We stayed here for 9 nights. It is a typical Hyatt property and by that I mean high quality, good service. You know what you are getting. You are safe It is familiar It is quality And that is great if that is what you want/ need. They deliver very good service. Great big rooms Safe food. Very American. And there is nothing wrong with that.

I stayed at the Hyatt Regency Istanbul with my Turkish boyfriend (I am an American man.) He suggested that we stay at a 5 star international hotel in Istanbul as we were more likely to be treated with respect than if we were to stay in a more local hotel. I chose the Hyatt for three of the four nights (stayed at the Ritz-Carlton Istanbul one night.) as I have always had excellent experiences with Hyatt's in Europe. The Hyatt Regency Istanbul met my expectations. The hotel is large but provides personal service. We were upgraded to club level. Breakfast as well as afternoon snacks and drinks were included. The room was spacious and clean. On the downside the previous reviews are right that prices at the hotel are outrageous and it is a ridiculous waste of money to buy anything to eat or drink there. But you can get by that by walking 5 minutes from the hotel to all sorts of stores and restaurants. Another annoying policy of the hotel (and the Ritz-Carlton too so it may be standard practice) is that prices are quoted in Euros when you reserve the room but you are charged in Turkish Lira when you check out. We were not prepared for that so it slowed down the review of our bill on check out. The upside of staying in a great hotel certainly outweighed the downsides. I highly recommend this hotel if you are looking for a luxury hotel, especially one that I would characterize as gay friendly.

If i was grading this hotel on room quality alone, it would get an excellent, as they were clean spacious, tastefully decorated complete with beautiful bathroom with oversized bath - perfect. However there were a couple of things that did let the hotel down, mainly to do with extracting extra money out of you. On arrival, the staff were intent on upgrading us to a higher room at an extortionate rate and didn't seem to want to take "no" for an answer. We had actually booked to stay there for my birthday, but not once was there a "Happy Birthday", cake, room upgrade in sight! The prices in the mini bar were also way over the top, in fact i havent ever stayed in a room with such a pricey mini bar, not even the Four Seasons compares with the prices they were trying to charge! In short, if you want a nice hotel close to the shops and cafes, this is the place. Just make sure you either bring a shed load of extra cash with you, or get used to buying beverages outside the hotel.

Stayed here at the weekend. Simply stunning. Forget what people have said about the location - it's perfect! About a 5 minute walk to Taksim Square while still out of the way of all the hustle and bustle. Beautiful hotel lobby and I like the fact that you go through a metal dectector before you fully enter the lobby. Lobby was very nice indeed and clean. Reception staff were fine and helpful. I also like the fact that you can't access the lift without a key card - added security. Had a standard room, which was very large. Immaculately clean throughout. Large double bed which was amazingly comfortable. Desk, sofa, extra drawers etc.. A large TV - although I was surprised that it wasn't a flat-screen one. The best point about the room, for me anyway, was the bathroom. Very spacious and luxurious indeed. Unfortunately, we did not get the chance to check out the restaurant or any features of the hotel due to time constraints, but I'm sure they are just as well mainted and plentiful as the features that we did experience. I will agree with everyone else here and say that the 'extra' prices are extra-ordinarily high! The hotel room wasn't cheap in itself (?140 per night) and I know that hotel room mark-up costs are very very very profitable to the hotel - especially at this cost of a room. Therefore, I feel, why the need to then place a simple 330ml can of Coke at 12YTL (?5) and a miniture bottle of whiskey at 25YTL (?10+) - they must be making well into the 10000+% profit margin on these mark-up prices for extras. The 'standard' breakfast was 50YTL (?21). Despite the high cost of extras, I throughly enjoyed my time here and I'd love to stay again and would recommended it to anyone. Just be aware that any extras that you may take for granted elsewhere, i.e. Internet for example, will cost you a lot-of-Lira here.