Hi everyone,
Sorry for posting a long message again.
I would like to express my appreciation to Attagul, anatoliangirl, and enigma2007 for your thoughtful and kind comments as well as your trust in my true story. Thanks to you, I feel that I made a right decision to share my experience on this forum.
Also, alaskaitaly, I want to send special thanks to you, because I read about your terrible experiences before visiting Istanbul and was able to avoid that hotel, which was one of the candidates. Well, unfortunately, I happened to experience a similar ordeal at another accommodation, which is both sad and funny. But your earlier review was one of the major triggers that pushed my back to write about Sultanahmet Suites this time. I felt obliged to warn fellow travelers.
Meanwhile, I understand what osumom311 and suehami had to say. The incident - a hotel owner calling and threatening former guests - is probably unheard of and would never happen to most of the people, I hope. As for me, I have stayed at hundreds of hotels and hostels in various parts of the world both on business and pleasure so far, but never came across such an incident. So, I truly understand that some people find it hard to accept my story. Certainly I would have had difficulty believing it, had this been reported by somebody else. And you can’t imagine how much I wish things I wrote were “fake” as osumom311 and suehami suspected. But, regrettably, they are all undeniable truths.
Having said this, and in a response to enigma2007 and what dweymouth has written about me, I want to say I am sorry that I used different names on TA and that it was definitely wrong to do so. In my very first review, I wrote about the problem I had with the owner. I tried to negotiate the hidden credit card cost, which was revealed at payment, but was countered by his unprofessional reaction - whining, and then tremendous anger, yelling and threatening, and him telling me, “you have two options. Pay or go to the police" and "you don't deserve to be treated well", etc. And then I felt the need to write about his sudden breach of agreement regarding a late-check out and his remarks, “I changed my mind. You must pay extra if you want to stay after 12”. I also wrote how I felt about the room, the location being a bit far away from the main attractions, and the neighborhood not being very convenient for tourists. These were either facts or my honest, personal impressions. Then, a series of rave reviews started to appear one after another, with some offering misleading information, such as Sultanahmet Suites is only a short 5-minute walk from all the major attractions, and others attacking my personality. This instigated me in a way to reiterate what I had said before. So I did it and commented further on potential safety and security risks that guests might face in this usually unattended apartment building. This is because one day the power went down in the apartment and, since there was no staff, no flashlight or candles, we did not know what to do. We could not see anything at all. When we opened the door, there were other guests wandering the stairway, waiting for help. They had a candle, though, and my friend offered his lighter and they were able to walk back to their room safely. So, in such an emergency, guests are forced to get stranded and help each other, because there is no staff at the apartment most of the time and guests cannot expect someone to come and rescue. In this case, nobody came, of course, and the owner did not even know about the blackout until I told him a few days later. Then he handed me a big flashlight. If you are lucky, you don’t experience any emergency and you will have a perfect stay, as far as the room goes. But if you are not, you come to realize potential dangers. But yes, I should have condensed all these information in one review under one name. I wrote nothing fraudulent or with an intention to trash the hotel. When I wrote reviews, I had some hope that one day the owners would apologize, and made sure that I strictly stuck to the facts and my honest impressions. So I had nothing to hide, and so really should have written as Denizlove all way long.
I also respect the recent comment by osumom311, in which she branded my efforts to get an apology from the owners “a smear campaign”. Well, osumom311, as well as dweymouth, you did not go through what we experienced, so it must be extremely difficult to understand how deeply my friend and I were shocked and traumatized, so you have a perfect right to accuse me. But I would like to tell you that my friend is a very nice, quiet, and peaceful person, and he got so disoriented, when he received an abnormal level of threats for the first time in his life, that he said he would quit his job and commit suicide. I am not joking about this. I had to persuade him not to do such a thing.
I am somewhat relieved though, that at least osumom311 now seems less skeptical about the fact that the owners of Sultanahmet Suites threatened me and my friend. I would like to hear what dweymouth thinks about the owners’ threats against us that started immediately after my first review appeared on TA.
Unfortunately, there are some people who seem to change their attitudes depending on who they are dealing with. So even if some people might have enjoyed their stay, it does not mean that other people are guaranteed the same experience. And I am pretty sure if the owner yelled at a guest, who asked to negotiate a hidden cost, and later called the guest’s home in the middle of the night and made threats about a review, the guest would certainly feel that this information must be spread around as quickly and broadly as possible to prevent a recurrence.
Anyway, believe me I am not calculating anything, osumom311. What I want is a sincere apology from the owners and probably a pledge that they will never repeat this to other people, regardless of the ethnicity, gender, social status, other demographic attributes and other factors. I have clearly communicated to josephine009 last month that I want their apology ….. but in vain.
Last not but least, dear Mhughu, what I can tell you is that if you just need a wide space to spend your time, then you should be OK, because the room itself is more or less fine. The one on the top, 5th floor, is a bit smaller, but others have ample space. As dweymouth has just posted, the apartment is very small and has no elevator, so you need to go up narrow stairs. There is no restaurant, gym or room service. The building gets really dark and desolated at night, because there is no staff staying there. But, again, the “hardware” is more or less OK. The problem is the “software”. Probably it is better not to ask things that could potentially make the owner upset, like a discount or fixing complicated glitches for you. I will just keep my fingers crossed for you, but I am sure the owners will never repeat what they did to me, because all eyes are on them now! I sincerely hope the owners will emerge as totally different persons from what I witnessed, and will treat you and other customers properly with respect.
Cheers,
Denizlove