Fer Hotel — Hotel in Fatih

Hidden at the heart of Istanbul is this wonderful little 5 star hotel. The stay here is almost a 10. Reaching a 9.8 on my point of view. One of the things that makes it so great is the staff by a mile. They are friendly, helpful, smiley, always willing to help you in every way shape and form. I could mention some people and offend others for forgetting them so I will mention all of them. The night staff, the ladies and gentlemen at reception during the day, the door guys... All a + in my concept of good service. The 2nd great thing is the rooms and location. The rooms are clean, organised in a nice way, they really made an effort to think of our comfort. The location couldn't also be better. We pretty much walked everywhere. They also have shuttle service for free if booked more than 3 nights with a few websites, so check with them before you reserve to guarantee this is arranged for you. Like in most my reviews, I also like to point out some things that have room for improvement. The beds, even though are super comfortable, are very low and when you sit on them they sink in because the pod frame is like that and it sinks when you sit. Don't worry, you will get used to it!!! Now to the real stuff... the television sucks. Don't expect to find anything good on TV. It's mostly Turkish channels and news in English. They really need to divert a little more for the international guests. At one point of our journey, we were tired and wanted to rest but there is nothing to see. If you are Spanish or Spanish speaker is even worst. I managed to find a channel in Italian, Russian and polish... but nothing on Spanish. The English channels are BBC news and more news. There's just so much news one can take. Hhhhee. Finally the breakfast is very basic and mostly prepared for their Turkish guests. The breakfast room has not enough space and the food is very strange to Europeans way of eating. I think it should be more cattered for an international crowd. We ended up having a bow of cereal the first day and hitting the streets for something else. All in all... It is a great hotel and we had one of our best stays in Istanbul and despite these small details (which they are ... only details on a review that can be overseen) we will definitely come back as many time as we can !!!!! My humble advice is that you try it too. Won't be...

Our family had booked this hotel for 4 nights but we cancelled the last two nights because of our very poor experience. Having travelled a lot for business and leisure, this was the first I faced such dishonest and threatening behaviours from someone (Kemal) whose job title is nothing less than Front Office Manager. Whilst the past hotel ratings are positive, I should have read the former bad reviews because I am not the first customer who complains about Kemal’s poor customer attitude. Four take-aways for future potential clients:

1- At Fer hotel, we stayed in a Senior suite. This room is only suitable if you have two children under 10 because there is not a proper sofa bed and the bathroom is very small. The cleaning was not spotless.

2- I Do not recommend to book any services through the hotel front office. Most of the staff will refer you to intermediaries including their taxi services which charges 75 euros to the airport when reliable companies like Talixo or Matchless tour only charge 30 Euros.

3- If you want to book a luxury 2 Hour cruise from Kabatas , use Bosphorus Tour Organisations. It will cost you 20 Euros per person versus 60 Euros for Velena travel that was recommended by Fer hotel. Same cruise but one third of the price.

4- I hope you will not face Kemal in a bad day because you will not be able to speak to his manager quickly and his dishonesty will ruin your stay.

One week after the incident, I received an email from the Hotel which apologized for what happened and suggested that it was their intention to “make it up to me”. I am not sure why they waited for me to back home (2600 kms away from Istanbul) to do something especially since they knew that I was staying in Turkey for another 5 days when the issue occurred and therefore had plenty of opportunities to make it right when I was there. They suggested to offer me a 1-night complementary stay within next 12 months. Unfortunately, I will be unable to take advantage of that offer. My chance to have a relaxing time in Istanbul was last week... Please do not let them ruin...

Really good, clean, modern and spacious hotel. We booked the suite which was exactly like the pictures. There was absolutely no outside noise, which can be a pro/con- if you want to be able to hear some hustle/bustle and sounds like the athaan, it won’t be possible in these rooms. On the flip side after a busy day in central it was really nice to have peace and quiet. Location was fantastic, with a beautiful mosque right around the corner.

Really clean bathrooms, full amenities including shampoo conditioner etc, coffee machine, bathrobes/slippers. Good hot water pressure with a daily clean. Very modern lighting system which was nice to play around with.

The front desk were really helpful and very quickly accommodated our nightly requests for ice and chai.

We were fasting and the hotel accommodated suhoor brought to our room each night at our requested time, which included a lovely big flask of chai and an assortment of food. They kindly accommodated requests for additional items to be added eg, orange juice, eggs and sausage. We did attend the breakfast on the last day and it was a lovely assortment of savory and sweets. Not huge but more than enough.

Overall we were well looked after and we had a comfortable stay.

Cons:

The beds were extremely soft and the mattress was a bit lumpy. For myself this was just about passable, but if you have back or muscle problems this will absolutely not be suitable. It is also a very low bed. By the 3rd/4th night I was starting to really notice the softness. Knocked one star off rooms for this.

It’s quite difficult to set the AC/heating to just right, it tends to blow either too hot or too cold. But it’s easily adjustable and we just kept...