Our family (children 9 and 7) has just returned from 2 weeks in Northern Cyprus staying at the Almond Holiday Village. We were visiting along with another family of four for whom this was their 3rd visit to this establishment. They had highly recommended it to us, and we were not disappointed.

I'd give it top marks for layout, appartments, pool, general cleanliness, and their chef (should you choose to "eat in"). If you're looking for a high quality resort run by a very welcoming, efficient and accomodating family then this should meet your needs.

The only fly in the ointment was the air travel - we had significant problems with both Pegasus and CTA (overbooking + delays), though the Almond Village worked very hard on our behalf despite us booking the flights independently (via Cyprus Direct).

My husband and I booked this holiday through a specialist tour operator for North Cyprus. Upon receiving their brochure we scoured Trip Advisor looking up the reviews and we booked our holiday at the Almond on the basis of the excellent reviews on here and we were not disappointed.

We travelled to North Cyprus via Larnaca and the tour operator arranged for us to be picked up and driven across the border, the driver dealt with our passports at the border, and took us direct to The Almond (and same on way back). It took about an hour drive from Larnaca airport to the hotel.

We had a friendly greeting upon check in from the daughter of the family who run the hotel. Check in was quick and we were taken to our villa. They have 1 or 2 bedroomed villas and 1 bedroomed hotel rooms. We had booked into a 1 bedroomed villa.

There was plenty of room at the villa for myself and my husband.
It's a split level villa, with stairs going up to the bedroom. The bedroom had a comfortable bed, wardrobe, dresser, drawers, bedside tables, and windows with views of the mountains and fruit orchard behind the hotel. Downstairs is a lounge area with tv and direct telephone, kitchenette with sink, fridge, breakfast bar, cupboards, crockery, and kettle (not cooking facilities though i.e. cooker, microwave etc) and toilet / shower room (they provide towels and soap). The room was cleaned everyday, with clean towels and bedding. The furnishings of the room were of quality standard and everything very clean and tidy. The villas, have a verandah with table and chairs, which was nice to sit out on in the evenings. The hotel provide each room with a booklet, which includes attractions and sights to see in the area, local area information, telephone numbers, list of restaurants, directions, a small map and hotel menu.

We went half board at the Almond, which was breakfast and dinner included, although they do offer a bed and breakfast basis. We paid extra for drinks and lunch. Dinner was a set menu with starter, main course and dessert. If there is anything on the set menu you do not like, you can order something else from the menu instead. My family are turkish cypriot so I'm used to local cuisine, but was surprised to see that the Almond did a lot of international meals instead and few local cuisine dishes. Although the family at the hotel were wonderful and added local cuisine dishes to the menu for the stay of my holiday, even going so far as to cook some Dolma (stuffed vine leaves) for me which is my absolute favourite meal. It was very kind of them to do this! Apparently, the hotel do not have a big enough demand from the guests for the local cuisines, but if you do fancy it let them know and they will tailor the set menu for you. Their larger menu does have a wide varierty of dishes though to suit every taste, including both local and international dishes. There was excellent service during dinner, i.e chair pulled out for you, napkin placed on your lap etc.

Breakfast was a mixture of toast, cereals, fruit juices, teas and coffees, and you can choose what you like from the breakfast menu such as cyprus breakfast, english breakfast, beans on toast etc.

They have a lunch menu, and this consisted of sandwiches, salads and hot foods too. They also have a freezer full of ice creams and ice lollies.

We hired a car for a few days of our holiday, and found staying at the Almond to be an ideal base to explore from. E.g we were thinking of staying in Farmagusta, but are glad we didn't as we would have been quite far away from the things to do. Kyrenia seemed to be in the middle of everywhere to explore and be much more flexible with places to go, such as Lefkosa, Guzelyurt, Karpas, Farmagusta, Salamis etc. We had a few days travelling and seeing the sights of which there are many (e.g. St Hilarion Crusader Castle was fabulous, the Bellapais Monestry is beautiful and we sat under the Tree of Idleness, Karpas with it's beautiful untouched beaches, wild donkey's and St Andreas Monestry to drink the holy healing water at, Farmagusta for the ghost town, medieval fort, and Salami's for the ancient roman ruins with gymnasium and ampitheatre and royal tombs nearby, Lefkosa for the walled city, green line and historical buildings, Kyrenia for the beautiful venetian harbour, boat trips and castle), but we did also have some days around the pool.

The pool was a very good size for swimming and cleaned at the end of everyday. It was a chlorine pool (which I prefer to fresh water pools) and was a delight to dip into when temperatures were so hot (above 40 degrees each day at the time we went due to the heatwave). There is a children's pool too. Near to the pool are some showers, toilets and changing rooms and a little children's play area with swings and seesaws. There is also a darts board and table tennis.

The gardens to the Almond are beautiful and very pretty and are tended to everyday by their gardener. And the hotel is surrounding by the mountains and fruit orchards, and some sea views. The hotel was approx 2 min walk to the main road, where you can get the Dolmus (bus) from which will take you into Kyrenia (or reception will call you a taxi). There are also some eateries within walking distance from the hotel. Because of the heat at the time of going, we found it hard to walk far from the hotel during the peak hours of the day and so avoided this until near sunset when it was cooler. There are many beaches you can go to nearby, the closest ones being around a mile away. Most beaches charge a daily fee though, although provide a lounger, umbrella etc.

In the reception area there are sofas and fireplace and you can watch sky tele from here. The hotel are really helpful with anything you want to see and do, they even do car hire and offer all sorts of facilities (book you on boat trips etc). If you go on their website, you'll find more about what they offer. I don't think the pictures on the website do it justice though and have clearly updated things since the pictures were taken (the photographed patio table and chairs in bar eating area have been upgraded to a much superior quality wicker/cane table and chairs).

TIP: We got bitten a few times by mosquito's so do take lots of repellant with you.

Overall, we had a fantastic holiday and we would definitely go back there again and highly recommend it.

We have just returned from a 2 week stay at Almond Holiday Village. It was our first visit to N. Cyprus and I'm extremely pleased we booked to stay at this accommodation. All of the reviews we read before our stay were extremely complementary and I'm very glad to report that ours is no different.
The Almond is everything that everyone else has reported- clean, welcoming, beautiful, friendly etc etc. And yes, you really do get new towels every day!
We holidayed with our 2 children aged 15 and 12 and they also had an excellent time in the beautiful pool, playing table tennis and pool and of course watching the large TV (Sky) in reception. The food in the restaurant is excellent and good value and you must not miss the donner kebabs on a Sunday lunchtime. We noticed many locals visiting that day too. I will never ever eat a kebab in the UK after tasting the REAL THING! There was also a meze starter and BBQ on our 2nd Thurs night which was very tasty.
The family who run Almond are lovely, very helpful when you need help, friendly and never intrusive.
We flew into Larnaca and the Almond arranged our transfers. We found this easier than flying into Ercan as we could fly from our local airport at better flying times and the transfer only took 1 1/2 hours.
Many of the people staying there were regular visitors and if we ever return to N. Cyprus we will definitely stay at the Almond.
A great holiday!

We had visited the north a few years ago and I must admit were put off by the lengthy flight including stop in Turkey and then on to Northern Cyprus.We decided to visit again flying in to Larnaca and transferring up to the North.Did a search for places to stay and then a search on the Almond.The reviews were all excellent.I contacted them by e mail through their excellent web site and had a reply almost immediately.They arranged the transfers for us and we booked one of their one bedroomed bungalows.The car that collected us was air conditioned and we travelled up in about 1 hour 15 minutes.The almond is beautiful.The gardens are lovely with citrus trees,walnut trees,pistachio trees,figs,olives lovely flowers and shrubs.The pool is excellent,all day there are dragon flies crossing over it in beautiful colours.I havent seen so many in one place,amazing.The bungalows are very spacious and as said before cleaned every day and linen changed every day.The air conditioning is very good.The food at their restaurant was for us as good or better than anywhere else we ate.My husband said the peppered steak was the best he'd had....high praise from him....I work for a leading steak restaurant!
The family who run it are lovely.They will leave you to relax and not push you to eat in their restaurant or buy more drinks but will provide the best service they can and help in any way they can.We met some other lovely couples while we were there and enjoyed many evenings eating in or out and mostly back to the bar where we had a good laugh and usually a chat with Ahmet.Normally we are not pool people preferring the beach,but it was so lovely and the pool so clean that we stayed there a lot.There are plenty of restaurants within walking distance and the dolmus run very frequently for less than £1 to Kyrenia.As you might have guessed I can't recommend it enough!J and T