When I was looking for somewhere to stay for October half term I had a list of boxes to tick, and the TUI Magic Life Masmavi ticked most of them :
- Nice and warm, average October temperatures of 24-26
- Not too long a flight, 4 hours from Gatwick
- All inclusive
- Great reviews
- Plenty to do for teenagers
- Water slides (a mini water park in fact)
- Two bedroom suites, rather than the three of us sharing a room
We hadn’t taken a package holiday for a while but I needed to chill, and I think the family were relieved this wouldn’t be one of those super-organised adventures we usually do!
First impressions
Our first impressions were amazing. Check-in was swift and a helpful man drove us in a huge buggy to our hotel block. It’s a massive site, with a range of different types of accommodation. Our two bedroom room was great, with a twin room and double. There’s a shower room, large wardrobe, safe, mini fridge, coffee machine and two televisions.
The fridge was stocked with large bottles of water, coke, fanta and a weird blue fizzy drink. It was all free, and restocked daily where needed.
Eating and drinking
There are at least 11 eateries here, including poolside snack places and A La Carte evening options, which you pay extra for. We didn’t visit the premium options, partly because the menu didn’t suit my fussy family and partly because we didn’t want to pay extra if we could avoid it.
We mainly ate in the main dining room, Magico, which housed a number of different stations with different buffet options each breakfast, lunch and dinner. The choice is huge, from salads to veggie options, local dishes and daily specials. The dessert station had to be seen to be believed, and there was also a wide range of different fruits.
Waiters serve drinks, and I think beer and wine was available, as well as soft drinks. We only drank coke and water, and the coke was branded Coca Cola / Diet Coke (known as ‘Coke Light’!).
There’s a food place inside Wunderbar / Coffee House too. For most of the day it’s a patisserie, full of delicious cakes, and after 10pm it does sandwiches, rolls and wraps as well as soup. I wish it did sandwiches at other times of the day though, as that would be a really good lunch option.
Downtown Restaurant
The one bookable eatery we tried was Downtown, which is included in the all-exclusive benefits. It hadn’t got great reviews on TripAdvisor but it’s completely horses for courses. We aren’t major meat eaters, so its veggie-biased menu really suited us. My husband enjoyed the vegan chickpea burger and I loved my ‘main’ where I combined two starters; the delicious falafel and the scrummy vegan poke bowl. My son had the homemade beefburger which, in hindsight, he would have preferred without the sauce but it looked really meaty and came with skinny fries.
For dessert I had the ‘cheesecake in a jar’ which was a biscuit base, creamy topping (not really cheesecake how we know it in the UK, but still dreamy!) and a few pomegranate seeds. My son had the donuts, and husband had the ‘pancake’ which was actually a taco filled with fruit and cream – again in hindsight he should have had the key lime pie which looked lovely when served to an adjacent table.
Service
The waiters and waitresses are generally brilliant. One unique guy is Speedy, the rollerblading waiter who skates around the pool area delivering drinks to guests. I gave him my 360 degree camera to create a fab tour of the main outside area of the hotel and a couple of the pools – and then posted it on YouTube!
Top tips
Milk for coffee
The coffee machine in the room comes with a range of pods including americano and espresso. However, there was no milk or powder, but guest services pointed me in the direction of the lobby bar who helpfully gave me a litre carton of fresh milk. We could then store this in our fridge and it was plenty for the week.
Filled rolls and sandwiches
Something we did a couple of times was to get filled rolls from Wunderbar in the late evening and then store them in the mini fridge overnight, to be eaten for lunch the next day. This is also a good idea for the plane journey home if you’re on a budget airline, as we were.
I always take Tupperware tubs on holidays with me as I always need to store food! So these came in handy for storing the rolls overnight.
Saving breakfast items for lunch
As I’ve said before, we are a fussy family and although we enjoyed eating at the beach cafe, their options weren’t as wide as we’d have liked. So sometimes I took items from breakfast and saved them for lunch, including butter (there’s no butter at the beach cafe for some reason!) and hard boiled eggs.
Although there are signs when you leave the restaurant asking you not to take items with you, the main one, Magico, provides paper bags for takeaway food. As we often lay in, I would nip down to get some croissants for the boys to eat in the room for breakfast.
Sauce for ice cream
Another thing I started to steal from breakfast was the little ice cream cones containing Nutella! Much as I have a sweet tooth, I couldn’t eat Nutella for breakfast – but it’s lovely on the free ice creams available from the Ice Cream Station. The cones available from the Ice Cream Station don’t have any sauces or toppings, and you can choose vanilla, chocolate or strawberry ice cream – or a mixture of any two of those. Add some stolen Nutella and it’s a match made in heaven!
Then take it to the next level with some ‘leftover’ cake from the lunchtime buffet – to make a super sundae with ice cream!
Crisps and snacks
Something which isn’t advertised is that you can ask for crisps and nuts in the bars, although they do get low at the end of the night. The staff in Wunderbar and the Lobby Bar were very helpful and gave us little pots of mixed nuts and crunchy chickpea / trail mix snacks and a pot of ridged crisps.
Pool / beach towels
When you check in you’re given a beach towel card, and you swap that each day for a towel. So no need to bring your own and also no need to pay a deposit which is the case at other hotels we’ve stayed at.
At the end of the day you hand your towels in and either get cards back or take a replacement.
Towards the end of the holiday we realised that you don’t actually need the cards to get towels – or at least my son didn’t, when he went swimming with his mates. They just handed them to the boys which was great as it meant they were self sufficient.
Sunbeds
Unlike any other foreign holiday, sunbeds are aplenty and you don’t need to get up early to put your towels out. We get downstairs at around 11.30am each day and have a choice of places. There is a lot of shade as well as sunny spots, but if you’re a ‘mixed’ family like us (where one prefers sun, the other shade) then it can be a slight challenge pleasing everyone as the sun keeps moving! The palm trees provide shade, there are pergolas which you can lay under and also lots of umbrellas which you can move around as needed.
There are also plenty of sunbeds on the beach, and what is great about them is there is lots of shade there too, and room for children to play with the sand under shade. It would have been perfect when my children were at the buckets and spades age.
Booking Hotel TUI Magic Life Masmavi
In summary, I would highly recommend TUI Magic Life Masmavi for a family holiday. It’s also great for couples as you can hang out in the adult-only pool. Although we booked with TUI, you can book the hotel independently via Booking.com too. You would need to book your own taxi transfer but that might be better than waiting for other holidaymakers to arrive on the shared minibus or coach which is often what happens on a package holiday.
Useful links
If you want to explore further then there are some great things to do at nearby Antalya including waterfalls, rafting and historic monuments.
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