Payallar Holidays from AU$5,850

Very good hotel staff and great selection of food every day tasty hot from breakfast to dinner . Some guests should really learn about manners how to queue and not just jump in front of people waiting but not hotels fault

Family friendly resort with plenty to do for children. Entertainment every evening for both adults and children. The quality of food was excellent but could definitely have more variety. It felt very repetitive after the first couple of days. Non-alcoholic drinks could be better. There were four mocktail choices available and they all tasted very similar. The onsite shops were extremely expensive, particularly for beach toys and beachwear so definitely take your own. We had some issues that we feel did not get addressed properly. On arrival, the bedsheets had stains so requested these to be change which to be fair the staff addressed immediately. It was just a bit annoying as we arrived very late evening so having to hold off putting kids to bed because of dirty bedding was annoying. AC throughout our stay was very poor, excluding the last 2 nights of a 7 night stay. It basically didn’t work so blowing hot air all night long meant we struggled to sleep. The hotels reasoning was they need to request additional surge power to be able to increase the functionality of AC, which can take up to three day to arrange. Frustrating that a 5* resort would not just have the appropriate resources in place ahead of time. We also had to request missing items several times because the cleaning staff forgot to after attending our room i.e. towels, soap etc. Overall, we enjoyed our stay but felts more like a 4.5* experience.

The best part about the property are the staff who will go above and beyond to help you out. Special thanks to the guest services lady on the night shift, Suleyman at Vista & Ivy and Mehmet in Le Buffet for their thoughtful service. The property is vast, has a private beach and is well maintained. The main thing that did not work is that there is only one restaurant that is included as part of the all-inclusive package. This is the buffet restaurant. All À la carte restaurants are paid. However, the buffet timings are quite restrictive. For instance, dinner is only available from 6:30 ion-9pm, which is very limited for an all-inclusive resort, considering that it is the only main dining option. If you miss your meal at 9 PM, then the next option for you would be to either go to one of the paid à la carte restaurants (paid), the pastry bar, or wait for the midnight buffet at 12 AM, which does not work for most people. The lunch hours are from 12:30 to 2:30 in the afternoon which also seems tight. Overall, my main recommendation to the hotel would be to extend its dining hours in the buffet restaurant considerIng it is the only main dining option. Secondly, for anyone who needs a cool room with working air condition, I would highly recommend either booking a landside room or a full Seaview room, at the lower floors, preferably between 3 and 5 if you want a working air conditioner. I would avoid all partial sea facing rooms, especially those on floors 6,7 as these get very hot.

From start to finish the holiday was absolutely amazing, something to keep everyone happy, lots of food choice - omg don’t think I’ve seen so much choice and some delicious authentic dishes alongside the usual buffet staples, always a coffee shop open for coffee, cake, ice cream or waffles, always a restaurant open from the many that there was on site and a choice of 12+ pools. Above all the staff in every capacity was simply brilliant and couldn’t do enough, always served with a smile and happy to chat, have stayed in many 5 stars but this is as good as any, well done everyone at Sherwood Exclusive Lara!

Food, facilities and staff all amazing!