Chora Guesthouse

Pros: The location is good. It's very close walking distance to all the sights and there's a good view of the sea from the dining room. Cons: The owner is unfriendly. The room was much too tiny. The plumbing is problematic. Breakfast is so small. With so many hotels serving beautiful buffet choices for breakfast, why choose a facility that serves so little? The stairs are what I can best describe as a ladder. I don't mean steep spiral stairs as you see in so many hotels in Istanbul. I mean it was basically a ladder. I'll be visiting Istanbul again in Spring 2020, and definitely won't be staying here.

Me and my girlfriend visited Istanbul for 4 days. We stayed in the Chora guesthouse. The rooms where okay, small but clean and decent (very small bathrooms) but since you are in the very centre of touristy Istanbul for this price you probably cant get a big room. 1 thing which we really disliked about this place was the owner. He was very unfriendly and not helpfull (only when you wanted to go to his recommended hamam or boat trip on the Bosphorus). We had an evening flight and asked if it was possible to use a toilet somewhere in the hotel (or maybe in his shop downstairs), but we checked out and he didn't give us a possibilty to use a toilet. Overall i would not recommend this place because the stay wasn't very nice due to the owners unfriendliness and strange way of communicating.

Quiet hotel, excellent location - only 5-10 minutes walking distance from the attractions and the old city. The street is quiet even if one street higher, there are a lot of restaurants and shops. The room was perfectly cleaned daily, which overpassed my expectations for a budget hotel. If you have a lot of luggage, it might be hard for you to reach the 3rd floor since there is no elevator and the stairs are narrow and steep. We had the room with a double bed, facing the street, which I think was better than the other double bed room that seemed to be a bit larger but no so private since one wall is a whole window that gives on the breakfast room - not so great to have people having breakfast right next to your bed! Also the single room I have seen was really small and had no window. The breakfast is served in a small room on the 3rd floor where you have a stunning view on the Bosphorus. Amazing. We even had a better view than the restaurants offering a roof terrasse. The breakfast is good and in good portions - bread, a slice of meat, 2 slices of cheese, somes spreadable cheese, tomato, cucumber, olives, one cooked egg, butter, marmelade, nutella, honey, tea or coffee. We had a good stay at this place, and I would recommend it. BUT, the owner is unbelievably rude. I have traveled a lot and I never had seen that before. You better pay for your whole stay upon arrival otherwise the owner starts yelling at you, saying that you make him lose his time and that you should have read the email he sent you. Fortunately we had already all planned our trip in advance and didnt required any touristic informations, because I really would not have liked to ask the owner. A few days after our arrival, we heard the owner once more yelling at a client who was checking in. The guy was simply asking if they were provinding towels... So be aware that the owner might be rude but at least, after the check in, you should not have to interact much with him.