Decamondo Galata, A Tribute Portfolio Hotel

“The perfect spot”

While not our 1st time in Istanbul, it was our 1st time to stay at the Decomando Galata and definitely won’t be the last time. Location is just perfect for us, around all the main attractions and the usual spots where we usually go. We loved the place, the entire staff are very friendly, speciall… more

While not our 1st time in Istanbul, it was our 1st time to stay at the Decomando Galata and definitely won’t be the last time. Location is just perfect for us, around all the main attractions and the usual spots where we usually go. We loved the place, the entire staff are very friendly, specially Taha who has beenvery helpful.

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“Excellent”

Staff was friendly and helpful. Rooms were clean, but small. Breakfast was excellent. Location was great. Short walk to the tram, from there all tourist sites easily accessible. Also walking distance to Spice bazaar.

“Great experience”

Hotel and staff are amazing and very helpful. Great part of town and near everything with public transportation nearby. Special things to Muhammad for making the hotel stay super comfortable along with Taner at the restaurant doing the same

“Should Be Two Separate Hotels? Not Only One”

Marriott chain is dominant in Istanbul with a boat load of wonderful hotels which fit the style of the city such as Luxury Collection, Autograph, Tribute, and Design Hotels. Other chains tend to have too many boring cookie-cutter hotels which is such a bummer for this city. I booked a standard … more

Marriott chain is dominant in Istanbul with a boat load of wonderful hotels which fit the style of the city such as Luxury Collection, Autograph, Tribute, and Design Hotels. Other chains tend to have too many boring cookie-cutter hotels which is such a bummer for this city. I booked a standard room at DeCamondo Galata and I was upgraded as Bonvoy Ambassador Elite to “Premium Banque” room type. The room looks great for this price range, it is a very old building but totally renovated and reopened with Tribute brand in 2021. I did not have opportunity try it until now because Marriott has been flooding the market with lots of interesting new hotels that I wanted to try. The breakfast is on the roof top restaurant with great views of the city and seating indoors or outdoors. The breakfast is entirely a la carte, no buffet. That said, as nice as this hotel is, Marriott can sometimes cannibalize its own hotels, in fact the same owner also has the Adahan DeCamondo hotel (Autograph) not far away, where I stayed 1.5 year ago and I have a strong preference for Adahan instead of Galata, for several reasons. The Adahan hotel is similar in style but a bit more upscale than Galata, better service, Adahan has half of the room count so more private, it has several public areas suitable for relaxing or having meetings, while Galata does not. Adahan has 16/50 suites so unsurprisingly I received a suite upgrade there and not at Galata which only has 5/95. Last but not least, the Galata hotel is split in two buildings which is not convenient. Breakfast was in the “House” building and you need to step outdoors to go from Banque to House. In the summer it would be fine, but otherwise Istanbul is often gray windy rainy so I would not appreciate that too much. You need to walk down a back alley and then up the stairs to reach the House building and the restaurant. I think a room in House building is preferrable and rooms there seem more expensive so that would have been a better upgrade than what I received. Also there is no gym in the Galata hotel, they are contracting with an external gym and again you have to walk outdoors so that’s in a way a third location. It’s not a long walk, but it would not be so fun in the winter with exercise gear on. If only Galata was much cheaper than its better cousin Adahan it could be a decent compromise, but from experience the price difference on average between the two for various dates is negligible so for me the choice is clear. It goes to show, in cities with a lot of hotel competition I become super picky and I only return to the cream of the crop hotels, which this hotel is not, despite being quite nice. I wonder if they would be better off just making Galata two completely separate hotels rather than one.

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