As seasoned visitors to Istanbul we usually stay with friends or if we want a hotel, stay at the Megara hotel. This time that wasn't possible, so we stayed at Hotel Park.

The location is fantastic, opposite the 'Midnight Express' old prison and between Aya Sophia and the Blue Mosque. However the hotel has little else to offer, and given the plethora of equally well-located hotels Hotel Park should, in my opinion be avoided!

A quick run through why:

A dilapidated room with furniture that looked like it had been taken from a doll's house. The bedding was equally ridiculously small, we are quite tall but even a shorter couple would have been fighting for a piece of the covers.

The room was also spartan to say the least with rather crummy fittings - it was roomy, with plenty of space. The TV crackled into life sporadically but generally didn't work and whilst people could comment on what need one would have for a hotel when surrounding by such splendor on our doorsteps, on a rainy Saturday we would have liked to sit around and watch a bit of TV.

Probably of more concern to people reading this would be the fact that the bathroom was dirty - very dirty really. Put simply it hadn't been cleaned for a while. Moving on...

Breakfast. Located in a dingy basement it brought back memories of '90s post Soviet accommodation. Plastic chairs, torn carpets and dodgy photos. The food, it is a stretch to call it breakfast, was stale bread, cucumbers and tomatoes and a boiled egg . My wife asked about the possibility of getting some fruit or fruit juice and was quickly put in her place. There is, it seems, no fruit in Istanbul in the winter. A new one for me. Which moves on to the service

Quite simply terrible. The man that we had dealings with was rude, aggressive when questioned and finished most of his comments with the line that as we are from the UK, we are getting a lot for our money and we should therefore be happy.

Overall we feel rather foolish that we did not check the place out before - we usually do!

The location of this hotel can't be beaten. It is just a few minutes walk from the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofia and is close to restaurants, shops and ATMs.

The room was great - it had recently been renovated, and so the bathroom was very modern.

The hotel has a lovely, homey feel with lots of Turkish rugs all over the place in the reception area and also in the room - it gave it a really different feel to some of the other places I stayed in Turkey.

My only issue was that while the bathroom and the room were generally clean, there were a few little bits that had been missed - e.g. something in the bin. It didn't really bother me - I was just a bit surprised.

The staff were really helpful, especially Sahin, the guy who works on reception of an evening - he made me a cup of tea when I came in from an evening out, and generally did everything he could to make me feel at home.

Initially we were suppose to stay at Terrace Guest House(owner Dogan) but problems with the bathroom made us to change.
As i mentioned on the Terrace Guest House review Hotel Park belongs to Dogan's father.
Shall we say we jumped out of the frying pan into the fire!!!
This place is the shabbiest accomodation we have ever stayed at...
We were first put in room no3 which is a poxy double room that reeked of cigarette smoke and the window wouldn't close...so we complained!!!were shown room no4, a triple room with the most disgusting bathroom...several tiles missing, shower was really manky and rusty!
Finally we were taken all the way to the top floor and shown a smallish double room(no22) with a decent, newish looking shower room. But the only view from the window was the fire staircase. Also the main ventilation system outlet was right on top of the roof just above our room rattling away constantly!
On several occassions we had to call reception because there was no water coming from either the basin tap nor the shower itself.
Radiator wasn't fully working, when complained to receptionist he told us that the room was warm enough for him!!! what a joke!
Breakfast area is in the basement,kitted out with plastic garden furniture(originally white now grey with dirt!!!) which they use in the summer on the roof terrace. Very tacky!!!
Breakfast itself is very basic, white bread, jam, hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, cucumber, olives. No juice and no fresh fruit on offer!
If we would have had more time we wouldn't have stayed at this hotel but would have gone to find somewhere else.