Big Peace Suite Hotel

For a budget hotel, it’s a decent three-star place with Wi-Fi. There’s no elevator.

The rooms are spacious for the price, which is hard to find around here, and the location is excellent. The upper-floor rooms are okay, but the basement ones are awful. Since they don’t ask for prepayment, you can also run into overbookings. It’s relatively new, yet things are already falling apart and repairs haven’t been done. The window and shower diverter, for instance, seem to have stayed broken since last fall, judging by the reviews. The manager is reasonable and will fix things if asked, but I don’t want to spend my stay continually requesting repairs.

We had no problems during our stay. The rooms were clean and comfortable, check-in was fast, and staff were always available and spoke Russian. The location is convenient too, within walking distance of Galata Tower, Taksim Square, and the Bosphorus embankment.

We canceled after the first night, so I can’t leave anything on Booking.com, and I don’t get who writes the good reviews there. This place was disgusting, to put it mildly. The room was dirty, there was hair on the shower walls, the shower diverter didn’t work, and the broken window let cold air blow in constantly. Only two ceiling lights worked. The office that should have had an administrator was a mess, and there was never anyone there. Management ignored our complaints and didn’t try to fix anything. I strongly recommend it. The photo shows that office, the reception…