Catalca Holidays

The best family friendly hotel in the area … If you have a concern or issue goto reception desk and they will take care of it right away … they have clean cozy rooms… The guys at the reception desks extremely friendly and they will do their best to make sure you are comfortable during your stay …you won’t regret staying there …

Excellent location and attentive and helpful staff. The room and building were very clean.

Positives: Very good breakfast friendly staff Decent size rooms Comfortable beds Excellent shower facilities Negatives: Only limited understanding of English Bed sheets only changed after a couple of days No clothes hook in the shower room Overall good

I’m not going to share too much about my own experience since everyone’s will be different. The hotel is in a fantastic location—less than five minutes from a beautiful grand masjid, right next to the spice bazaar, with the Bosporus river and tram connection just around the corner (5/10 mins), plus plenty of food and shops nearby (perfect!). Hop on the tram and within three stops you’re right outside the Blue Mosque. The hotel room itself looked a bit dated and could do with an upgrade. In one of our rooms the Wi-Fi was very weak, though in the other room it worked just fine. On the positive side, the staff were really friendly and helpful. The breakfast was excellent, and the chef, along with all the staff, was extremely hospitable.

The best thing about this hotel is by far the location. All the main attractions (mosques, Topkapi etc) are within walking distance (~15 mins) and there's a tram stop around the corner for further ventures (e.g. Kadakoy, Galata etc) The hotel itself however is not a 4* as advertised. It's very basic. I visited with 8 other guests and we were all of the same opinion. It definitely has everything you need to get by, but is not particularly comfortable. The breakfast has more Turkish options than continental (think salads/cheeses) but again has just enough choice for a decent eat - e.g. there isn't an omelette station but boiled and scrambled eggs are available. The rooms were clean and any time housekeeping was requested, it was prompt. The staff were on the whole really friendly - we did however have 1 quite pushy front desk person who repeatedly tried to sell us a boat tour (completely fine for this to happen once on arrival as information but it started to become uncomfortable as it was constant everytime i walked through the lobby after I had explained we had a booking we were already happy with). Across the 9 of us there were varied opinions on the comfort of the beds. In summary, we wouldn't be likely to stay again - however in all fairness, Istanbul is an older city so the options in such a convenient location would be limited, especially for so many people travelling together.