Arcadia Suit Taksim in Istanbul

READ THIS BEFORE YOU BOOK!

This host deceives people, does not provide what guests paid for, and keeps all the money — with Booking.com’s tacit approval.
The apartment was nothing like the description: much smaller, poorly maintained, and completely unsafe. Several sockets were broken and exposed, the cooker gave me an electric shock, and the boiler was leaking heavily onto the floor, leaving no hot water at all.
In the end, I had to leave and pay for another place myself — and I still can’t get my money back.

And before the host replies with the usual “we tried our best to help,” please note what really happened. At first, they tried to persuade me to stay in that same dangerous apartment, saying that a refund wasn’t an option. Then they pretended to fix a few things, making only temporary and minor repairs — while completely ignoring the short-circuiting cooker and leaking boiler. They later promised to move me to another flat early in the morning, but when morning came, no one was there. When I messaged them, they asked me to wait another six hours, and then completely stopped responding, leaving me in unsafe conditions.

If you value your safety and peace of mind, do not book this place — and think twice before trusting Booking.com to step in when something goes wrong.

What was wrong:
- no hot water
- several exposed electrical outlets
- the stove was giving off an electric shock
- the kitchen light was flickering
- a leak in the toilet
- the room smelled smoky
- the staff was unwilling to help

Believe it or not, there were some positives too:
- comfortable mattress
- comfortable pillows

We didn't sleep all night because we had two flights and checked in at 10 PM.
And when you're in that state, the only thing you want is to wash in hot water and go to bed.
You don't want to argue or argue, you just want to. Wash. And go to bed. Sleep! My boyfriend's parents, who are 60 years old, were also with us.
I didn't want to push them away either.
I wanted to provide them with comfortable conditions.

Of course, now the hotel owner will write something like, "We provided you with everything we could, and you refused everything," or my favorite from the comment below: "Everything was working, but you asked for it to be changed, and you didn't like it."
Reading responses like these makes me want to ask you to look at the photos of the electrical outlets. They are exposed. That's a fact.

Unfortunately, I can't show a video of the cold water, and I can't show how I'm getting an electric shock from the stove.
And the hotel owner already made a funny comment about the video of the boiler: "That's not ours, you filmed it somewhere else." (So if you're in room 101 right now, open the window to the right of the door, and you'll see everything.)
And if the hotel owner changes it out of fear that someone will see this abomination, then my comment wasn't in vain!

Yes, I can't show all that.
But the bare sockets! And the flickering light! There are photos! How can you write that "you asked us to replace the working parts, and we did," when you have two bare sockets in your room? That's simply unsafe!
Guys, is this how you run a business?

Regarding the flickering light
They came to fix it:
- they arrived when we weren't there
- they left dirty shoe prints
- the light flickered again when turned on

When we contacted Booking.com about these issues and asked to be moved, we received the following response from the employee: "No, you're registered in this room, we can't move you."
After several messages, we were told they wouldn't move us until the morning.
We slept well.
But the next morning, they told us they wouldn't move us until after 2:00 PM.
So, for the next six hours, we couldn't take a bath (no hot water) or cook food (the stove was electrocuting).

After we contacted Booking.com, such inhumane things started happening that I simply cried in frustration.

1. The hotel owner wrote to Booking.com that everything was working, that there was hot water, and that the stove wasn't electrocuting.

2. When we decided to return to the hotel, for which we had paid in full, we were simply not allowed to return. They let us in.
They told us that since we'd picked up our things, it meant we'd checked out ourselves.
Although Booking.com doesn't have such a rule, it turns out they violated their eviction policy.
We interpreted this as them being afraid we'd come back and gather more evidence. If everything had been fine, wouldn't they have let us in?

To sum it up:
They didn't provide us with a service and charged us for it.
We stayed there for one night and paid $460.
And according to Turkish law, specifically Consumer Protection Law No. 6502, this is illegal.
It would have been okay if they'd charged us for that one night we stayed there.
But they charged us for all 8 nights and definitely moved someone else in!

Yes, unfortunately, we weren't well prepared and didn't make enough videos to back up our claims. (Photos are the same as a photos below, because we were together)

Note for the future:
This hotel is listed as non-refundable on Booking.com.
Please avoid hotels like this one.
Especially this one.

I bet right after this review, a 5-star review will appear here, from people with Turkish names and only one review on their map.
(I laughed so hard at the last review like that; it was so childish.)

The reception lady Dilan was excellent, she was kind and polite helpful, otherwise I wouldn’t stay there.
Her attitude keep there. She was amazing.

The place i got was completly different. I got a small room as the other one was having guests then the next day it was having broken pipe or something and i didnt get. Then i left . So this rating is for the tiny room i got . Other than that i dont know if i should get componsated for the money i paid for the other apartment or what to do.

It was absolutely terrible. I originally booked two rooms, but when I arrived at the hotel, I discovered the system only listed one, missing one. We arrived after 6:00 PM local time, and the management said the room wasn't ready yet and asked us to wait 10 minutes. We requested a room, but the apartment was assigned a rooftop room with no elevator and a winding staircase that was incredibly narrow and uninhabitable. There was no air conditioning, and the room smelled terrible. We negotiated with the management to check out, but Ctrip refused to refund our money. This was a truly awful booking.