Byzantium Comfort Hotel

Poor
Traveller Type:
  : The only good thing about this hotel is that it's close to Sultanahmet square.
  : On our way to the hotel from the airport, the taxi driver warned us that he would give the hotel 3 stars out of 10. Still, we arrived with an open mind. Upon arrival, we were shoved into a box room in the basement - there was no room to walk (or breathe) and the window was broken. Bear in mind, we had arrived at 1am after a long day of travelling. The room was barely 10m^2 and certainly wasn't 25m^2 as advertised. We brought this up with the man working at the desk who initially argued that we had paid for a budget double room so this is what we received. After two hours of showing him the specifications of the room as advertised on Booking.com and speaking to two different managers (one of which kept complaining that he was woken up in the night), we reached an agreement that we would stay in that room for one night (without paying for that night) and would be moved to a different room in the morning. We were moved to a different room in the morning but didn't receive any reimbursement first night. Apart from this, most staff were nice on the surface but we were lied to multiple times and it felt like we were living in a scam. For example, on Sunday morning, we asked help from a member of staff to book the sema ceremony that took place at the Mevlevi museum as we could not speak Turkish. He spoke to the staff at the museum and told us that it took place on Wednesdays and not Sundays - this turned out to be a lie and we ended up missing this ceremony and had to book the Hodjapasha show through the concierge. In a separate event, we booked a 'sunset' Bosphorus cruise with the concierge after she told us it would definitely stop in Ortakoy (we really wanted to visit Ortakoy mosque). The ship did not stop at Ortakoy mosque and the captain told us they had never stopped there and had never planned to. I would avoid at all costs for your peace of mind!!!

Wonderful
Traveller Type: Traveling as Couple