Istanbul hotels

[vetjames]

In July, we are heading to Istanbul for a wedding. What hotels can folks recommend there? Any nice independent/boutique ones?

[Gagravarr]

Which area of Istanbul is the wedding in? Have you been to Istanbul before? And what sort of budget?

[can2]

The city is not shy of boutique hotels. I’d suggest few criteria:
– view and roof bar
– proximity to water-based public transport: the traffic is a nightmare, cabs rip tourists off
– july will be hot

[Aston100]

Thumbs up for wanting to stay in a boutique hotel rather than an international chain on this occassion.
For a first-time visit, Istanbul is best experienced from one of those old Ottoman houses (converted into boutique hotels) in the Sultanahmet area.
Lots to choose from and you could try using Tripadvisor to check reviews and filter down.

[Jasdev]

I strongly recommend you find a hotel close to the wedding venue. Istanbul traffic is notoriously bad and you don’t want to be late for any of the wedding events, nor struggling to hail a taxi with the Bitaksi app (no uber in Istanbul).

[Rob]

I reviewed the St Regis pre covid and it was excellent, but I second the comment re location.

[louie]

There was some discussion of areas when I asked a similar question near the end of this thread – https://www.headforpoints.com/2023/04/05/british-airways-launches-flights-to-second-istanbul-airport/. Certainly it is an enormous city and the location of the wedding should be a significant factor in where you choose.

I decided on Sirkeci (thank you Alexandra) as it looks easy to get from there to SAW on the metro and just yesterday I booked the Yasmak Sultan hotel for next month, fortunately a few days before the European Cup final. Rooms look small but that does not bother me as we’ll be out most of the time and the TripAdvisor reviews are very good. Their top floor restaurant, Olive, has great views and also gets excellent reviews.

I’ve previously stayed at the Radisson Blu Bosphorus in Ortakoy and the Galata Istanbul MGallery in Karakoy and could recommend both but we fancied staying in a new area this time.

[Michael C]

1000% in favour of the “near the wedding” idea, especially as it could well be
in various stages over several days. Plot the location on Google maps then draw a tiny circle outwards!