Hotel Sultanahmet Palace — Hotel in Fatih

The Sultanahmet Palace was an excellent place to base oneself to explore the Old City. The location allows you to soak in the beauty of Blue mosque throughout the day and its a view you can't tire of. They wrote to us prior to our arrival asking if they should arrange for an airport transfer and we accepted. It was a smooth process and we made it easily to the hotel in comfortable Mercedes Vito.

Rooms are spacious and clean and the beds are comfortable. The housekeeping staff were friendly and helpful and rooms were cleaned everyday and linen replaced. The only thing I'd change is the bathroom which has a weird design with the ablution bowl front and centre in the shower area and a toilet behind the door. Getting to the toilet without falling into the wet shower area is a challenge! And if you use the shower, water gets into the ablution bowl and you have to drain it using a mug/ bowl as it doesn't have a drain. But when you stay for 4 days, you get used to it!!!!

The staff are excellent. The person at the reception was very helpful and also helped recommend a guide for a day (who was good). Particular thanks to Ayman at the restaurant where we had breakfast for making our mornings pleasant. Helpful, he always put the customer in the centre of what he did. While his colleagues were not so helpful and refused to find us a place without the sun beating down on us, Ayman made it work.

Breakfast was included in the package and the buffet was decent but has loads of room for improvement. In a country like Turkey, where you get fresh orange juice in every corner, I am surprised that the hotel offers processed/ packaged orange juice, packaged plain yoghurt etc. There is a fresh counter to make hot omelettes etc but it was the worst i have had. Given this was our last stop in Turkey and we had fantastic food all around, the food here was definitely sub par. I stuck to boiled eggs as the watery scrambled eggs and omelette were not great! The service by other staff in the restaurant can improve to complement that of Ayman, who was absolutely wonderful.

Overall, we had a wonderful stay and we are grateful to the staff to have given us a memorable experience. Between the location and majority of the staff, its the place to be...

The hotel is right opposite the blue mosque - just one narrow street in between, if you take a step outside the hotel entrance, you already feel like you are inside the compound of the blue mosque - it's that close. That said the hotel is actually facing the back of the mosque so the actual main entrance to the blue mosque is on the other side (near the entrance of Hagia Sophia) so you will have to take a short walk around the mosque (or through the arasta bazaar) to get access.

Very centrally located! The hagia sophia, basilica cistern, topkapi palace are all walking distance so Sultanahmet is a great area to stay in for this reason. Also a lot of options for food nearby at all hours (but in comparison the food is a lot better on the taksim square side of Istanbul).

Be sure to check out the bathrooms in the rooms as lot of them have the turkish bath which may not be for everyone. This is one of the reasons we just picked a different room when we checked in even if it was on the ground floor. The location and walkability is so great anyway, that it didn't really matter that the room we choose didn't have a view from the window itself. You will have good views at breakfast facing the sea. The hotel overall is really good and clean, didn't have any issues at all. Also great service form the hotel staff, reception desk, they even arranged laundry service from outside (expect around 80TL per kg of laundry in that area) - may have overpaid but it was good enough and really convenient that they took it and brought it back themselves the same day without me having to step outside.

Another tip - the small market right across the street (Arasta Bazaar and also the small shops around it) is actually a lot better in prices compared to the Grand Bazaar so do take a look there (you will still have to...

For all tourists in İstanbul! Stay away from that place.

This comment is about hotel’s restaurant. That should give information about the hotel aswell. Same people are leading the organization!

Clearly one of the worst restaurant around Sultanahmet Square. Only view was ok! Rest in my comment. Please read before you go there!

First of all, waiter doesnt even welcome you. Not showing table, not opening doors etc. Same experience also while leaving… very poor quality of service. 1/5

Secondly, salad. Normally in Turkiye, they should bring olive oil, vinegar and other traditional souces with salad. We ordered “coban salata” which contains tomatoes, cucumber and 4 small sized mozeralla balls. They pre sauced our salad without our order. Sadly they put sunflower oil… instead of virgin olive oil… Very low quality sauces and salad… 2/5

Thirdly, main dishes Their turkish pide, just waste of money and unnecesary bad calories. Probably they bake it at morning then put in microwave oven before you order. For sure it was not fresh! İ think it baked like 6-7 hours ago before dinner time. 1/5

Second food we order was “Alinazik” Their eggplant sauce was Ok but meat was terrible. Dry, not tasty and sauce was full of margarin... 3/5

Meat balls was the only OK thing for my experience 4/5

Lastly, When i checked the bill, they automatically added %10 percent service fee! According to Turkish Law’s it is ILLEGAL! Also, with that low service quality they dont even deserve %1 of it.

When i try to say something about it, waiter guy responded me unpolitely. For not fighting with them i paid it but for sure, they GASPED my money.

As a result, try any other place around Sultanahmet Square but do not come here even if you die...