Emex Hotel Izmit

Breakfast was good and the place was very clean. It's an older hotel, though, and both the rooms and bathroom could use an upgrade. There may be racing near the parking lots, so earplugs might come in handy. It's okay overall, and I'd stay again.

The room was neat and clean when I checked in late at night, and the view over the sea was okay. Housekeeping did a good job. The room had a kettle for tea and coffee, but the TV was quite small and I couldn't adjust the AC temperature. WiFi was a real hassle. It didn't work, and after I asked reception I waited at least three hours and made several calls before it was fixed. It disconnected again a few hours later, then came back after a lot more follow-up. Reception didn't feel very friendly, and communication was difficult because of the language barrier, so we mostly used Google. Breakfast was good, though there wasn't much for vegans. The restaurant only had two vegetarian choices for lunch and dinner. The hotel is on the highway, about a 15-minute walk from the outlet center. The city is a 10-minute drive away, with no attractions nearby.

The view was one of my favorite things, and I really loved the pool. It was very, very nice, though the indoor pool turned out to be fake 😅. The room was too small for four of us, with only three beds, but we could get an extra bed for free. No balcony, which was okay. The breakfast looked delicious but didn't taste that good to me, and there were dogs outside by the door.

Check-in went smoothly, and the reception team were friendly and helpful. The room condition was another story: it was dusty, the windows weren't clean, and the cups still had coffee and tea from earlier guests. The kettle was dirty too, as was the bathroom seat. Housekeeping didn't seem to be following basic cleaning steps. The furniture was very old, there were no safe boxes, and a strong cigarette smell lingered in the room. We ordered two Turkish coffees, but one came in a broken cup. It was strange that the F&B staff hadn't checked the cups before bringing them out.