This is not a family hotel. It’s a grown-up hotel… where children are most welcome. Have you ever heard of a kids’ club that’s open until 2am? Sorry, kids, but that’s so the adults can have fun for longer, not you. That’s what’s happening at the Maxx Royal Hotel in Bodrum, the impossibly beautiful stretch of turquoise coastline in Turkey that has also become a playground for the super-rich. With suites starting at £1000 a night, it’s a very exclusive hotel. Its private, secluded beach is surrounded on either side by various levels of wooden terraces, designed to maximise guests’ privacy. It’s set in a quiet little enclave, somehow both family-friendly and glamorous. That could be down to the staff, who tend to our or our children’s every little need or whim, including (and I’m almost embarrassed to say how much I enjoyed this) the people who cleaned our sunglasses. Or it could be down to the other guests. When I visited shortly after the hotel opened, there was a wide range of super-rich people there, from conservative multigenerational Turkish families (one, I was told, had booked 42 suites for a family reunion) to young, attractive families, older couples on a long relaxation tour, and groups of friends who had obviously come to party at Scorpios, a posh bar-beach club on the Maxx Royal’s property.

style

There is a real sense of space when you enter the Maxx Royal. The ceilings in the atrium are huge, with floor to ceiling windows opening onto a terrace that offers semi-encompassing sea views on one side and hill views across all the suites on the other. The suites take up most of the hill – the villas are the top floor (right at the top), the Laguna suites are set around a seawater pool, then there are the regular suites. I really liked the natural style in which the hotel, which opened in May this year, has been designed. With the light wood panelling, the enormous amount of greenery and trees, it blends into the landscape quite elegantly. Even the budget for the planting must be in the millions, despite being so new it is already incredibly green with tropical trees and olive trees, and the smell is almost Provencal, with the heat enhancing the scent of the lavender, with the sound of the cicadas.

The property is so huge, however, that getting around requires a golf buggy, accompanied by a highly efficient fleet of charming drivers. These and anything else you may need during your stay can be organised by messaging your private concierge via the hotel’s app. We never had to wait more than a few minutes.

Room

Our suite was quite tight for a family of four – our son’s single bed was attached to the bottom of our bed and our young daughter’s cot was just a few feet away. The entire suite was open plan, with the bathroom separated only by a wall that was open on both sides. The sink area was clad in dark grey-green marble to match the wardrobe, the tiles shimmered dark green, the drawers were made of wood – all part of the design to blend in as incongruously as possible with the natural surroundings. To accommodate the billionaires who care about sustainability, there are recycling bins in every room and the air conditioning turns off automatically when you open the balcony window.

The kids got their own little toiletry bag with Mustela products and a small baby sponge. The roofs of other suites were covered with green grass, which made our view of the sea even more beautiful. Of course there was a wine and fruit fridge and a special water cabinet that was restocked every day (which was unfortunately not the case with the wine fridge) and snacks, including Torres caviar chips.

Food & Drinks

The caviar chips in the bedrooms were far from the only caviar on offer at the Maxx Royal property. One of the nine restaurants is Caviar Kaspia, a Parisian restaurant where I watched in amusement as some children devoured a £180 baked potato topped with caviar. There is also a two-Michelin-starred restaurant, a restaurant by LA chef Wolfgang Puck, a seafood restaurant and more.

Breakfast was in the 24 restaurant. No buffet here, sir! Far too fancy for buffets. There is an a la carte menu here (everything from smoked salmon to various trolleys rolled through the huge indoor and outdoor area, with cheeses, charcuterie and a dessert trolley full of perfectly prepared patisserie and pastries (we had a perfectly symmetrical green striped croissant and a rich and velvety chocolate cake with mousse that was honestly a waste for my four year old). There was also a refrigerated wall with juices, Bircher muesli, cereals and fruit.

At Scorpios (a buggy ride away, on its own archipelago), the sister venue to the original Mykonos bar-club, legendary for attracting the high and famous to some pretty epic parties and high-profile DJs, it’s more about the drinks and the vibe than the food. A glass of rosé starts at £30, but it’s almost worth it for the incredible sea views and the mega yachts lined up along the shore, their occupants jumping into dinghies and heading over to Scorpios.

Maxx Royal has other hotels in Turkey that offer all-inclusive. This is the first hotel to offer full board, a slight change of course to attract a more exclusive clientele and compete with the Mandarin Oriental in the next bay. Scorpios helps consolidate the rich party crowd they attract.

Half of Istanbul’s elite head to Bodrum every summer, to their yachts and villas. These people help fill the dance floor. Relax on the Maxx’s private beach on Friday and Saturday afternoons and the wind will carry the thrum of the beat from the dark wood of the party palace. Here with my two young children, the fear of the sight is strong. I want to join the beautiful, fun people dangling their legs over the edge of the jetty, cocktail in hand. Which makes it all the better that my son keeps asking me to take him back to the kids’ club, aka Maxxi Land. I’m sure the baby would say that too, if it could talk.

Facilities

Not only was my four-year-old son begging to be released from the exhausting ordeal of swimming in the perfect green-blue sea, or building sandcastles out of white sand, or eating from the very exceptional children’s menu (pulled chicken and vegetables in aromatic chicken broth, tomato-basil soup with cream and basil oil, grilled salmon fillet with buttered vegetables – and of course mini burgers and hot dogs) at the elegant Casa Sol beach restaurant, he also couldn’t wait to escape the freshwater infinity pool or the seawater pool. Why? Because he was dying to get back to Maxxi Land, the children’s paradise. When we entered, everyone’s jaws dropped. High-quality design with Jeff Koons-style sculptures, giant rabbits embedded in the wall, huge giraffe murals, curved wooden walls and separate areas for the different age groups of children. Also, and this was really special, there was a dormitory with cots and beds so parents could stay out late. We also took our little girl there every day for her nap and let her be lulled to sleep by a specially selected “sleep playlist” in the cool, quiet, air-conditioned room while trained nursery staff watched on the video monitors. There was an art teacher, Lego and ball pits, a VR room, a cinema room, a Playstation room (there was a 30-minute time limit), a costume closet with 800 different dress-up options, daily mini discos and daily workshops teaching the older children everything from how to make perfume to the life cycle of a butterfly. I can hardly put into words how extraordinary this place was. Is this what nurseries are like for the super rich? I felt like I had entered a parallel universe that I didn’t even know existed.

Spa and health club

In and around the fitness club there are tennis courts (and an on-site trainer), padel courts, an aerial yoga studio, a reformer Pilates studio and all the equipment and weights you could want. On the ground floor there is an indoor swimming pool, private hammam, steam room, sauna, Kneipp walking pool, rain shower… and everything is huge – the ceilings feel like they are three stories high.

At the spa itself, I got a facial. My stern but charming beautician gave me a deep, full face massage, a scrub, two masks… and strict instructions not to shower or go out in the sun for the rest of the day. She stopped the facial after one side of the massage to show me the results, and the change in firmness, particularly around my eyes and cheeks, was immediately visible. The massage also encourages collagen production, so I hope the really quite dramatic change lasts a while. Not surprisingly, in a country that is so concerned with youthful looks (plastic surgery and hair implants are very popular), they know exactly what they are doing and what the clientele wants. They use Biologique Recherche skincare products designed to “restore the natural regenerative functions of the epidermis.”

Best for

An international crowd of multi-millionaire DJs, football managers, pop stars and tech entrepreneurs. We heard at least one helicopter arrive every day to drop someone off. The clientele is generally quite young, cool and very, very expensively dressed. I’ve never seen so many huge logos on bags and clothes in one place and honestly I don’t know how most of the men could even lift their wrists, their watches were so big. Even the babies wore Chanel.