I stayed at Conrad about a month ago – just because I snatched the stretcher award at pre-inflation price. That aside, I would never consider it for a tourist purposes for the three reasons – location, location, location. It is far enough from the center or from any nightlife, so taxi is the only viable mode of transportation, the average trip costs 5-7 US $. Taxis are always available outside. The service is quite lousy for one of the priciest hotels in Istanbul; they didn’t even replace the toiletries daily.
Overall, the hotel is quite impressive, upkeep is good, free parking. It must be a prestige location as they had a large energy-related conference with the Turkish prime minister in attendance. I never saw such security even in our paranoid society – two guards on every floor, one guard per guest in the lobby, some military and police as far as 200 meters around.
Granted, this hotel is outside of my price range, but Turkey is very cheap country – dining in this hotel was pricey even by San Francisco standards, $30+ an entry, $20+ a drink. I guess it has an explanation – we spent some time in rooftop bar with a view to Bosphorus, and we observed quite a zoo: turkish rock-star giving an interview and being photographed while grabbing his underage girlfriend; elegant ladies from high society switching between three languages casually, some busy guy on a phone arranging a coup’ate somewhere in Africa with a Canadian ambassador.
O, free high-speed Internet in every room – too bad I didn’t carry my laptop.
Then again, hotel must be quite adequate for the business trip.