Sherwood Exclusive Lara

The staff was amazing, kind and generous. The place is super clean, we saw someone every time we walked around that was cleaning and keeping up with maintenance. Food was great, tho sometimes the staff misunderstood our orders. The view from the room was also great. Room was clean. Spa was great, a lot of pools so that it never felt crowded. There are a lot of cute cats walking around, activities every day and entertainment at night. Just across the street is a lokal market, with pharmacy.

The beds were terrible, sadly. Our backs hurt every morning. Elevators were really slow, both to arrive and open.

Amazing staff and customer service. Could not have asked for better customer service everyone is so friendly and accomodating to our family needs. Excellent services for the whole family to enjoy.

I’m genuinely surprised by the amount of 5-star reviews Sherwood has received. Maybe we’ve been spoilt by some of the other 5-star hotels we’ve stayed at, but in my opinion, while Sherwood may be rated as a 5-star hotel on paper, the reality is much closer to a 3 -star experience.

I don’t want this review to come across as snobbish or as though we expect everything to be perfect. However, for the amount of money we paid and what this hotel promises on paper, I genuinely expected a much better level of service and a better-functioning hotel. Unfortunately, the reality didn’t quite live up to what was advertised or what I would expect from a 5-star resort.

There were positives. The food overall was good, the medieval restaurant served good Turkish kebabs and we particularly enjoyed the Mongolian restaurant, where the food was very nice. However, even there, the wait between courses was extremely long.

One of the biggest positives for me was actually the gym. Compared with some of the more dated areas of the hotel, the gym felt very modern and was probably one of the best parts of the hotel’s facilities. It’s open 24 hours, there is enough equipment to get a decent workout in, towels are provided and bottled water is freely available. The dumbbells only go up to 20kg, which is a little limiting if you train regularly, but there is still enough equipment available to put together a good workout. Credit where it’s due, I was impressed with the gym.

Unfortunately, there were quite a few other things that let the hotel down.

The sunbed situation is completely out of control. There didn’t appear to be any rules about what time guests could reserve beds with towels, or if there were, they certainly weren’t being enforced. If you weren’t up and putting towels down by around 6:30am, you could pretty much kiss goodbye to getting a decent sunbed around one of the pools.

Luckily I’m an early riser, so it wasn’t as much of a problem for me, but if you enjoy a lie-in on holiday, good luck! On a few occasions I went down at around 5:30am and there were already sunbeds reserved with towels. It honestly made me wonder whether some people were putting towels down the night before before going to bed. A hotel of this size and standard really needs a sensible and enforced sunbed policy so guests aren’t having to get up before sunrise just to secure somewhere to sit.

The lifts are painfully slow and don’t seem to operate particularly well. At busy times we waited over five minutes just for a lift, which becomes very frustrating over the course of a holiday.

Something else that really surprised me was the standard of cleaning. One day I accidentally leaned against a lift door and left a shoulder imprint from the sun lotion on me. I didn’t have anything with me to wipe it off and there was nobody around to inform. The following morning, I got into the same lift and was genuinely shocked to see that my shoulder print was still clearly visible on the door. Luckily, I had a towel with me this time and tried my best to wipe it off myself. For something that noticeable to still be there the following day really made me question how thoroughly some of the communal areas are being cleaned.

Families with young children should also be very careful with the hotel room entrance doors. They are extremely heavy and close very quickly. Our youngest is 7 and on one occasion the door closed against him and pushed him backwards because he wasn’t strong enough to hold it. Thankfully he wasn’t injured, but it concerned us. With a toddler or smaller child, I can see how they could potentially get hurt or trap their fingers, so it is something parents should be aware of.

The paper cups used at the outside bars are also awful. They’re very weak, easily tear and just don’t feel appropriate for a hotel supposedly offering a 5-star experience.

Service was very hit and miss. Some members of staff were extremely friendly and helpful, while others were much less welcoming. We particularly found some of the staff at the main pool bar to be quite unfriendly.

Service at the Burger and Medieval restaurants was also slow, especially if you were wanting a refill on a drink, you were better off getting up and going to the bar yourself. The Medieval restaurant was particularly frustrating because some meals would arrive while one or two people at the table were left waiting so long that everyone else had finished eating before their food arrived.

Another small thing that became surprisingly irritating was the music. Around the pool, in the buffet hall and inside the hotel, it seemed to be the same playlists being repeated every day. After several days of hearing the same music over and over again, it became very repetitive and annoying. It sounds like a minor complaint, but when you’re spending most of your holiday around the resort, you definitely notice it.

The hotel itself is also starting to feel quite dated in places. The beds are extremely firm and we didn’t find them particularly comfortable. The waterslides are OK, but the wooden stairs leading up to them are looking tired and really need replacing.

One of my biggest observations was that a lot of the hotel seems to be geared around reducing waste and keeping costs down — whether that’s drinks, food, ice creams or other areas. I completely understand that any hotel needs to control waste and costs, but here it sometimes felt too noticeable. Combined with things like the paper cups, slow service and dated areas, it takes away from the feeling that you are staying in a premium 5-star resort.

We normally stay at Delphin Be Grand when visiting this area, and unfortunately Sherwood is nowhere near the same standard in our experience. The difference in service, quality and overall feel is significant.

I appreciate that everyone has different expectations and clearly plenty of guests absolutely love Sherwood. I also don’t want to sound like a snob by comparing hotels or expecting perfection. My criticism comes down to what we paid versus the experience we actually received. At this price point and with the facilities and 5-star rating Sherwood advertises, I expected considerably better.

We didn’t have a terrible holiday and there were things we enjoyed — particularly the gym and the Mongolian restaurant — but I simply couldn’t give Sherwood a 5-star review.

For us, it is a 5-star hotel on paper but an average 3-star hotel and experience in reality.

3/5