Location is everything to me. This hotel doesn't have a great view or anything like that but just up behind the hotel and you will find everything. Tons of restaurants, shopping, etc. in the evening the street is lite with blue and white light for a mile and shops are open until late in the evening. This area is just a short walk up behind the hotel and yet the hotel is quite. The pool was very nice and much appreciated. Lobby was pleasant as we're the rooms.

We stayed at the Grand Halich for 2 weeks, businesss and pleasure. Very nice hotel, buffet breakfast, restaurant with good food on top floor with Turkish show on weekends. The hotel is reasonably priced and well situated on the European side (near Galata Tower and Istiklal cad.). Easy to get busses, share taxis and metro to anywhere. The view is worth a million $. The venue for the educators convention I attended was at the Ramada Plaza and was 3x the price of the Grand Halich. Even if the price had been the same I would have chosen the Grand Halich for location and view. You can pay more, but you can't do better. By the way, none of the photos I have included are touched up, the colors are exactly as we saw them.

We joined a Cosmos tour and stayed at this hotel both at the beginning and end of the coach tour.

On our first night we were allocated a high room at the front of the hotel and this gave us a tremendous view over the Golden Horn both in daylight and at night. Our friends were on the 1st floor and they were unhappy with the traffic noise but we hardly noticed it being higher up.

On our return trip we were allocated a room at the back of the hotel with a view of a side alley but we hardly spent any time in the room as we were out exploring the area during the daytime and a hotel room as long as it offers reasonable comforts is all we expect when not paying for the better quality accommodation.

We found the breakfasts to be very good with a large variety of food - the only problem being if you put your knife down on the plate the waiters assumed you had finished with that dish and whipped it away!

Reception staff were very helpful although they were serious faced most of the time.

We used the hotel restaurant once and the waiters were extremely polite and helpful and even produced a large piece of tinfoil to wrap the remains of a very large sandwich rather than have it put in a serviette.

The best thing about this hotel is that it is not in Sultanahnmet (a great neighborhood for tourists but not for business people). The rooms looking west look over the Golden Horn and the views change constantly. It is also convenient to the Caddesi Istaklil which is right up the hill.