Aloft by Marriott Istanbul Karakoy

I strongly warn anyone from staying at this hotel, especially families with children. First of all, the location is very bad. It is far from public transportation, located in a narrow alley, and the room view was awful, overlooking workers’ buildings and nearby construction sites. This hotel is absolutely NOT kid-friendly. The rooms are not designed for children at all: the sink is outside the bathroom, there is no wardrobe/closet, and the furniture has very sharp edges. The main issue was that a decorative item from the lobby which is filled with around 100 decorative items placed completely within children’s reach, which any child can easily grab fell accidently from my 3 years old child, Despite the fact that the item was fixed and had no real damage, the hotel demanded $120. After a long argument, we were forced to pay half of the amount only because we had a flight to catch.To make things worse, the manager showed zero understanding of what it means to have a 3-year-old child, insisting that we should hold our child all the time, yet at the same time claiming that the hotel is “kid-friendly,” while in reality it is clearly adult-friendly only. The air-conditioning system is extremely complicated and ineffective. The room was very hot even though it was January, and we had to keep calling reception to turn it on and off. I can’t imagine how bad it would be during summer. Stay away from this hotel. I do not recommend it at all.

I recently stayed for 3 nights at the newly opened Aloft Istanbul, which has been operating for less than a month. Unfortunately, my experience fell far short of what one would expect from a Marriott Bonvoy property, as the hotel is clearly going through some operational challenges. The A/C in the room was very poor, and at times, it seemed to stop working altogether. Strangely, the hallways between rooms were noticeably cooler than the guest rooms themselves, which made the issue even more frustrating. There were also frequent power interruptions, or at least repeated issues that caused the A/C to shut down. Even after changing my room, the problem remained, which suggests this may be a general issue throughout the hotel. Because of this, we couldn’t get proper sleep until the very last night, when the problem was finally resolved. Breakfast was another disappointment. Despite being priced at over 900 TL, the selection and quality were quite modest, nowhere near what should be offered at this price point. On a positive note, Yara and her team were very accommodating and offered us complimentary breakfast as an apology, which we truly appreciated. However, despite their efforts, I wouldn’t choose to stay here again until the property resolves these major issues.