Hi guys!!!! Happy New Year!!!!!!
Did you miss me? Cause I definitely missed y’all. Hope everyone is well and flourishing and enjoying the new year.
I’ve had a very quiet holiday, as I spent it alone and by myself, but it wasn’t bad. I did a lot of reflection, some work, and I cooked quite a bit too. You can see my reflections on Instagram as I tend to do most of them there.
Now let’s get into this post, shall we? Today I’m doing a review of Westside Arjaan by Rotana, commonly called Rotana by us living in the city. If you’re going to take a taxi, I’ll suggest you say G-Rotana, Bağcılar, (pronounced bah-ji-lah) as there’s apparently more than one Rotana hotel in the city.
First things first I love this hotel. I think that it’s perfect for what it is. If you’re on a not too tight budget, I’d definitely recommend this hotel any day. It’s family friendly, quite affordable and very comfortable. It also has a wonderful wonderful city view that’s just so stunning at night. You’d definitely get your Instagram photos with this one.
When you arrive at the hotel, you walk into a well decorated lobby, with a large seating area, and depending on how busy it is at your time of booking, you’ll encounter a couple bell boys and reception staff.
The lobby is also a great place to connect and meet people from many different places as it’s a popular hotel. On one of my days there while waiting for a taxi, I met this lovely family from Syria with gorgeous teenage daughters - Haya and Taima that were extremely pleasant. It was such an honor meeting them and enjoying a short conversation with their parents.
You can book ahead on their website or even by phone, and they do speak some English which you’ll find to be a huge relief, trust me, because very few people speak English in the city. If you book ahead for over 7 nights, I believe you do get a discount. You also determine if you’d like breakfast with your room or not.
As it’s a big and quite busy hotel, you don’t get any of that homely vibe you’ll get with boutique hotels, but the staff are pleasant and polite, and will eventually attend to you when they’re at peak periods, you might just need a little patience.
Did I mention that Rotana is an apartment hotel? Well it is, so you get a fully furnished apartment with as many rooms as you book, a living room, dining area and kitchen, (you’d have to request for kitchen equipment) bathroom and guest bathroom. The building has over 30 floors and the first few are actual apartments where people live all year round. Don’t fret tho, they have their own elevators and don’t constitute a nuisance of any kind. You can also buy a room here for your personal use and it’ll be just for you any time you’re in town.
We got a 1 bedroom suite, and the rooms both times were lovely and decorated finely with very modern furniture. The windows are huge, and the TV comes with an assortment of Turkish TV channels where you can listen to music, or even watch a movie. The menu and facilities available can also be viewed on the TV. There’s also a guest bathroom that can come in handy.
The bedroom is small, but very cosy and comfortable. The bed was very nice as is to be expected from a hotel, and the bathroom has a shower stall and a toilet with a lovely mirror and perfect lighting for makeup, skincare routines and even mirror selfies.
The living room area has a small but comfortable L shaped sofa, a lamp, a coffee table, and it’s best feature is how you can watch city traffic especially at night with all the beautiful city lights from that high up in the sky and the comfort of the sofa.
The dining and kitchen area has a round table that seats 3, and you can eat here if you’re the sort of person that prefers to eat from a table. I’m not, lol. The kitchen has a refrigerator and cupboards that are usually empty until you request for kitchen equipment. You do get 2 complimentary bottles of water daily.
As is usual with hotels, room service is available although the menu isn’t very extensive. The food is decent however. I ordered a couple things as I’ve spent a few days in this hotel. I particularly enjoyed the salmon and mashed potatoes, but my absolute favorite thing is the ice cream, because they serve Mövenpick and that’s my absolute favorite ice-cream brand. I didn’t exactly enjoy the steak, so I won’t recommend that.
I personally think that a hotel’s breakfast is one of the most important factors in determining if to stay there or not. Who doesn’t at the very least like good food? Rotana has amazing breakfast options. There’s something for everyone as it’s a buffet style breakfast.
The dining hall is large with both indoor and outdoor seating areas, high ceilings and large windows. Art is sprinkled tastefully everywhere you turn, and even though it does get busy, you should find a good seat to enjoy your breakfast.
There’s an in-house chef on standby to make your eggs exactly how you instruct him to over the counter, although you might have to wait a few minutes for your turn as there’s often a line. You may also have to wait in line to get your bread through the toaster, and probably have to do it twice if you really want it toasted brown too.
If toasted bread isn’t your thing there’s a whole bread rack with an assortment of bread to choose from as well as an array of cheese, jams, marmalade, salads, yoghurts and all sorts really. My only grouse really was the quality of the orange you get from the machine, but I guess it’s quite understandable.
The terrace area would be perfect in summer, but I visited in fall and it was cold and rainy. I did however have breakfast there once and it wasn’t bad, just kinda wet and a little messy.
Rotana also has a bar called Mondo, which I didn’t really get the chance to explore, but from what I saw it looked nice and cosy. You can also order cocktails from the bar up to your room.
The last thing I explored was the Spa. Rotana has an in-house spa with a few treatments. You can get quite a few different massages here, and I did get one. I don’t remember the exact one I got, but after consulting with the ladies at the desk, they helped me choose one. It was inexpensive as it cost about 350TL I believe.
My masseuse, Emi was a sweet little lady from Indonesia that was extremely patient with me as I tried to get recordings for Youtube and all of that. The massage was also relaxing and really helped work out the kinks in my body from 5 days of grueling work.
All in all, I’d definitely recommend staying at Rotana if you can afford it. At $100 per night it’s very good value for your money. My stay was pleasant and very enjoyable. The staff is great, it’s clean and very modern, and if you’re in town on business, especially the import/export business it’s very close to Istoç, Masko, and Mall of Istanbul, so you have great proximity to the areas you need to be.
Would you stay here? Let me know in the comments. Thank you for reading and I hope this has been helpful to you if you do intend on visiting my beautiful city.
Love, Yoma.
Commentaires