There are lots of hotel chains in Bodrum and usually in such situations the benefits at SLH properties make those hotels suboptimal choices so I never stayed at Marmara Hotel before.  However it’s one of the few in town that remains open year-round and even more so this year because I noticed at least a couple who are normally open in the winter but decided at the last minute to close because of lack of guests given the covid lockdowns.  Hyatt currently has a 4x points promo for resorts plus the double night credit so I decided to give Marmara a chance.  It’s an ok property especially the common spaces are decent but the room was not very large, it was somewhat aging, and I had wifi problems during my stay.  I am not likely to rush back  especially not in the summer when there are many alternatives. 

Location

Most chain hotels in Bodrum are on a beach, not close to the old town.  It’s the opposite for Marmara so for people who want to be close to the city then it’s ideal and because the hotel sits on a hill there are nice views from there.  However it also means no beach within walking distance.

Room

I made two separate reservations: the first was done on SLH.com and the second on Hyatt.com.  For the first reservation I booked a luxury sea view room and as SLH Indulged tier member I received a modest one-category upgrade to a corner sea suite as per the rules.  For my Hyatt reservation I booked the deluxe garden room and thankfully they did not require me to change room so for that part of the stay I effectively received a 2-category upgrade. 

One could argue that the corner sea suite is a suite in name only, first of all at 40 square meters it was not particularly spacious in fact the size was similar to the entry level room at some other hotels, but I guess it was better than the standard rooms at Marmara which are only 32 sqm.  There was no separation between the living room and the bedroom other than a single step.  However the main issue was that the hardware was aging, perhaps for the living room it was fine because it gave some character to the room and I liked the stone and wood floor combo, but the bathroom was in need for renovations.  The shower was in a dreaded bathtub with a partial wall glass panel, leading to some occasional flooding on the bathroom floor.  Thankfully water pressure was excellent.  There were electric wooden blinds in the window of the shower for privacy or they could be left open for natural light in the bathroom.  Bathroom amenities were Gilchrist and Soames which was adequate for a hotel of this caliber.  The bed was comfortable but some nights we could not sleep well because there was no air conditioning.  I guess it was deactivated for the winter but our room was too hot.  Opening our patio door somewhat helped but we could not have cool nights like we had at the more modern Swissotel (which had AC) before moving to Marmara.

Soundproofing was quite bad and we could hear loud banging of doors outside.  Fortunately the hotel was very low occupancy so it was not a major issue during our stay but would most likely be a problem in the busy summer.

Dining

The free breakfast amenity was not available as room service – it was in the restaurant only, which was disappointing given covid circumstances; just a few days prior Swissotel Bodrum did not enforce this restriction.  The restaurant itself was visually attractive like other common spaces of the hotel and some guests did not mind the cool weather and had breakfast on the terrace in order to enjoy the beautiful views overlooking Bodrum.  The buffet was not self-serve and there was a daily rotation of hot dishes which was appreciated.  So overall the breakfast was decent but it would have been more luxurious if they had an a la carte menu to go along the buffet.

The room service menu did not stand out and was not very cheap.  Unlike some captive resorts, there are numerous Bodrum city restaurants not far away from the hotel so I would have expected non-captive prices.  Also when we asked for something as simple as spaghetti they did not have it so we ended up ordering delivery from the Yemeksepeti app for most of our stay.  

Service

Service was a mixed bag, sometimes for breakfast service was good and they remembered our choice of drinks and our desired fruits were brought straight to our table, other times for orders from the kitchen they forgot (even twice the same morning).  On New Year’s Day they brought a few goodies to our room which was a nice touch, including a bottle of wine which was in addition to the bottle we had in the room at check-in as a welcome amenity.

Gym

The gym had great views of the city but there were a few issues, for example there was no water available except if asking for bottles with the attendant but sometimes the gym was unmanned and towels were also not always available.  Interestingly there was a jacuzzi in the gym with a large inflatable swan although water was quite cool so not inviting for anybody to use.

Pool

Due to the lack of beach, hotel guests would probably want to use the pool in the summer and it was quite nice.  

Wifi

Wifi was a problem during our stay.  Occasionally speed reached as high as 8-10 Mbps which was fine but at other times it was below 1 Mbps which was unacceptably slow.  However the main problem was not speed, it was the fact that wifi kept disconnecting, sometimes my laptop would work but not my phone, or vice versa, and I frequently had to reboot devices to make them work again which was irritating.  On occasion the wifi problems were more widespread and we could not use anything at all and after I complained a technician finally brought a portable router to our room which helped matters but I could not connect to a VPN from that network so it was only partially useful.  After discussing the problem again with staff they ended up giving me the password for a non-public network and it helped at first, but it did not take long that  speed and connectivity issues resurfaced and I just had to deal with bad wifi as I did not want to complain to hotel staff a third time. 

Overall

Overall when a hotel has subpar hardware if they want to live up to luxury standards, they need to make up for it with a superior soft product which was not the case here.  Breakfast was ok but not unusually good due to the lack of a la carte menu and not being available as room service, and wifi made it for a frustrating stay.  In the summer when there are lots of choices of hotels in Bodrum I would probably book elsewhere next time.  In the winter it’s usually slim pickings but I had a strong preference for Swissotel where I stayed a few days before Marmara.  In non-covid times there should be a few more choices such as DoubleTree and Le Meridien which I would probably try in the winter before returning to Marmara.