Mina Hotel - Special Category

The location was perfect for visiting the old town tourist area. The hotel was a very good standard and the staff were always friendly and helpful. The rooms were clean and well decorated. The roof terrace bar had great views of the blue mosque and the sea.

The restaurant was rather small for the numbers of people coming in for breakfast and you often had to wait for a table. There were no sea view rooms with double beds, these rooms had 2 single beds. We wanted double bed - hotel were happy to change this.

Excellent location near main heritage sites

Nothing. It was exactly what I was hoping for.

the hotel was so close the the Blue Mosque and Sophia, and walking distance to the Grand Palace and the Bosforus (?) very clean and comfortable with a fabulous roof terrace.

The people were very accommodating and exceptionally friendly. The place is clean and pleasant and even when the neighborhood had a couple of power outages, the hotel and staff adapted with its own generator. In sum, I liked the placed--great location, clean, and very friendly. I fully intend to use the place again when I return to Istanbul and recommend it highly, especially given its relatively cheap rates in a city where hotels are a bit more expensive that what one might initially think. Keep in mind this is not a ritzy 4 or 5 star while at the same time it is not a hostel...for a middle aged traveler a nice in-between 2 or 3.

The only minor downside is that when calculating the final bill a poor exchange rate was used. Still, this was not major.