Name of Istanbul hotel for Rick Steves Best of Turkey tour

Contact Rick Steves Europe Monday morning and ask the representative.

I'm sure he uses more than one. It depends on tour date. Agree with previous poster, call or email the office and ask them.

Thanks, will do

The first hotel in Istanbul changes from tour to tour. My hotel last month was in Karakoy/Galata (across the Golden Horn from the old city). The hotel for the tour before me was in Sultanahmet (Faith) near the ancient sites.

Thank you!

Our hotel in a week for the tour is the Acra Hotel.

Oops! I should have indicated that the Istanbul hotel RS used for my tour was Galata’s Hotel - https://www.galatashotel.com/#

Acra Hotel in Sultanahmet was our tour’s first hotel, and it was in an awesome location but awful in every other way. Housecleaning left out their dirty mop bucket in the hallway every night, did not remove the last guest’s trash from our room, and then left their cleaning supplies on the sink in the bathroom. Front desk was surly when we asked for a comforter that covered the whole bed and the breakfast was inedible. We had to resort to finding a different hotel for breakfast and couldn’t wait to check out.

As has been noted, they use more than one first hotel. I stayed at Galata's Hotel (Karaköy) for my Best of Turkey tour last month. It is a modern business style hotel - very comfortable, nice shower, good buffet breakfast, good location. Some hotels I have heard the tours use are The Haze (Karaköy), Acra (Sultanahmet), and Azade (Sultanahmet). In 2024, the tour hotels could be totally different. BTW Mr. Steves was in Istanbul in September reviewing his guide book recommendations, hopefully he considers the hotel feedback on this site and from tour participants.

If you're thinking about this tour, I recommend getting to Istanbul at least two or three days ahead of time. The tour doesn't do Istanbul justice and the tour only has two nights before moving on. The first day of the tour starts around 1 p.m. and is a full sprint - I'm very glad I had adjusted to jet lag and the pace of the city before doing that. I chose to stay in Sultanahmet area on my own pre-tour time.

Thank you everyone who has replied! Very much appreciate the information and pov’s.

We were in Galata Hotel before our Best of Turkey. Very small room but otherwise just fine.

We also were on The Best of Istanbul and stayed at the Azade Premier. Some of our group liked it a lot, some not so much. We had a great room there - very large (a king and a queen bed) and the bathroom had been redone somewhat recently because all the fixtures were new with a deep whirlpool tub.