Grand Hotel Gulsoy

Do NOT go there

My husband and I have just stayed there and I would not recommend this hotel to anyone!!! It is old, not that clean, not a good breakfast, extremely rude staff! If you want to go to Istanbul, choose one of the nice small hotels in Sultanahmet. They are much nicer and cheaper. They say this hotel is a 4 star but honestly it looks and feels like a one star....
There are multiple reasons why we did not like this hotel:

1. The staff was VERY rude and not helpful. Even though our reservation started on the 15th and we arrived there only early on the 16th, our room was not ready. A very rude lady at the reception told us that the room will be ready only at 12. After I showed her that our reservation started one day ago, she still said she does not have a room ready...Eventually (very annoyed and giving me very evil looks) she gave us a room with 2 single beds...I went back downstairs and asked for a room with one bed (that is what we had reserved...). She literally started yelling at me saying "See your reservation? It says one standard room; it doesn't say how many beds!” I was quite shocked of how she can really shout at me.... After discussions, she eventually told us maybe a room with one bed will be ready later.... My husband and I were celebrating one year since our engagement and my birthday so you can imagine this was a horrible way to start our day...

2. The taxis they bring to the hotels only want to rip you off! Here's the story: we wanted to go out in the evening so we asked one of the staff how much a taxi fare would be until the place where we want to get. He said at around 20 TL. Someone else from the staff offered to call a taxi for us. We were waiting outside but the taxi didn't show up so my husband wanted to just stop a taxi on the street. The hotel staff told him "no, please wait, YOUR taxi is coming"... Unfortunately we waited and "our" taxi arrived... The first thing the guy told us is that if he puts the meter on, it will be 65 TL (over 3 times more than what a normal fare is...) and if we agree that he drives without a meter on, it will be 45 TL (still more than twice the normal fare). My husband told him to put the meter on. He drove us around in circles for about one hour... we knew where we had to get and we realized he's driving on the opposite direction...Anyway, after being on the car for one hour, we just got out near a metro station and took the metro... So, what do you think: is it just a coincidence that the hotel insisted that we wait for this particular taxi?

3. Terrible breakfast. It was really not something to look forward to...

4. The walls are very very thin so we could clearly hear our neighbors talking, shouting, using the shower, the toilet..., you could hear EVERYTHING!!!! Even if someone was on the hallway, speaking, you could clearly hear them...

5. The AC was very loud; we just had to leave it off most of the time.

6. We did not have soap in the room at the beginning and we only had one bath towel...

7. The room was very dark, there was a window but it was facing an interior yard, towards the room where the breakfast was...

8. The bed and pillows were very uncomfortable.

9. The hotel is NOT in Sultanahmet, as they claim. It is 5 minutes to the tram station and then 3 tram stations until you get to Sultanahmet.

So bottom line, we had a horrible experience there. Please don't choose this hotel. Istanbul is such a great city and it would be a shame to remember such a bad experience...

Unique Quality: NO unique qualities...