istiklal terrace hostel — Hotel in Fatih

Please be careful when booking a room at Istikal Oldcity hostel! We had a terrible experience at this accommodation. We booked a couple of days is advanced a private double ensuite room for four nights. The pictures looked really nice, the location was supposed to be superb! We arrived after 30 hours of traveling around 6.30 pm at the hostel. Strangely enough there was nobody at the reception. We tried to call, but nobody was answering. We waited for about 1,5 hours at the lovely roofterrace, getting excited about staying here. Then the manager Drowan finally arrived. Without apologising he took a copy of our passports and made us pay the remaining amount. All set he then told us our room was in another building and a young boy would bring us there. With our heavy backpacks we walked about twenty(!) minutes to a dark alley far away from the superb location we aimed for. We where dropped at another hostel, which had no space for us either. So they send us to - what they called - a really good hotel. "Much better than the hostel." Although we really wanted to sleep in a hostel, we accepted it for the night. But then we got to hotel. It turned out to be a deserted hotel, with no reception, no aircon and no space between the bed and the walls. When we went for a little walk we saw some random boy entering the hotel. Anyone could just walk in, since we were the only guests and there was no receptionist. We didn't want to stay there, so we called Drowan. He promised to come and see us within an hour to get a solution. So we went for dinner. After 1,5 hours still no Drowan. So we called again, but no answer. After half an hour of trying we decided to walk all the way back to the original Istiklal Oldcity hostel. There we said we wanted to speak to Drowan or else we want our money back. But Drowan was nowhere to be found. He did send some other shifty boy who told is Istiklal Oldcity was fully booked for the upcoming days ans he could offer us his personal apartment as an alternative. We declined the offer and said we wanted to talk to Drowan. He then got angry and left us empty handed. After a few more phone calls Drowan promised to come and see us several times. "I will be there in 2 minutes." He made this promise about every 15 minutes. When he finally came it was already 11.30 pm. He got angry with us for not contacting him straight away. (Say what???) He also said he was fully booked and didn't want to give us our money back, because he offered us an alternative. We insisted on getting a refund. It took some time, but in the end we got it after all. We talked to an Arabic family who experienced the exact same problem just a day before we arrived. They where really nice and helpful to us. Funny enough Drowan told us the reason he didn't have a room left for us was because of a "rude" Arabic family that didn't want to leave the room that was supposed to be for us. "Those Arabs are always causing trouble." He said.

After all we where without accommodation in the middle of the night. We walked into the real Old City Hostel, just around the corner. The guy at the reception was amazing and helped us for the night and will try to get us a room for the remaining nights. And also; breakfast is included in this hostel. Unlike the Istiklal hostel.

I didn't surprise us that after we left the Istiklal Oldcity hostel it took about 10 minutes before they deleted our Hostelworld booking, to make sure we won't be able to leave a review.

What a disappointing first night in Istanbul. Big thanks to Old City Hostel for...

We booked a private ensuite room weeks in advance for 5 nights. When we arrived, the hostel did not have our reservation on the system, even though we had paid a deposit (we booked through Hostel World), but the manager said there was a room available. We quickly found out this was not the case as he said he did not have the correct key. Instead we were taken to a nearby hotel and told we could move back to the hostel the next day. The next day when we saw the manager at breakfast he said everything was dandy. When we returned in the evening, he revealed that our room was double booked and we couldnt stay at the hostel, but that he had arranged for us to stay in the same room (as last night) and that our luggage had been taken back to the hotel (as we carted them back to the hostel). When we went back to the hotel, our bags were not there (somewhat unsurprised as this point). The hotel was very helpful and arranged a taxi to take us back to the hostel to pick them up. When we confronted the manager about this, he denied telling us our luggage had been moved across. The next morning we came back again to the hostel for breakfast but the manager was not there so we had no idea where we were staying. The English of the other staff was terrible so they couldnt help us. We came back to the hostel after lunch and the manager still wasnt in, we got him on the phone and he said he has sorted a room for our final 2 nights and he will take us there within half an hour. 90 minutes later he turns up, looking quite angry, when we say we arent happy he just says that he is very tired. The manager dumps us at a new hotel and gives the guy at reception 50 euros. This hotels manager was very helpful and he sorted everything for us, he said that 50 euros is only enough for one night but he didnt make us pay anymore! ||||It was awful to be unsure where we were staying as we wanted a relaxing end to our fortnight holiday. Please avoid this hostel if you do not want a similar experience, there are plenty of very similar...

I booked a room with double bed in advance. However when we reached, it didn't look like hostel/hotel at all. So, when I saw room, it was small in size and bed was just little big than single bed, but it was not double bed and not even enough for 2 people. We got disappointed because it wasn't even close to what was shown in pictures, those pictures are either fake or from some other hostel. Manager said, this is what we have , if you want to stay; okay. Otherwise you can go find another hotel. Because it was late night and we were tired , we decided to stay in shared room, but that room was tiny too with 6 beds and didn't have enough space, we were not happy. But we didn't want to spend whole night searching for new place. So, we stayed.

Also I paid 10% in advance for a room, but because we stayed in shared room. Manager cancelled the booking for double bed room, and said money will be returned in Bank account. And for shared room we have to pay full payment in cash. However I haven't received the cancellation payment yet.

Moreover, it wasn't possible to sleep peacefully at night, as walls were thin, literally we could hear voice from street, next rooms , beds were not clean enough etc. At midnight they turned off light completely, means no WiFi, No light in Room and not even toilet, which was strange! Everytime I had to go to toilet , I'd take my phone with me, I also had to pass through reception when person was sleeping on small sofa. Toilet smell bed and wasn't clean enough. Beds were broken and not clean, also not enough space between beds.

The only STAR I gave because they were offering the service of PCR test in hotel for €15. Because we had flight in 2 days, we asked for PCR test and doctor(or nurse) came to hotel in morning to conduct test and we got report in night from manager on our WhatsApp.

I would say staff is good, but honestly this place is not Livable. They need to fix broken things, renovate the whole space, also clean and maintain and be honest with online pictures...