One More Cheeky Holiday!

Antalya, Turkey; all inclusive, one week relaxation before I head home. Seems easy, but it didn't go this smooth at first.
Up at 12:30 am to make it for a 7:25 flight. It feels weird to shower and get ready in the middle of the night. We headed to Gatwick airport which is over an hour drive from my home. Fortunately we only got lost while looking for the long stay car park for about 1/2 hour. We find our check in desk, and I am pretty sure the man behind the desk was 'special'. He first looked at my passport and noticed there was a sticker that said something about security. (This is something some places put on it to say that I have been checked and am okay.) So he starts looking around, then tries to ring someone. I asked what the problem is, and he just said he had to ask someone about the sticker. I think this is pretty funny, just because I hadn't taken it off he was going to have to get security. So the bloke, looks around then he gets up, sits back down. I ask again what the problem is, he then says because I am Canadian he didn't know if I needed a visa to get into Turkey. I explained that I had already looked into that and that yes, I would have to pay when I got there for a temporary visa. He still wasn't buying it. He then got up and went behind a closed door for maybe 30 seconds. He came back and all of a sudden was fine with the situation!???? Then we weighed our hand luggage and the one was too heavy and so we had to transfer some to the other hand luggage. Fine did that, but he saw that I put my hair dryer into one of the bags. He started looking at it, and then looking around as if to see if it was okay for me to bring it on board. He looked at a few of the other workers, but never said anything so I finally looked over and said to another lad "Can I bring a hair dryer in my carry on?" He just looked and shook his head, like really, did you just ask me such a daft question? which then made me look at the special guy and give him the really, are you going to waste anymore of my time. So finally after about 30 minutes with my special friend he gave us our boarding pass. I will remind you this is at 330 am! As soon as we turned the corner from the desk, we shifted all of the items back to the original suitcase and I took the sticker off of my passport. Seeings as we were on holidays (I know you are all saying, Tiana you have been on holiday for the last 4 months) (I am not going to argue with you either), anyway we had to have a beer. Sitting in the restaurant after security drinking a beer at 5 in the morning. Can't remember the last time I did that. Our flight was uneventful, which is always a good thing. We landed in Antalya and found the Thomas Cook rep, as we were waiting a mother was crying whilst talking to the rep. I overheard her mention that she was not happy that they were being moved, and it wasn't her fault that the hotel overbooked, the rep was apologetic but didn't have much else to say. So wouldn't you know what the rep had to tell us.... Yup, your hotel has been over-booked and they were moving us to a new resort. What!!!!! No, I didn't cry, I was screwing though. I started asking her questions about the new resort. The poor rep couldn't tell us any information about the hotel, she knew nothing about the resort. I asked questions to compare to what we were going to have to where we were going. No answer! On the coach we were both in a huff, not knowing where we were going only that it was a 50 minute drive instead of the original 20 minute. We arrived and were immediately impressed with the service, from the check-in, to the bell boys to the look of the lobby. Putting us more at ease we headed to our room. There I was impressed too, much nicer than the ones that I have stayed in Mexico. I wasn't convinced yet, but I was happier. We walked around the resort, a little disappointed that there was only one pool versus what we were going to have. But it still had 4 waterslides, and a pool bar. It was on the beach, the grounds were well kept and beautiful. We met the next day with another rep from Thomas Cook, I am assuming that they knew we would have concerns about the change. She assured us, having worked at both resorts that this one was better (easy to say), but they did give us £100 in cash right away. This was pretty good, since we only paid a few hundred quid for the holiday anyway. I am not going to go into details about each day, as it was an all-inclusive and many of you know what you do at an all-inclusive and this was no different. But, I will tell you various random things. The area of Turkey we ended up in was called Side (sounds like seedeh). Our hotel was beside two others in the same chain, ours was called the Alba Queen, which is suiting for a princess like me. A short distance walk were some shops that gave us a good taste of what the Turkish markets would be like. I did not know that Turkey is the knock off capital! I was in heaven, and the quality of the stuff was amazing. The beach for our hotel had golden sand and was clean, the Mediterranean was beautiful and warm. The traditional way to receive a cocktail at this resort, was with a fancy straw, an orange and a lit sparkler. The food in the buffet was surprisingly good. I had been warned not to expect much. But, it turned out to again be better than most of the Mexican resorts I have been to. The service was hit and miss, but if you smiled right and were female you had better odds. You could hear the call to prayer most times through the day, which I thought was neat. Not having been in a place like this before. I was the only Canadian at the resort! (it cost me €45 to get into the country, where as it costs £10 for a UK citizen). Just like Mexico, there are random cats that like to come out around the eating areas. I saw this cat though that had this fresh head wound, and I was a little revolted! A person gets sick of deciding what to drink after the second day, but always finds it in them to drink anyways.
The highlights for me:
I really enjoy laying in hammocks cuddling when the sun is setting, but it is just as good walking along the beach as the sunsets too.
Taking cheeky walks at night along various pathways to sneak into the trees.
Taking a boat cruise along the sea, stopping and jumping off in the middle of nowhere.
Bartering like I have never seen it, to come out with some great knock offs. (I will let you guess when I am home what is real or not).
Zipping down waterslides and crashing into the water, to come up laughing like I did when I was a kid.
Taking a local bus, hoping to get to the right destination.
Eating at a local restaurant on the sea, while the sun is shining and the waves are crashing.
Sharing the experience with someone special who makes me feel like I am the most beautiful girl in the world.
There are so many other things to tell you all, I am home in a few days and will be able to share more details. I am right now in Newcastle spending time with my someone special and his family. It has been an emotional last couple of days and I am assuming it will get worse. I plan on writing at least one more blog before my flight home on Friday. I am just trying to reflect about my time abroad and try to summarize it. Not an easy task! Make sure you check back in the next couple of days for a heart to heart, well okay just me spilling out my heart again!