We stayed for 3 weeks and here is our review and tips!
Pros:
The apartment is perfectly located.
Everything is in walking distance.
Many nearby restaurants and convenience stores. I highly recommend to go to the BigChef at the corner!
Taksim and Istiklal streets have many restaurants and caffe that one must walk to… 5-10mins from the apartment.
Laundry-mat right across the building. No point of doing laundry in the apartment as there is no dryer and not enough place to hang clothes unless making a very small wash. It will cost the same to wash and dry as to only dry at the laundry-mat (15Tl/kg *make sure to see them when they weight it otherwise they might charge more).
Really good wifi connection.
The overall size of the apartment is excellent with a nice layout. There is definitely enough living space.
The bathroom is very nice and the shower is great with good water pressure. The floor is also heated!! Looks exactly as in the Airbnb pictures.
25mins walk to the grand bazaar!
Very good communication with the host and a maximum of 12 hour reply duration.
Cons:
There was still construction ongoing and the noise was really annoying during the morning till afternoon on some days. There was also construction noise that happened once over the weekend. However, after the second week of our stay the noise reduced and we think it’s because it was toward the end of the main construction and the rest of the work was inside this newly built building.
The mattress is sunken and needs changing.
The bedroom gets stuffy and we’d wake up with blocked noise most mornings. Also, seemed a bit dusty unsure if it’s because of the outdoor construction work or bc the cleaner doesn’t really dust off /hoover or mop the floor.
The floors were not cleaned and the once weekly lady that comes around didn’t hover the floors and somewhat did a quick mopping. You can still see dirt and marks on the floor.
The couches were comfortable but dirty and old and unlike the Airbnb pictures which shows brand new pristine furnitures.
The kitchen is of descent 1-bedroom apartment size. There is a small fridge that’s not really convenient for ppl staying a long period. It smelled really bad and it was initially leaking water which I made the host aware. She sent someone that fixed the leaking problem straight away but the fridge still smelled really bad! There’s only 2 pans and the fryer pan is so cheap if you’d use it to cook eggs it will stick.
We ended up going out to restaurants and ordering in during our entire trip; which turned out to be amazing because the food there is so delicious and not expensive (average of 15-25€ for 2 people and that’s really going out and enjoying great & amazing food)
There was only 1 fresh large towel and 1 fresh small towel per person for a week until the cleaner comes next to clean. It’s not a big deal if your staying for 1 week or less but again if someone is staying for >2 weeks should have 2 of each set per person. You can bring your own I guess.
Tips:
Buy a Turkish sim card as soon as you land in the airport!
Switch your mobile data off otherwise you might get charged by your provider extra fees (I paid 50€ just for roaming).
Before travelling to Istanbul watch YouTube videos by other bloggers to find out where to go, what to avoid and how not to get scammed (like the many shoe shiners that drop their brush for then the ones don’t know and picks it up only to find out you have to pay them when they give you a “courtesy” shine! We witnessed many attempts but didn’t fall for them!!).
Istanbul is really safe and beautiful and their people are amazing.
You can bargain almost everywhere and you should, but not in restaurants.
Make sure you check your restaurant checks before paying.
Finally, to enter the building you need to use the building door that is across the laundry / restaurant; not the side one!! We didn’t know which door to use until a gentleman that was sitting in the restaurant saw us going back and forth and he ended up calling the host for us (as we didn’t have a SIM card yet). When entering the building code press ** buttons then the code; don’t press ** buttons too quickly either as it won’t work.
Honestly, despite the cons our stay was amazing and it’s mainly because where the apartment is located.