I stayed here with my family (Mom, Dad and sister) for 3 nights. I will break down my review into Pros and Cons -
Pros:
- Location is excellent. It’s steps away from Galata tower and also walking distance from the neighborhood of Karaköy which has great bars and cafes. The rooftop offers views of the Bosphorus.
- While booking, even though I booked the entire apartment, I mistakenly put 1 guest instead of 4 guests. The hosts accommodated that request and even sent extra towels the next day.
- Communication is smooth and prompt and the host personally welcomed us into the apartment during check in.
- Apartment is very spacious and good for 4-5 people or more. One of the bedrooms is quite airy if you open both windows there.
- Overall cleanliness is fine but some cups in the kitchen weren’t clean.
Cons:
- As stated in some earlier reviews as well, the apartment definitely needs a round of maintenance. Like one of the couches in the living room is very old. Certainly an old apartment is charming but that should not prevent you from investing in maintenance
- one of the bedrooms was quite stuffy. There was no fan in the room
- in spite of requesting before arrival, the AC in the living room was not repaired and was not working (this was cited by one of the earlier guests as well). The apartment can be airy but on our last night it felt a bit stuffy.
- there are mosquitoes at night if you open the window so we asked the host for mosquito repellant machines which were provided later.
- one of the reasons we chose this apartment was that it has an elevator and my mother has some knee issues. The apartment does not go to the top floor (the top floor elevator area is broken) so one has to climb 1.5 floors to go to the terrace.
- there were tea bags but no instant coffee and we had to buy some
Overall, I would say it’s a good apartment location wise (that’s a big factor here) and if you don’t care about the issues cited above but otherwise my recommendation to the hosts is to focus on sorting out these issues and revamping the apartment a little bit.