Yes, I have been to Alanya with friends in 2004. My hotel was about 25kms away, but I spend a day in Alanya.
Can't tell much about the city though. Has a nice, distinct mediterranean feeling to it, there are some nice small shops where you can buy food relatively cheap. There's an old castle above the city which is afaik very interesting, but we couldn't get to visit it; there is a shuttle service up to the castle and back which starts at the bottom of that mountain, right at the beach, which is quite nice.
Transportation, if you want to leave the city, is quite easy; it's at a highway and small autobusses travel it in both ways. If you want to ride with it, just stand at the side of the road and wave, they will stop and pick you up if they have space left, but you should ask whether they go the right way. They are quite cheap, although.
Hm what else can I tell you? A lot of people don't speak english, but it usually isn't a problem to communicate with hands and feet for the usual business.
I didn't get around the area much though; I went there a short time after I finished the school and all those exams, and it was more a chillout holiday; the hotel personal, though all turkish, usually spoke german during the animation stuff etc., the hotel was nice and clean. The beaches are ok, sometimes you have some nice rocks near the beach where you can go snorkeling. You will see some waste lying at the bottom of the water once you get a bit away from the beach where the water is ~2m's, but there is some interesting stuff to see, a lot of fish, we saw some small octopus etc. Oh, and I found a handful of rubles.
Speaking of those, be ready for the tourists. They are mostly german - a lot of german emigrants live in Alanya, too -, and a big deal of salesmen etc. speak german as good as english or probably even better, because often their families live in germany; and after that come (upper middle-class) russians. The ones we met were ok, though I heard they go rampage in some hotels, but that happens with many tourists I guess.
And be advised - "going through the city", especially shopping, works a bit different in the eastern medditerranean area. When you go through the shopping miles, usually the salesmen will come out of their shops and start talking to you to look at their stuff. It's refreshing, but can get annoying, because you often can't walk 30 seconds without being spoken to. They sell a lot rip-offs of western brands there, to horrible prices, but you have to have the nuts to bargain with them. Take your time for that, it's worth it. I bought a soccer trikot with a friend; the guy wanted 65€ per tricot, in the end we both took one for 23€ each. Feel free to say it's too expansive and turn around to leave, this is part of the mission. And the quality of that stuff often isn't that bad: I guessed the tricot would be wasted in a year - like the ones you often get to buy in Italy -, but I still have it, and it has not one loose strand and not one imprint faded out and not one rubber attachment fell of. I bought a leather wallet, it is still in great condition although I have used it every day for the last ~1700 days.
I hope this helps you! That's all I come to think of now, if you have more questions, feel free to ask.
