LSPosted: Tue, Apr 07 2009Value:
3.3I will start with the good things - the hotel is very close to the most important monuments in Istanbul - a 5 minutes walk to the Topkapi Palace, and a 10 minutes walk to the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosk. The Great Bazar is not very far, and so are the Spice Bazar and the New Mosk. So that was great!
Another good point at this hotel is the breakfast - nothing too impressive, or too much variation, but a good, decent breakfast (served from 7 to 10 a.m., which is another good point, for those who might want to sleep a little bit late).
As for the not-so-pleasant stuff, our room was very very small (our friends had a room right next to us, and it was much larger), with a similarly small bathroom, and a very small window, which opened up to some kind of an enclosed yard (extremely small, again), so we couldn't open the window and have a little bit of fresh air.
The front desk staff was not very kind and helpful, but acceptable. As for the cleaning ladies, we were rather disappointed. We had a bag of worn clothes (lingerie, T-shirts) that we accidentally left on the floor, and when we came back at night, the bag was gone. It turned out that the cleaning ladies thought it was a waste bag (!) and had thrown it away with the garbage. As you can imagine, we weren't very pleased with the situation.
In the end, I think the hotel is a decent place, if you make sure to have a normal sized room, with a normal window. Oh, and also make sure not to leave any bags unattended on the floor! But the location is great and there are plenty of nice hotels in the same area.
Another piece of advice I would share is that you shouldn't buy anything from the stores in front of the hotel, everything is quite expensive and you cand find the same stuff for half the price or less if you search a little bit. I especially recommend you the little shooping area in between the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosk (where the old racecourse used to be), where I've found very cheap and beau