Turkey Travel Guide
Park Hyatt Hotels / Istanbul Hotels / Hotel Delays / → All Tags
Park Hyatt Istanbul Gets Delayed Again
Update: A rep just let us know that the hotel does not have a specific opening date. But they are holding a press conference on October 27 and the new opening date (probably mid-November) will be revealed.
Dear Park Hyatt Istanbul,
Remember when you said you were opening September 1? And then you said you were opening October 16? In fact, once you even claimed early 2008.
Well all those times have come.. and they have passed. We're guessing you're not open yet because now your site is telling us "end of 2008" instead of October. And also it won't let us make reservations. Even though we TOTALLY COULD before.
And while hotels do take a lot of work to open, this is a renovated building. It's been standing for almost 100 years! What is taking you so long?
We are able to make reservations starting November 17, but we don't know when you're really opening. We don't believe anything you say anymore. You've shattered our dreams too many times.
Call us (or not) when you're ready to commit.
Love,
HotelChatter
Hotel News / Hotel Sex / Overservice / → All Tags
Turkish Hotel Fires Entire Male Staff for "Overserving" the Ladies
You know how it is when you're sort of boozed-up in a hotel bar and the bartender is kind of hot, and you semi-jokingly propose a quick two-person trip to the bathroom and he's all, "nuh uh, I could lose my job over that" and you're like, "no you wouldn't! P. Swayze had some guest-ual relations in Dirty Dancing and besides, nobody would ever find out."
Turns out, his excuse is valid -- overly-whorey male hotel staff can indeed get canned due to an excess of staff-to-guest affairs. Boo. Lame.
According to a Reuters article today, the Image Hotel on Turkey's Mediterranean coast fired every one of its male employees for repeatedly having affairs with foreign lady guests. They've restaffed the 27-room hotel with women only.
The (female) GM was quoted as saying:
"The last straw was when I saw our bartender, who was a very decent man, walk out of the bathroom with a British tourist."
Well, there go our Fall vacation plans.
[Photo via NYPost.com]
Park Hyatt Hotels / Istanbul Hotels / Hotel Stores / Hotel Retail / Boutique Hotels / Turkey Hotels / → All Tags
Park Hyatt Istabul Opens With Armani and Gucci Inside
[Update: Despite what the online reservations system initially told us, this hotel is offically opening on October 16th. Online reservations are being taken for stays later than October 18th.]
There are at least two reasons to stay at the new Park Hyatt Istanbul Maçka Palas: Istanbul is the only city in the world located on two continents, and Emporio Armani and Gucci boutiques are in the same building.
Of course, there is also the limestone bathrooms, with 25 of the 90 deluxe-sized rooms featuring authentic Turkish baths with heated stone seats. And it's located smack in the middle of the ultra-trendy shopping district, Nişantaşi, home of some of the best shopping in the world.
Each guestroom is equipped with the latest technology including high-speed broadband Internet access, flat screen television, a DVD/CD player and iPod docking station. And a boutique hotel wouldn't be complete without an exclusive spa and special spa suites.
This renovated 1922 building has a unique blend of the old art deco and new modern architecture found in other Park Hyatts. Glass tile is found in much of the hotel with a "Bordeaux Wall" in The Prime, the first Istanbul steakhouse, made entirely out of wine bottle glass.
The hotel officially just opened September 1 but already appears to be sold out for much of September. Rates start at 230 euros ($336 US).
Turkey Hotels / Art Hotels / Luxury Hotels / → All Tags
Ultimate Turkish Art Collection at the Casa Dell'Arte
We first heard about the Casa Dell'Arte in Bodrum, Turkey from the Travel + Leisure list of this year's top 30 new hotels, and now we can see for certain it made this list for a good reason.
Casa Dell'Arte--"Hotel of Arts and Leisure", as the website says--is a genuine art hotel, run by a family who also have an art gallery in Istanbul.
W Hotels / Istanbul Hotels / → All Tags
The New W Hotel in Istanbul is Keeping Everyone Happy So Far
We were quite excited when we learned the W Hotel Istanbul was ready to open earlier this month and it sounds like we're not the only ones. UrbanDaddy just had a visit there and reported back in pretty glowing tones:
If you go with the Extreme Wow Suite (which we know you will, because you're extreme like that), you'll relax from within the bubbling-hot-water confines of a Jacuzzi on your private terrace, admiring the sun dipping under the Bosphorus Strait.
We agree that this sounds like a nice way to enjoy the chaos of Istanbul. The only hiccup seems to be that add-ons like internet access or the kind of necessary process of eating breakfast are all too expensive for most people's tastes, after paying at least $500 for a room. (Yes, people want free WiFi, especially after they pay a high price for a room. Anybody listening?)
Otherwise, all glowing reports so far about the W Istanbul--and apparently its presence has made the whole neighborhood turn funky. We're looking forward to trying out that Jacuzzi some time.
W Hotels / Hotel Openings / Istanbul Hotels / Hotel News / → All Tags
The W Hotel To Open in Istanbul on May 6
The W Istanbul is going to open soon! From USA Today:
The Istanbul hotel will open May 6 with 134 guest rooms, including 26 suites, a spa and chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Spice Market restaurant.
The hotel is located in a historic building at the end of the Akaretler Row Houses in the Besiktas district, which date to the 1870s but have been newly redeveloped. The site is near the Bosphorus Strait and the trendy Nisantasi neighborhood.
The guest rooms will all have high ceilings and full-length windows along with 32-inch TVs, iPod docking stations and as the website promises, ottomans.
There's also a W-branded gym, Sweat. Interestingly, there's no Bliss spa but the hotel does have treatment rooms where estheticians use Estee Lauder products. However, Bliss products will be found in the room. You know, because god forbid you go to a different country and have to try something new.
Underwater Hotels / Poseidon Resort / Hotel Hype / → All Tags
Underwater Hotel Planned for Istanbul
Planned Underwater Hotels Poseidon (Fiji) and Hydropolis (Dubai) are getting some more competition.
Istanbul has announced its own plans for an underwater hotel which will open in 2010, the same year the city will be taking over as the Capital of Culture. From TrendHunter:
The underwater hotel is being built on the ruins of a historical 1930s tobacco factory and will have restaurants, exhibition halls, and rooms all with sea view rooms.
It will be interesting to check-in and check-out the underwater hotel rooms and facilities, as local experts suggest that the underwater visibility of the Istanbul Bosphorus Strait (which is the body of water that links the Black Sea, to the north, with the Sea of Marmara, to the south) is about ten feet.
We have zero faith in these underwater hotels so we can't get really excited about all this. However, The Poseion Resort has got a fancy website that is pretty legit. With an opening date of September 2008, (reservations are to start March 17, 2008) this place should be well under construction. Although since the location is supposed to be a "secret" no one can really check on the status.
We have a feeling this is going to end up as another land-lubbing resort with overwater bungalows but prove us wrong Poseidon.
Turkey Hotel Reviews / Hotel Gyms / Hotel Sick / → All Tags
Bikini Aerobics at Hotel Melas
We found this funny/disturbing video on YouTube of a step aerobics class at the Hotel Melas. We're not quite sure which Hotel Melas it is but we have a feeling it's the one in Turkey.
However, if people doing step aerobics in bikinis and banana hammocks makes you ill, the TripAdvisor reviews on this place report several guests getting ill with diarrhea and dehydration. Yuck. Btw if you can bare it (heh, heh), this same YouTube user has a video of people doing the macarena...yup again in their bathing suits.
Related Stories:
· aerobic in hotel Melas [MisterMelas]
Turkey Hotel Reviews / Odd Hotels / Killer View / Hotels With Revolving Restaurants / Sweet Suites / → All Tags
The Marmara Antalya's 'Revolving Loft' :: A Room With a View. And Another View. And Another View.
While we are on the topic of hotel room views today....
In this fast-paced superlative-chasing world of ours--best, fastest, wildest--we were recently pleasantly surprised to find a new-to-us hotel that claims to be a first. The Marmara Antalya, on the Mediterranean in Anatalya, Turkey, bills itself as the world's very first revolving hotel.
Talk about a room with a view. Make that multiple views. The Marmara Anatalya's "Revolving Loft" is a 24-room wing that rotates between two and 22 times every 24 hours. For those who prefer stationery digs, the hotel's 208-room main building sits perfectly still 24-7.
Turkey Hotels / Hotel Openings / → All Tags
A W Hotel and an aloft to head to Turkey?
Quick, name the third largest city in Turkey. Too late--it's Izmir. If you didn't know, it's probably because there's nowhere near enough hotel accommodation in Izmir, but they're now rapidly trying to catch up. Visitor numbers are rising rapidly, with tourists coming to visit nearby ancient sites, and business travelers arriving for various trade fairs and conferences
As a candidate city for World Expo 2015, Izmir are pumping up the number of hotel rooms available across this Aegean coast city. In just the last month, five brand new high-standard hotels have opened up. These include the Ontur İzmir, a boutique-style hotel created by converting an old office block, and the 60-room Kordon Hotel, built to target higher-budget travelers with every room boasting a sea view.
And in the coming months, both the Mövenpick and Swiss Hotel brands are going to add to the stream of new Izmir hotels. Soon there'll be no excuse not to know about it. Now, we just sit back and await the ubiquitous press release from W and aloft hotels announcing their first hotels in Turkey to open by 2008.
[Photo: E&A Photopage]
Related Stories:
· Five Hotels Opened Last Month in Izmir [Turkish Daily News]
Turkey Hotels / Beach Boutique Hotels / → All Tags
A Quiet, No Kids Allowed Beach Escape in Turkey
If you want a truly peaceful holiday with all the nice parts of a beach resort holiday and none of the crowds, noise and ugly breakfast buffet scenes, it might be time to try something like the Lavanta boutique beach hotel in southern Turkey. To start with, it has a "no kids" policy, so you can be sure that all your fellow guests will be over 14 years of age. The Lavanta is built quite steeply into the side of the hill overlooking Turunc Bay, and you can get views out to sea as well as to the forest and mountains. Every suite has a private balcony and French windows to maximize the views.
If you're not sitting around the pool (which becomes a pleasure again when a dozen children aren't jumping in and splashing your book each time you roll over), you can walk or take the shuttle bus to the beach. Breakfast is included but you can only get dinner three times a week--although with special poolside, Turkish-themed meals, it sounds pretty tasty--outside of Monday, Wednesday and Friday you'll have to fend for yourself in the village. Or just stay the whole day by the pool not using any energy, and you won't even need to eat until breakfast.
[Photo: travellingrunes]
Related Stories:
· Lavanta Hotel reviews [TripAdvisor]
Turkey Hotel Reviews / Hotel Hell / Hotel Bars / Hotel Pools / → All Tags
No Paradise at Turkey's Adam and Eve Hotel
You know a reviewer didn't like a hotel when he starts his review out like this:
There is no idea on Earth so bad that it cannot be made significantly worse by the injection of very large sums of money.
Ouch. And it gets even worse. The hotel being scathed is the futuristic new Adam and Eve in Belek, Turkey, near Antalya. The dream of a Turkish photocopier-salesman-turned-millionaire, it sounds like it has a lot going for it: claiming to have the world's longest bar AND the world's longest swimming pool. But you should know that the longest doesn't always mean the best:
Yes, the 88m bar is the longest in the world; but if we're going to go for superlatives, how about a few more that don't appear in the badly spelt brochures: the world's slowest and most stupid barstaff (all men) ... the world's most stupid badly signed lift system, but also no stairs, anywhere, so you have to wait for the stupid lift; the world's most annoying traipse back, through almost half a mile of darkened purple terrible Seventies gay porn movie corridors, into whose walls you will stumble about 12 times on your way to get your book just to have something to do while you attempt to eat a horrid international breakfast.
It goes on and on, but perhaps enough has been said already. Suffice to say that the reviewer probably thinks we wouldn't be here if the real Adam and Eve had started out at this place.
Related Stories:
· Adam and Eve reviews [TripAdvisor]
· Is This Really the World's Sexiest Hotel? [Guardian UK]
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