El Emin Istanbul Hotel Reviews

I should firstly say that all staff at the hotel are amazing. They are polite and so helpful. One of the staff who stands in front of the door went to the road and found a taxi for us and bring it to the door when there was no taxi around. HOWEVER, generally the hotel cannot be considered as four star, it can hardly be a 3 star hotel. There are two significant negative points which makes the whole experience bad: 1. The room: room was big enough but the decoration and amenities were so outdated, the view was rubbish, when we entered lots of bad smell made us so disappointed. the bathroom was the worst part. broken shower holder (I told the reception but it wasnt sorted), shortage of toilet tissues, smell, broken toilet seat, awkward toilet tissue holder, etc. 2. breakfast: This was the worst part of the experience. The breakfast was so basic. just lots of cheese and cheese!!!, no cream, a couple of choices for bread, a few choices of sausages, all not really nice, very basic. occasionally you could find something else like aubergines. Fruits (whole oranges and pears and occasionally melons, not every day, and if you are late nothing. I had to ask the staff why the empty dishes are not updated and they said its finished, while all breakfast must be available during the whole breakfast time). same with juice (only lemonade every day) and again if you are late no juice. a hot drink, only tea!!!! unbelievably no coffee!!! When I asked for coffee they said you need to pay extra!!!!! BUT MOST TERRIBLE part was that the staff were told to ask guests if they need fried eggs (omelette in Turkish!). and when you said yes, they bring fried eggs but charge you 46tl!!! There were lots of arguments during breakfast between staff and guests about this. They also put some other sweets like pancakes etc. on the other side and children could see and ask for them, but again you had to pay extra. I had several arguments with staff and realised this has nothing to do with them. This is a wrong policy dictated by the manager who doesn't want to accept these are wrong. We have already paid extra for breakfast, why do we need to pay again for things like coffee, fried eggs, sweets, and so on? why things are finished before breakfast time finishes... overall, if breakfast and bathroom are important for you, and you want a hotel close to attractions avid this hotel. another thing was that during booking I saw there is a sauna and gym but no one gave us information about these.