DoubleTree by Hilton Istanbul - Sirkeci — Hotel in Fatih

DO NOT STAY HERE- 2 full days of food poisoning. Lucky breakfast poisoning did not hit until afternoon so was able to be partly productive day 1. Day 2 entire day in bed or on toilet. Not even able to sit up and work :( Teach everyone about hygiene. *luckily I travel with Pepto and anti-nausea med. Used both days. And I do not take meds

**then the last interaction the person at desk told me I was lying as I was the only sick person at their hotel. It’s their hotel that made me sick I’m 100% certain. I have been in turkey for 25days now. And none of the other hotels made me sick. I pretty much only eat breakfast. also, I do not lie!

The male -Berak that gets a bunch of negative feedback. Did provide me potatoe and coffee w Lemon and Powerade to help me feel better in the evening. This was nice. Thanks. Had to have housekeeping come and I changed out some items and was saw bell man so he likely told him. Either-way. Nice.

I’m back. This time for 3 nights. I had a good time last time so expected the same. Nope.

Car was a hassle. Knew it would be for 1 night but bell guy helped me out

Room- the put me in a tiny closet the first night but it was worth points so I accepted my doom. The next 2 nights I paid with cash and it was a bit of a fight to get better room but did get.

Food- basic when compared to other Hilton’s throughout Türkiye. ** Hilton staff and chef need to wash hands frequently. Wearing the same gloves for hours doing multiple things is NOT clean hands, it’s the same as mo gloves. Glad I have a kill day today as I’ll be in bed most of the day.

Internet - does not work/20%. I used my phone hotspot entire time. Lousy if you actually need to work. See photo. I’m in bed unable to download their checkout paperwork, put phone (not computer) on airplane mode so to force internet over cell data. Pic shown. Bc internet sucks. Will day Hampton in had great internet. Double trees has trouble with Istanbul being the most horrible / nonexistent.

*I really should have stayed at my last hotel, really debated it, was on outskirts. But much better hotel than this one.

Hamam- Attempted- fail - hamam was told they are different company and “sorry busy”. Also no walking around.

They have a main walk through and sitting area in lobby closed on 1 side. Makes absolutely no sense. I’m watching people with canes etc walk around for no reason at all.

Management needs to come by with some cognitive processes.

Ps. I brought car back the next morning at request 10a so it spent need to move to garage for $13. I ask to use vacuum for front passages seat. They help with this. Thanks. But Staff says I need to check out or will call police. they checked me out 10 min later. *update- today automatically checked me out. Then wondered why I’m still in bed at 2pm - bc I booked for 3 nights and yall gave me food poisoning!! ** they never checked me in for day 3 so door key never worked. She said she was missing pmt. Yet I have put in cc ahead.

Location is very walkable. That’s the only reason for price to be as it is. Everything else is ok. Not horrible not great. I’d like to see how this hotel does when they get some competition from other brand hotels.

The cleaning crew are fabulous. I don’t use them but they are always hi and smiles and provide water.

The bell man is fabulous. Keep him around as well

I would give it a 4 star if I wasn’t poisoned had to skip today and...

Dear Emre,

Thanks for your response.

With ur response regarding cleaning staff behaviour apology I think you might have not read my previous feedback thorougly what I tried to mention for cleaning staff act. Let me again clarify you. Cleaning staff has entered using her master key without me / any family mrmber permission. She entered at at own. My wife asked her when she entered. She even then did not ask her even while entering in room. Rather she came inside, went to room and took door lock which was under our use without permission and went out. This is totally not acceptable. I believe I have not mentioned for what you responded. Entering hotel staff using master key is a safety concern for me. As customer we normally go out of room for hangout leaving our valuable items inside and sometimes our kids live inside thinking they are safe and no one will enter room in such way that may scare them. I need to mentioned that this door lock was not my property and provided by hotel as door was not locking properly in open position but it is not acceptable that someone enter using master key in 4 start hotel without permission and take item without permission. This event I reported to Hilton Group at higher level.

For tea / coffee items, whatever you mention for Covid precaution, I totally agree. But if it takes 3 hours in providing those item mean it a signal to customer to arrange those items themselves. Please be also noted, instead of those tea / coffee items I was provided chargeable 15 Lira Tea that I not requested and it was due to receptionist did not understand properly what am I asking inspite of I mentioned clearly to receptionist. But I accepted even being chargeable item as good gesture because I did not want to return the guy who brought the tea. But that tea we had to throw later bc for sugar was not available with us and after 3 hours when we recieved sugar we had not courage to request further to make that tea again hot. So we had to throw that tea.

Regarding microwave, I thank your team for this favor to make food items hot and for this favor I like to add one Star. So I am giving two Stars now

Regarding washroom / toilet door lock, your explanation seems not logical. As per your logic we all families living in home throughout the world no need their washroom / toilet to be locked from inside while using it. I beleive neither you nor any hotel staff have family setuo like this? This pure person to person privacy matter and hotel must consider this. By the way I availed Family rooms in Marsa-Malaz-Kimpensky, Grand Hayat hotel for stays and by goodluck none of them worked on your logic.

Bye the way, other part of hotel like entrance, hotel location, receptionist behaviour, lobby, guy who took tea to me and behaviour of whosoever I requested to make my food hot was outstanding &...

Scroll down for summary/conclusion.

I have been staying exclusively at Hilton’s all over the Middle East and North Africa the past few months, and this has been by far the worst Hilton experience I’ve had.

I’ll start with the good: Location is terrific if you want to stay in Faith. The check in staff was great, very kind. Wifi is good. Hotel lobby is quite nice (although signs don't permit sitting right now. They upgraded me to “king deluxe” from a regular king room (which was required if available because of my Hilton status).

The not so good:

The room was nice but: I checked it late at night and didn’t notice until the next morning that there was someone else’s hair all over the carpet. I alerted the front desk that the room had not been cleaned properly and requested it to be vacuumed, they simply said sure but didn’t apologize or acknowledge how wrong this was. Then when I came back, THE HAIR WAS STILL ALL OVER. It still was not vacuumed after being told it would be.

If sanitization from covid is a concern for you, this is not the Hilton for you... especially concerning considering the ‘COVID-cleaned’ seal was on the front door.

If this was the king deluxe, I am wary of what the regular king room looks like. My view completely blocked by an abandoned or decrepit office supply building not 8 feet away. While the bathroom was nice, the room itself was not spacious.

The A/C: the aircon has the thing where you have to stick the room key in it to operate. I understand the energy saving premise, if the air on worked well while it was on.

However even on the coldest setting it just puffed out a measly flow of moderate air. Very annoying to come back from a long day of wandering only to find your room has been baking in heat. Not to mention my window handle was broken off.

The rooftop: apparently there is a gorgeous rooftop that has a restaurant. It was closed due to covid.. all the places across the street were open and had ample outdoor seating for meals, so I don’t really understand why an outdoor area on top of a hotel would be closed. Even with the restaurant closed (understandable), guests should be able to lounge on the roof/non restaurant area. (Even more so considering they will not let you sit in the lobby).

TLDR; Too long don’t read version: nice staff and location. Fine wifi and building is nice and new. Small room for a “deluxe” that was not cleaned properly, even after alerting staff.

Conclusion: I will stay at a different Hilton next time...