Ada Karakoy Hotel - Special Category

We booked two rooms, one with a "street view" but given instead a windowless room with a terrible AC which wouldn't cool down the room even two hours after we turned it on and they had to provide a fan so that my daughters can sleep the night.
The wall in the second room was smashed in by the door handle because they didn't bother to fix a stopper for the bathroom door. The TV is a computer monitor that can hardly be seen from the bed..
Finally.. I asked to borrow an iron & board but was told to bring my garment to the hotel lobby where the iron and board are kept.
I really can't justify the high rating of this place.

Location is great. Rooms are small but clean — standard Euro-style bargain hotel.

The hotel would do well to improve its taxi/car service for guests. My partner needed to get to SAW airport, and the airport offered to set her up with a car (seemed like a good deal, and we felt we could trust the hotel). The car arrived five minutes late and the driver proceeded to ask intrusive and inappropriate questions of my partner and drove aggressively — he seemed to become angry when my partner declined to pay an up-charge to take a toll road. He responded passive aggressively by taking side roads, driving through neighborhoods and even stopping for gas (what cab driver takes a passenger without enough gas to get them to the destination they have hired them to get to?). This erratic behavior was frightening, to the point that I had to go down to the lobby (at a time when I was supposed to be packing for my own flight) to urge the hotel staff to contact their driver. They did so, but seemed to take the driver's side in the dispute. They explained that the issue had something to do traffic and tolls (seemingly unfazed by our reports of aggressive behavior and stopping for gas and a beverage mid-trip). The hotel manager did offer to keep the phone line open until the driver dropped my partner at the airport, to assure me of her safety, but if things have come to that they have already gone terribly wrong. Only when we had opened this line of communication did the driver finally get on the highway to the airport.

I would encourage the hotel to be more discerning in its selection of drivers, especially those they are hiring to drive women passengers alone. This experience was a nasty and terrifying end to an otherwise lovely trip.

We loved this hotel and stayed here every time we came to Istanbul. This year we wanted to stay there again and sent them a reservation email, twice, and no answer. I understand the hotel has no problem with tourists but this ignorance towards permanent guests is very unpleasant.