Sur Hotel Sultanahmet

Our problems started when no one picked us up from the airport after having organized it via e-mail before our departure. The hotel is a lot older and more rundown than the photos provided show. I'd say the photos are at least 10 years old. The male staff members were friendly enough but the female worker (who we think is the owner) was simply rude. She wouldn't even acknowledge us when we greeted her in Turkish. There is a traditional Turkish buffet and you can each as much as you like. Breakfast can be eaten on the terrace, which is enjoyable enough with a view of the Bosphorous. The hotel is situated above a very noisy railway so expect to hear plenty of noise. It is only a three-minute walk to the Blue Mosque and Sofia so that is a bonus. The cleanliness is a major issue though. In seven days our room got cleaned twice. The bathroom needed a scrub when we checked in and our shower was a tap behind the bathroom door. We booked online and got the worst rooms but don't know what the other rooms are like. I won't be going back in a hurry. This may be ok for an overnight stay but for anything more than three days you really would want something more comfortable and cleaner!

We were "welcomed" by an extremely apathetic staff, and we got a very small, not really cleaned room with a non-working fridge and an electric fan as air conditioning. The bathroom walls were moldy, and the shower installation at the wall in the middle of the bathroom was at the lowest end of Mediterranean standards. The hotel homepage shows the hotel location 100m away from where it really is, namely directly next to a pretty active railway. A weird occurrence was that a staff member told us that they couldn't clean our room because we had taken the only key with us during the day (the second key to our room was hanging on the board behind her when she said this). We found our room with half-made beds. Nothing was missing, but it was strange enough. The meager breakfast buffet was presented in a most unloving manner. The photos on the hotel homepage are not up to date. The terrace is not open anymore; it is now roofed with windows. I doubt that a barbecue like it is promised on the homepage would be possible anymore without filling the whole house with smoke. Having booked 6 nights, we moved to another hotel after 2 nights, not without problems with the payment (exchange courses, etc.). Our guess is that there has been a change of staff some time in 2004, and since then, the Sur Hotel has suffered an extreme degeneration. Practically every hotel nearby (and there are many) is a better choice, and not necessarily more expensive.

It was really wonderful. I haven't seen a hotel like this before.