Macity Hotel

“Desperately needs renovation, but we slept well”

So - this place is now difficult to find! When it was Rhiss there was a big frontage on Ataturk Cd with prominent signage - that is now gone, replaced with the Mahall Cafe. No problem, they have made better use of the space available to them, but there is no Macity signage - it was just luck that o… more

So - this place is now difficult to find! When it was Rhiss there was a big frontage on Ataturk Cd with prominent signage - that is now gone, replaced with the Mahall Cafe. No problem, they have made better use of the space available to them, but there is no Macity signage - it was just luck that on the third pass I saw the red frontage of the hotel above and guessed - then our taxi driver worked it out on the map and we were good, coming around the back to the new, rather understated entrance. I booked the hotel based on it being a sister property to the Rhiss in Bostanci which we had stayed in many times over the years but at some point after booking the name on my email confirmations changed and the reception staff confirmed that the hotels are no longer related. First impressions were not particularly positive - the corridors had energy efficient lights activated by sensors, but even when active they were dull. The room was similarly dull with a broken lamp and no central light. It smelled musty and the wallpaper was ripped. The bathroom had numerous holes where previous fixtures had been replaced and holes left in the tiles. The hairdryer didn’t work and actually looked as if the wires might be bare. There was plenty of mould around the bath and while a new, well maintained jacuzzi might be a draw - a 10 year old one in a mouldy bath does not have any appeal! From what I could see, this was a fairly well appointed hotel about 10 years ago, which has not been renewed and it desperately needs to be. Best of all, the rooms electricity kept tripping off. When the receptionist came to us he suggested that trying to charge a laptop and a phone at the same time was the problem? So we unplugged the laptop, he knocked the fuse box and it worked again. A minute after he left it tripped again - we unplugged the phone and knocked the fuse box ourselves and it came back on. It went again about 5 more times in the night and we knocked the fuses and had to charge from battery packs. Breakfast was ok - I love a Turkish breakfast and you do usually get far too much to manage - not the case here - a single plate each, with some shared bread and a small selection of jams etc. The cheeses were dry as if they had been cut much earlier and the portions tiny, the sucuc seemed deep fried and the wrinkly shelled eggs were oddly unappetising - there was even a portion of butter smaller than a dice, supposed to be shared between the two of us, although we had a bread basket with potentially 4 slices each. So why am i not giving this place a one star rating and recommending that nobody stays there? The location suited - sure, there are other hotels in the Maltepe area, but this was much more affordable. Despite our reluctance to step into the bath, when we braved it, the shower pressure was great. We also slept very well - the beds were very comfortable and ultimately that’s what a hotel room is all about… Update - we “bookended” our trip with one night stays at this hotel and a week later our room was much nicer. Amusingly it was a smoking room, but smelled much better than the earlier non-smoking room. The decor was of the same era, but was in much better order. Electricity just worked. Only thing of concern was that the door looked like it had been opened with a crowbar at some time in the past, the strike plate (the metal plate which receives the bolt) was missing and when closed the door still had a bit more movement than I was comfortable with. On this second visit there was also better signage - I am not sure if this was installed between our visits, or just not lit up and difficult to see at night.

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