Best of Turkey Pre Tour Hotel

I'm not on the tour, but I would try other (more traditional) methods of booking a room including the hotel's own website or on Booking.com, if the price is better there.

Thanks for responding. The tour material gives the hotel email and telephone number to use for booking extra nights' accomodations along with a reference code. This is our 1st Rick Steves' Tour so not sure how and when to proceed but have received another reminder today to book pre tour nights.

I'm on that same tour later in the year and didn't receive a response from them, either. I will probably just book a different hotel for the pre-tour and then make my way over to the Acra on the first day of the tour.

I just booked this tour for Fall 2022. I wonder if phoning the hotel would work?

After 2 emails, did hear back from Erdal Ozturk at the Acra and was able to reserve a cancellable room pre-tour as well as a transfer to the hotel

For what it is worth we just checked into the Acra last night - March 19, 2022.

This is our third RS Tour and we really enjoy them - however I am not sure who at Rick Steves is vetting the hotels because this hotel does not even remotely come close to meeting any quality standards whatsoever.

Holes in curtains.
Holes in towels.
Glasses in room are filthy
Broken light fixtures
Dirty bathroom - mold.
Overall dirty

The Acra is just worn down - needs a bunch of work not only in the rooms but also in the hotel itself.

We have a pretty good attitude about travel - but this is a big miss for what our expectations are for a Rick Steves tour.

Do yourself a favor and stay at a different hotel prior to the start of your tour - hopefully they will have this worked out by the time your tour begins.

Thanks for the update! Sounds like you have had a frustrating start to your tour. Hoping the rest of your time in Turkey is spectacular! Keep us posted.

I have had trouble with some of my US email addresses not being recognized by spam filters in Europe. I created a gmail address specifically for travel communications which rarely has problems. I got a very timely response from the Acra Hotel when I used that gmail address to book extra nights before the fall tour I was originally scheduled on.

I stayed across the horn and up the hill, near Taxim, for my few days prior to the tour in 2019. I ended up appreciating having the different perspectives.

Thanks for the heads up Darren. Sounds like Acra is a dump. Will try and re-book my advance nights elsewhere, my trip is coming up in April.

We are taking the tour starting on May 2nd. We booked a couple pre tour days at the Acra via Booking.com and in the comments mentioned we are with the Rick Steves tour. We always use Booking.com as they are great, easy to cancel reservations if needed, as long as within the cancellation window.

Don’t know where the Acra is but we stayed at the Erboy Hotel in Istanbul and loved it. Was pretty cheap, small but clean. I believe they have renovated now.

Darren,
I hope you have shared your specific hotel experience with your guide. Not every RS tour uses the same hotel so your comments may not be relevant for those travelers.

I booked the night before the tour starts at the Acra. They quoted a very steep price via email, but for one night before the tour starts, I am willing to spend a little extra. Hoping they've got the rooms cleaned up by the time the tour starts. It would be a shame to spend so much money on a hotel room that was described above!

We are taking the Best of Turkey tour in April and were also quoted a very steep price by Acra compared to surrounding hotels. We booked the Acra through Priceline at a much better price than we were quoted by the hotel. We hope the hotel lives up to past Rick Steve standards we have come to expect from previous tours. We would think the hotel would have been more competitive.

Sure hope some RS staff see these comments about the condition of the hotel and that the RS 'special' rate is higher than the regular rate.

Hmmm. Leaving tomorrow for Istanbul and the Acra Hotel. I did call the hotel several times and was told to call back after 9AM Istanbul time. When I did reach an English-speaking employee, I was told to email, which I did. I do have 4 nights pre-tour reserved. If my room is really bad, I will find another hotel.
Pam from Bath

UPDATE: They moved us to a new room on the top floor - there are only 3 rooms on this floor and this floor seems to be newly renovated compared to the other room. This room is much cleaner. The holes in towels is still an issue but this room is a big step up. I did send an email to Rick Steves home office and SRM Travel who handles the actual Turkey tours.

The disappointing thing is they put some other RS travelers into room 405 that we were originally in. Bummed for them. We leave in the morning.

We had a similar rate issue described above - higher rate when booked directly with the hotel - in fact it is the rack rate posted in the lobby.

The other item was the person who checked us in said bottled water was included for RS guests and we should ask for more water as needed at the front desk - remember don't drink the tap water here! The next day the opening clerk said he would add it to our bill and asked for our room number. I trust they will get this figured out. This clerk was quick to advise us that it wasn't good business sense to give water away for free so I took the opportunity to ask if the experience we had with our room 405 was good business sense. We never asked to move but after about 45 minutes this clerk called our room and asked to move us to the top floor. The clerk later informed us that water was indeed free for the RS guests and would be replaced as needed for our stay.

Off to Ankara in the morning.

EDIT: RS responded to our email overnight - they said they were "sorry the Acra is not up to our quality standards" and that they will follow up with the hotel to pay closer attention to cleaning standards and maintenance of the hotel's furnishings and linens. It was a much longer response than that, but it shows that RS is listening I hope Acra will follow their requests as it's a great location.

I too am on The Best of Turkey tour at the end of June. The review of this hotel has me concerned, this will be my first experience with RS tours. I also pre-booked the Acra hotel for 3 nights pre-tour and was thinking the price was very high. I would appreciate any feedback from folks who may be on upcoming tours and have reserved this pre-tour, in addition to feedback in general on the hotel. This could end up being a negative start to a long-awaited vacation.

I'm pretty sure when planning for RS Turkey tour in 2020 (of course cancelled) I found that Acra hotel direct email quoted price for add on to Rick Steve tour was higher than booking.com rate.

I have found with other tours too, that asking some hotels for the RS rate in tandem with a RS tour, the rate was higher than booking.com or using hotel website. I didn't necessarily know if the rooms were comparable. I was booking far in advance. Several variables possible, but something to consider if budgeting. I too like the ease of cancelling (per terms of original booking) with booking.com, and the clear listings of amenities.

I have stayed 3 times at the Regie Ottoman Hotel in Istanbul, and loved it. Lovely old building, very friendly and helpful staff, spacious and deluxe rooms and bathrooms, and pre-Covid anyway, they had a wonderful and abundant breakfast buffet. I thought the prices on Booking.com were a great value for the quality. Mid-way between the Sultanahmet old city and the Galata Bridge, easily walkable to either one. One of my stays was before the RS Turkey tour in 2018, and I had just a few minutes taxi ride between my 2 hotels. Enjoy Istanbul, which certainly merits several days more than is included on the RS Tour.

My wife and I are on the 4/18 tour. My initial communications with the hotel were great. When our flight changed last month I emailed the hotel many times, used their webpage contact form with no response. I even called the RS office for help. I then called the hotel directly and was told to call back when the manager was in. But while I was on the call I resent my last email and I received a response confirming my new airport transportation a few minutes later. I do see the prices on their website appear to be less than the rate I was quoted. I am going see about asking for a top floor room. This will be our 5 RS tour. A vast majority of hotels have been fantastic with a few that where more spartan than most I have stayed in. However, I have never felt unsafe in any of the places we have stayed. One interesting note this hotel was a swap for the first hotel when I made my reservation last year. I received an email from the RS office saying the first hotel was going under renovation. I also received an email from the hotel letting me know they had moved my pre tour reservation. We shall see how this goes.

I first called the ACRA Hotel but was told to call back after 9AM Istanbul time, when I called back, I was told to email.

I would email your room request again. The first may not have gone through.
By the way, the ACRA Hotel is lovely. It is on 5 levels. The breakfast room is on the ground floor. There us a new, medium size elevator, the bathrooms are great, the mattresses as comfortable and there us adequate closet space and hangers., I have been in 2 different room and expect all others to be similar.
Pam from Bath

Update: The email log jam may be clearing as I received a second email today reconfirming my flight change and airport transport. Thanks Pam for the update.

i will be on the april 18th tour to turkey and yes, have booked my extra room at the acra hotel. hopefully they will have made changes and cleaned up things... so that your experience in march is not repeated now. thank you for the heads up. i hope i can get a room on the top floor as well. haha. let's see.

My wife and I are on the May 7th tour. We are arriving in Istanbul 5 days prior to the start of the tour. A few months ago, I emailed the Acra to get a quote for the 5 nights. The quote came back to be 150 euros/per night which I thought was high. AAA has the Acra for $103/night but decided to look at other hotels, including some that are in the RS Istanbul book. We eventually settled on the Adamar Hotel and were quoted a price of 415 euros for the 5 nights, including breakfast. The hotel gave us a promotion code credit for 41.50 euros so our total bill will be 373.50 euros or about 75 euros per night. I don't know about the quality of the Adamar but it appears to be ranked higher on Trip Advisor than the Acra Hotel.

It will be interesting to see what the quality of the Adamar vs. Acra will be.

Hi there: We emailed the Acra hotel and the manager, Erdal Ozturk, replied about two days later. He was very attentive and also arranged for a car to pick us up at the Airport.
I found the staff at the Acra to be very nice and attentive. Best of luck there.

The price I was quoted is a bit below their advertised price on the website.

Hi. We are on the RS tour in September. I too would appreciate people staying at the Acra in future to share their impressions. We are booked there pre-tour for three nights but will cancel and go elsewhere if you are all finding it isn’t up to snuff. Thanks! Happy travels.

An update after our stay in early April. We arrived early evening to a warm reception. We were offered either Turkish coffee or Apple tea at check in. Since it was late we went with the tea. As we slowly drank our tea our bags were taken up to our room. We were on the 3rd floor. The beds were very comfortable and the linens were fine. Towels were fine and no issues in the room. There was a radiator next to the window we had to manually turn off but it was great for drying our clothes. The breakfast is all the way down in the lowest level so many steps down and up. There is an elevator but I needed the steps. Breakfast was good but if you arrive right at start time they may not be quite set up.

Overall, I found the hotel to be very much in line with most of my other RS hotels. The staff was very friendly and very helpful. Lots of very good restaurants in the area and close to the Blue Mosque.