Legend Hotel Sultanahmet

The rooms were filthy and unhygienic, with a strong unpleasant smell as soon as I walked in. The bathroom was worse: mold in the corners and stains that looked as if they hadn’t been cleaned in ages. I felt uncomfortable staying there and wanted to leave as soon as possible. The staff were rude and unhelpful from the start. Even a simple question or request got eye-rolls, sarcasm, or indifference, as though they couldn’t care less about guests. I rarely write reviews, but this was awful from beginning to end, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

A very bad stay. The rooms were dirty, the towels torn, the drain didn’t work, and neither did the hairdryer. Even the decorative pillows were filthy. On top of that, they gave our personal information to another man without asking us or letting us know. All in all, a very bad experience.

My mother, who is 77 and has mobility issues and doesn’t speak English, and I have been at Leyenda Boutique Hotel for two nights. Yesterday, staff said they wanted to fix the bathroom in our room before Turkey’s upcoming public holidays and asked us to move. The alternative they showed us was much smaller than the room we had booked. Today, when I told the concierge we didn’t accept the downgrade and asked for a room with similar features to the one we paid for, he said there were no other rooms and insisted we had to move. When I said that was unfair, he started shouting and slamming his desk aggressively. He yelled that we had five minutes to leave, effectively kicking us out. He also yelled at my mother. We thought about calling the police. As I returned the key and we were getting ready to leave, he suddenly said we could stay in the smaller room after all. I accepted only because taking my elderly mother and our luggage into the street to find another hotel then wasn’t feasible. We’ll see tomorrow whether the hotel gives us the room type we originally paid for on our final night. For now, the bed in our current room is damaged and sunken in the middle, making it even less comfortable, and there’s noise from outside. I’ve travelled around the world for decades and have never been treated with such aggression or experienced such violence. This is by far the worst experience of my travels. Travellers shouldn’t book this hotel. It’s dangerous for guests, especially vulnerable people like the elderly.

Two days before my stay, they refunded the money they'd taken two months earlier to reserve the room, with no warning or explanation. When the agent tried to reach them, reception shouted at them in Turkish and hung up. I was left scrambling for a last minute replacement at twice the price. This hotel is an absolute scam, avoid it unless you want to risk sleeping on the street.