Understated elegance with a touch of service class - a five star resort in Lara Beach, well worth a visit. Newly refurbished outside areas, gym, pools and additional restaurants. At the time of writing the rooms are anticipated to be refurbished in winter 2023, but this could change. Don’t miss the videos of the stunning night landing into Antalya and full walkthrough of outside areas.

Getting there

Pre-Travel we stayed at Novotel Birmingham airport before flying Birmingham to Antalya with Corendon Airlines.

Arrival

We arrived in Antalya late evening and as per usual it was a speedy journey through Antalya airport. We used Travel Republic to book everything, including the transfer and on this occasion were impressed with the service. The transfer was provided through Travel Republic by Koral Travel, with the driver easy to find in the arrivals hall. The transfer took no longer than 20 mins during which I spoke to the office who asked if they could meet me at the hotel on a certain day to discuss details of the return transfer. This I suspected was to sell trips or something else and it was. However, the rep was very respectful when I said I wasn’t interested and simply gave all details of the return journey. No hard sell.

The restaurant was still open on arrival so we headed straight to dinner after check-in. More to come on the food and drink - including a la carte dining, later.

The Room

The room was immaculate although a little dated - without the scheulded refurb it doesn’t have the five star Lara vibe you will find at other hotels but it was a spacious family room with one king bed, a single and one sofa bed. However, it was very clean and comfortably accommodated two adults and two children. There was only a bedside table at one side of the king due to fitting the extra single bed in. It also meant only one side had sockets / light switches or reading lights. As the rooms are about to be refurbished hopefully there will be additions of usb / usb-c outlets.

The general lighting in the room was good and you could change the colour of the lights in the ceiling inlet.

Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of the bathroom but as these are going to change anyway, that’s not a bad thing. The main thing is it was nice, clean and a decent size.

Food & Drinks

Main Buffet (Myra) restaurant can accommodate up to 650 people with space indoors and outdoors. As were there in the off season it wasn’t possible to eat breakfast outside due to the temperature. At times this made the restaurant space very busy and a little chaotic. However, it only took one day of chaos before senior leaders were out in force to sort things and ensure the smooth running go the buffet.

There was a huge range of food for breakfast including salads, breads, hot and cold options, desserts and a kids section. Something for everyone. It was the same at lunch time but with the addition of cooking stations outside adding freshly cooked meats, vegetables, burgers and chips. Again, evening brought he same level of quality and choice but my absolute favourite was the live noodle bar where you could choose your vegetables, noodles and meat before the chefs would add spices and dressing.

At lunch and dinner there were bottles of wine on the table - red, white and rose. However, if you wanted anything else, like a beer or soft drink the waiting staff were more than happy to get it for you.

Desserts were delicious.

The Kalynda Pizza restaurant close to the beach serves up the best pizzas - freshly made to order you can expect this to be popular and have a small wait time. It’s worth the wait.

A la carte

There are three a la carte restaurants at the Liberty Lara - the Pinara Turkish restaurant, Banbury Italian and the Sarpedon fish restaurant. We ate in the Turkish restaurant which we could not fault. The portion sizes were big, with multiple courses.

All a la carte restaurants come with a cover charge - however, depending on your booking, you can get one free of charge per 7 night stay. As the food was so good in the main buffet restaurant we didn’t feel the need to try the Italian. Some other guests said the Italian was the best out of the three. Unfortunately the fish restaurant wasn’t open during our stay - it was due to open but was slightly delayed.

Gym & Pools

The gym was brand new for the 2023 season and has its own small building just in front of the adult only pool. It was well equipped with treadmills and a few bikes for cardio, plenty of free weights, smith machine and static weights machines.

The adult only pool is heated in the until around end of March / April depending on the weather. Children can use this pool in the low season as it is heated, but from May onwards, this is the adult only pool. Low entry points and water jets with seats were a nice touch. Honestly, it’s probably far too big to be an adult only pool and as it was the only heated one, it was early getty up to grab a sun bed.

The other pools were large and there was always a sun bed to be found. Given the size I don’t think this would be a problem in summer as there is also the beach area.

For adults and kids there are 3 water slides but these aren’t open all day in the winter season.

There is also a small children’s pool with mushroom waterfall and characters.

Would we return?

If the planned refurbishment of the rooms is anywhere near the standard and class of the pool, gym, and outside restaurants then the Liberty Lara will sure climb the trip advisor rankings even further. What made this hotel was the service and the staff - it was second to none in our experience. Rarely do we find a hotel we would return to without hesitation.

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