🍹 Bars & Staff

The cocktails were really good, with a good range of drinks and premium brands.

Several staff members were exceptional:

Natia – Beach Restaurant: Fantastic service, friendly and attentive.

Agus – Bar: Friendly, hardworking and professional.

Mehmet – Buffet: Extremely attentive and particularly brilliant with our children.

Yunus Emre – Bar: Incredible service. He had the best memory for drinks and would often have ours ready before we’d even reached the front of the queue.

Brianna – Kids’ Club: Exceptional with our children and made us feel completely at ease.

These individual staff members genuinely made a difference to our holiday.

Staff & Management

Most of the working staff were lovely, hardworking and welcoming. However, we regularly witnessed senior management disciplining staff in front of guests.

From our perspective, some of these interactions appeared very uncomfortable and at times almost like bullying, particularly towards some Filipino staff.

Obviously, we don’t know the circumstances behind these situations, so this is purely our observation. It was simply uncomfortable to witness, particularly when the staff being spoken to appeared to be some of the friendliest and hardest-working people there.

We also had a few service issues that didn’t feel particularly 5-star. For example, when we requested an iron, we were told to collect it ourselves. When we arrived at reception, there wasn’t one available yet and we had to wait.

Late Check-Out

We paid for a late check-out, which was extremely helpful. I had been apprehensive about our final day, but having the room longer meant we could properly enjoy it — and we thoroughly did.

⭐ Overall Verdict

This is a difficult hotel to rate because the actual hotel and facilities are fantastic.

It’s modern, beautiful, extremely clean and has excellent pools, slides, entertainment, cocktails and some genuinely exceptional staff.

However, we ultimately wouldn’t return.

For us, the problems were the buffet crowds, lack of tables, repetitive food, inconsistent replenishment, limited à la carte dining, the closed steak restaurant, excessive rules around where you can eat, some very rude guest behaviour and the management issues.

The restaurant situation was particularly disappointing because it wasn’t what we believed we were booking

Large family rooms, very clean, 3 pools and waterslide, kids club was brilliant especially Brianna :), good food choice and ice cream, Starbucks was a good but had to que. More pool activities for kids needed, shows were fantastic and beach club food was the best . Shuttle to Alanya would be my only recommendation good family holiday :)Burul very helpful thanks x

We arrived at White City Hotel, late at night (12:30am) to find our room was NOT ready. My family and I were issued with our All Inclusive bands and suggested we had a drink and some food whilst we wait. We had to wait over 2 hours for our room to be come available! - this was not a great start to our holiday after a day of travelling. After speaking to other guests this seems to be wide spread problem at White City.

We finally made it to our room, and was surprised to see we had been upgraded to a jacuzzi room. Through tired eyes this looked amazing! We woke up on our first morning ready to start our day. We found the jacuzzi was broken and dirty, my daughter had slept on the most basic, hard camp bed (which had collapsed in the night) and we had no clean towels.

I spoke to Miray from Guest Relations, Miray was so helpful and so understanding. She is a pleasure to speak to. I am pleased to say Miray had sorted all the problems out by lunchtime so we could continue our holiday. Thank you Miray.

Overall we had a lovely time. The food was plentiful and tasty with a good choice. Great selection of drinks with no limits. The snacks throughout the day are also enjoyable.

We enjoyed the pool and slides every day. The massages are incredible too - just beware the staff insist you need to book another session. They make it sound like a medical necessity when I simply just wanted a one off holiday treat.

All the staff are friendly and they all go above and beyond to help you. A special thanks to the evening bar staff for remember my drinks order! - as a suggestion more staff could work the inside bar as this gets very busy and there only seems to be one person working! The entertainment team were great too. Full of energy and very chatty!

A big shout out to Brianna in Kids Club. She is a lovely girl who made all the children feel special. My daughter was so excited to see her everyday and enjoyed all the activities. Brianna gave the parents total peace of mind while making sure the children had the best time. Her genuine warmth and care did not go unnoticed. Thank you Brianna!

A lovely hotel and fantastic holiday. I would defiantly recommend this hotel.