Red Stone Hotel

Stay far away from this hotel! We booked the "Sea View Suite" for our stay in Istanbul. We arrived for around 11:30 PM after a looooong day of travel, and were exhausted. June in Istanbul is no joke, so we were looking forward to a good nights rest and some air conditioning. While giving us our keys, the receptionist (who I am assuming is also the owner) told us that we could turn the air conditioning on - but we could not adjust the temperature. When we opened the door to our "suite", we were met with a WAVE of heat and humidity. It was obvious that the air conditioning in the room hadn't run in weeks. I am not exaggerating, it was so hot and humid in the room that it was difficult to breathe. We were quite upset that the owner knew we were coming but didn't bother to be hospitable enough to kick the air on for us to allow the room to cool down. We sat out on the balcony to get some fresh air. It's worth mentioning that this room is NOT a sea view, as advertised. It overlooks a dingy street. Our exhaustion took over and we decided to go to sleep, despite the extremely uncomfortable temperature and an A/C unit that could barely keep up. The next morning, after some rest (I won't even say a good nights sleep) - we realized how absolutely filthy the room was. Clumps of hair stuck to decorations, mold in the shower, some kind of gross, oily residue all over the walls. Absolutely filthy!! We went to take a shower and saw there was no door on the shower stall. There was a track with wheels, clearly a door was MEANT to be there and was broken. The layout of the bathroom meant that if we showered, the water would spray out into the rest of the bathroom and soak the roll of toilet paper. Perhaps the most disgusting though were the simit seeds that were EVERYWHERE. They were all over the floor and IN THE BED SHEETS. I was horrified that we hadn't seen them the night before and that we had slept on clearly dirty sheets. We stripped the bed and found CHEWED UP SUNFLOWER SEEDS under the sheets. Sick. There were also simit seeds all over the floor. Walking around barefoot, they kept sticking to our feet. We went down to the front desk to complain. It was the same man working. We were waiting while another couple was trying check in (they were having an issue). He asked them to step aside and we told him about the state of our room. He said he would have it cleaned, so we left to go to breakfast. (I should mention - after hearing us describe the condition of our room, the couple trying to check in left. They walked out with us and shared that the man was telling them that their reservation was invalid and they needed to pay him again. They were showing him proof that they had paid for their stay, but he refused to accept it and insisted they needed to repay in full.) We returned to the room after breakfast and could tell someone did a very, very half hearted clean. The photos I'm attaching are all from AFTER she cleaned our room. Still clumps of hair. Sti

Stay Away from this hotel. We were almost scammed. Although our payment had been made prior to 2 days ago of arriving we were asked to make payment by the owner. He mentioned he was having disputes with Agoda of receiving payments and that it wasn't his responsibility to chase payments that customers made. This is an issue he needs to take up with Agoda. I provided bank transaction evidence and confirmation by Agoda that payment had been made. He didn't accept any explanation or attempted to assist us. We were left stranded on the street and had no where to go. We exhausted as we had just arrived from a long flight from Australia. I was mostly dissapointed of the treatment we had received from a fellow citizen as I'm also a citizen of Australia and Turkey. I'm horrified that were almost scammed by him. He tried to take advantage of us thinking we would have to pay and therefore he could than double dip as we would have no where to go. After contacting Agoda they tried to resolve the issue by failing to contact them we offered a refund.