Lalahan Hotel

Shocking, rude and arrogant staff, especially the woman handling reservations. Her manner was extremely dismissive and insensitive. I contacted the hotel because of a family emergency, and instead of showing even basic understanding or trying to assist, she repeatedly told me to email. It felt as though her only priority was to end the call rather than listen or help. When I challenged the way I was being spoken to, she called me rude and then hung up on me. It then took days to get my money back. Throughout the process, everything was made to sound unnecessarily difficult, as though the hotel was doing me a favour by dealing with the refund at all. The customer service was appalling. Being dismissive, abrupt and rude is not an acceptable way to deal with customers, particularly someone contacting you because of a family emergency. Staff dealing with international and Western customers also need to be able to communicate clearly and professionally rather than becoming frustrated or dismissive when there is a communication barrier. I also tried contacting reception for assistance, but they simply told me they could not help and that I had to deal with reservations. There appeared to be very little coordination between departments, and nobody seemed willing to take responsibility or help resolve the situation. Based on my experience, I would not trust this hotel to assist you if something goes wrong with your booking. The entire experience was unnecessarily stressful and left me with a very poor impression of how this hotel treats its customers. I am now fully expecting a rude or defensive response to this review disputing what happened, rather than an acknowledgement of my personal experience.

NEVER EVER BOOK THIS PLACE!! We booked and paid a lot of money for a top-category room in a hotel in Istanbul. Upon arrival, we were deliberately moved to a different, lower-star property — a filthy place with broken furniture, terrible beds, old non-plastic windows, and everything falling apart. The design is awful and it feels unsafe to even stay there. Then they started demanding an extra 50 euros per night as a deposit, on top of what we already paid. They spent half an hour trying to scam us into paying more. We refused and went out for a walk. When we came back in the evening, we called our travel agency, and only after their pressure did the hotel finally agree to move us to our original booked room. The whole ordeal lasted over 10 hours. No one apologized. Not a single word. The staff are scammers — a young tall Turkish guy with an allergy at reception (who apparently has a wife and child) and another man who seemed Spanish or Portuguese. They clearly know what they're doing. This is not a hotel, it's a scam operation. Stay far away.

one of the best stay last years in Istanbul

Pay attention: Hotel Lalahan consists of two hotels: Lalahan Hotel (nice and clean) and Ilkay Otel (terrible). We bought a package from the Turkish Airlines website that included flight tickets and a hotel stay. We selected Lalahan Hotel. When we arrived, the receptionist told us we had received an upgrade. However, when we entered the room, we found it smelled strongly of mold, the furniture was damaged, and the room was dirty. The smell was especially difficult to tolerate because our son has asthma. We were sure that our reservation was for Lalahan Hotel, as stated in our booking confirmation. We asked for another room, and the next day a different receptionist offered us a new one. The new room was much better—clean, with a pleasant smell and nice furniture. That was when we discovered that there are actually two hotels managed as one. We are not sure why they tried to mislead us, but this is why I strongly suggest paying close attention to these details.

The hotel is situated right on the centre of town, on a straight path to Sultanahmet square. Great transport links on the tram stations. Accessible to all shops and popular places. It is clean, with average facilities. A good 3 stars but I'll deduct a star for staff rudeness and lack of professionalism. I was sitting at the reception area with my group of friends and the reception staff barged in , asking who amongst us allowed so much stain on the pillow case in our room, accusing us of cleaning our shoes with the pillow case in front of everyone. It was quite embarrassing! I may never return or recommend.