Guest User
February 9, 2023
We go to Istanbul regularly for work, this year for the fourth time. We always look for accommodation near our favourite restaurant New Hatay, which is our base for every visit to Istanbul. So we were very happy when we were able to book the Sapphire Hotel, which has such good reviews and is only 40m from our restaurant. Unfortunately, our trip did not start well. At Sabiha Gökçen airport, the taxi driver of a small Fiat explained to us that the best way to go was through the Avrasya tunnel. He dropped us off in the street above the hotel and claimed that the tunnel toll was 246 TRY and the total fare was thus 665 TRY. That's about double what we normally pay. The receptionist at the hotel, told us that the 665 TRY figure was normal, which was surprising given the fact that we had booked a Mercedes back to the airport and the fare was 600 TRY. Taxis in general are a big problem at the hotel - the front desk repeatedly refused to order us a taxi - once saying that the taxi would arrive in an hour or so, the second time saying that they can't order a taxi several hours in advance and if we want one, we have to return to the hotel an hour before the requested arrival time and then the front desk can order a taxi for us. However, the receptionist was unable to explain to us why he could not order the taxi an hour in advance himself, why we had to return to the hotel for this. We were eventually helped by the restaurant staff where they ordered the taxi ahead without any problems and then arranged the aforementioned Mercedes for us on our last day at the airport. The hotel itself is very nice, but the standard room is so miniature that you don't even have a basic space on the toilet to perform all your needs. As well, there is a space of about 10 cm around the bed that doesn't allow you to lie on the bed in the normal way, you have to get on it from the headboard. The soundproofing is disastrous, every time someone flushes the toilet in the room above you can hear the water running so intensely that you feel like you are going to get hit, at night the noise wakes you up every time. There is a fridge in the room but no water bottle. The first time the reception generously gave it to us for free, the second time the receptionist sent me to the basement restaurant at night to get water, where luckily there were two employees already on their way out and they sold me two pint bottles for 10 TRY. I only wanted one, but the gentleman didn't have the change for 10 TRY, so he gave me two. There are two small lifts in the hotel. When we called, the elevator was always full of other guests, plus it was going in the opposite direction to us, so we waited several minutes each time. Breakfast was relatively plentiful in choice but the quality of food and drink was terrible. There is WiFi in the hotel which works perfectly everywhere, except in the underground restaurant where there is no WiFi at all. There are two lovely, large lounges on the ground floor near