I spent a long weekend here on the basis of recommendations from SanDiego1K and others on this forum. I concur with the comments here so far: This is a jewel in the Luxury Collection and a contender for Starwood's best beach hotel/ resort in Europe.

I paid 300EUR/ night for a base room and used SNAs to upgrade to a full two bathroom suite.The resort is beautiful and modern. It's not St Regis style luxury, but looks like it's been put together with an unlimited budget and still appears brand new. I loved the service which was casual luxury - less bowing and "Sirs" than in some luxury resorts, but very capable and friendly staff who consistently went the extra mile. A waiter got my second ever "Golden ticket" for just being beyond awesome at his job.

From free tasters of drinks, occasional freebies with our meal to a waiter going to the effort of noticing that I reacted with a chill to some wind and instructing the bartender after depositing us at post dinner bar seats to put on some heating.Two particular hightlights to note: There is a full Espa spa with the most beautiful ocean-facing jacuzzi and the food was consistently excellent. The chef makes his own pasta at a level unequalled by many fancy restaurants in Italy.

I was there just out of season which meant the hotel wasn't fully staffed up. This resulted in staff enthusiastically doing their best to cover for others (receptionists for Concierge, waiters for room service) and not quite getting it right. We got room service without cutlery, some not quite right local advice and were disappointed that unlike what everyone else had reported the hotel yachts were only available for a minimum of 8 hours at a time. Clearly Bodrum is highly seasonal (from around this Friday in fact) and so if travelling out of season I would bear in mind that the hotel will not be 100% operational.