I needed a hotel near airport and I decided to stay in this so called 4 star hotel. I paid $60 a night for this place but I had to spend $40 a day on taxi just to get to airport! The hotel is 4 kilometres away from airport but it is not accessible! Taxies must travel a long distance to get to the hotel because it is in the wrong side of the motorway!
The room was dirty, the toilet had filth around it, there was long hair all over the room, the place was noisy and I found a condom in the corner of the room.
Just stay away, this place was really bad.

Grumpy desk clerk with major attitude

Air conditioning did not work, and it was +40 that day. They kept saying it would be fixed in 10 minutes, and it still wasn't working when we left the next day. It was a hot night with little sleep. Hotel is old & poorly maintained - the klunky old AC was symptomatic.

We had ordered a hotel taxi to take our family to the airport early in am. There was no taxi at requested time. Desk clerk kept saying 5 minutes. After 30 min, it turned out the hotel taxi had broken down the previous evening and wasn't operating. We had to scramble to get commercial taxis and almost missed our flight.

Expressed displeasure to manager, who was indifferent.

Good points:
* Very good security and service.
* McDonald's around the corner with good Mediterranean salad.
* The facilities seem like they were originally pretty high quality and extensive, but, except for the outer pool, a bit run down and unused.
* Nice beadspread, nice sized room and furnishings.
* Compared to most hotels, close to airport, cheaper transportation to/from airport.

Bad Points:
* Located on opposite side of airport from the cultural old town area. Even further from the night life area. Expensive transportation to those areas, or very long commute with cheaper transportation, especially during rush hour. This is the worst thing about the hotel. Thus if you are single it is probably a mistake to stay there unless you are staying only one night and not going downton, even at discounted rates. Transportation to/from airport ($5) is cheaper than to downtown hotels (about $20), but you pay taxi about $20 if you want to go downtown!
*Air conditioning is a joke. Prepare for discomfort on hot days.
* No electric hot water carafe in room for making coffee. It seems they had never heard of such a thing. I don't know how many stars it takes to provide one, but I find them very convenient. Also, although the towels were okay, I wish there were wash cloths in the bathroom. These things may be common not to have in Istanbul, hotels, because they were not in another similar priced hotel I stayed at in Istanbul.
* Management seems greedy/needy in pushing you to get drinks (see above about hot water carafe) and eat at restaurant.
* Entrance has an airport type security thing you walk through, which seems like it must be just pretense.
* There was a fan in the window of the shower stall, which went on automatically when taking shower, which was nice. But bizarrely, it's electric cord hung down about a foot into the shower stall. Don't they know about electricity and water?
* The little shampoo bottle, a vestige of when the hotel was a 3+ star hotel, was half-full (do they refill it or leave it there until it is all used up!)
* The halls are very dark, lighted by movement sensing lights that seem too dim. Can't hardly see at all if have sunglasses on.