Best Western Empire Palace Hotel & Spa

We enjoyed our stay at this hotel and liked its location. Staff are friendly and helpful and we appreciated the daily room cleaning and reset. The best feature of the hotel is that it is well situated to explore Istanbul and is about a 10 minute walk to the Sultanahmet Square where you will find many of the main attractions in Istanbul like Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. There is a tram line station very close to the hotel and it is a short walk to Sirkeci metro station. It was a good base for us as we checked out the areas across the water. It is a little far from both airports with each taking about 1.5 hours to get to but we felt the location was worth the time. The room's decor was a bit aged but charming. The beds were comfy and you can get extra pillows here. The room ran a bit warm during our stay but it was a bit noisy outside with frequent tram trains and restaurants below so we kept the window shut. They do have air conditioning and a radiator but we felt the AC wasn't worth turning on during a cool stay in December. Our neighbours were a bit noisy and it kept my wife up but I had no issues sleeping. It was moderately inconvenient when the restaurant decided to pop their new year's eve decorations at 1 in the morning. The bathroom was good and clean with good shower pressure, soft towels and we appreciated the warming rack for the towels. They provide soap and shampoo in dispensers in the shower. The breakfast was decent enough to start the day. They had enough to do a Turkish style breakfast and most options were pretty light. They had some hot items like sausage, scrambled eggs and other options that changed daily. They also had an area for cold items like cheese, labneh, yoghurt, vegetables and some cold cuts. They had a limited selection of fruit with some oranges and apples. They also had coffee, tea, juice and water. I had an early check out on my last day and they made me a nice bagged lunch to go to the airport with and have me a big can of juice which was very nice. The hotel provides bottled water for guests as well as lots of tea for in room use. The hotel has a restaurant on site and a small outdoor patio that is open for lunch, dinner and late dinner. They have some spa and massage treatments that you can book at the front desk. There are quite a few bath, restaurants, shops and other experiences nearby. People in the area are very friendly, welcoming and will invite you into their shop or restaurant...frequently.