Which Hilton brand?
Conrad's lounge was very nice until they moved it from high floor down to 3rd floor and lost the view. Food-wise, it is slightly above average. Lounge manager was a very nice young man, very proud of his spending a year study hotel management in Florida. He explained to us that in order to move up, he needed to have some credential of study aboard. I think a lot of the times, having nice lounge staff makes the lounge more enjoyable.
Hilton Bosphorus was a strange set up. Nice and spacious lounge but obviously was not deemed as an important feature by the hotel, as there was no attendant the 2 times we went eventhough there were snacks, especially Turkish types were laid out. Breakfast was not at the lounge but at the big restaurant by the water. When we went the restaurant was quote crowded, lots of guests were just business people doing breakfast power meeting. At first the hostess let us to a table quite deep inside the restaurant. Shortly after we sat down, a manager came over and invited us to the table by the window overlooking the water, even my husband was just a lowly HHonor Gold.
Our room at Hilton Bosphorus was booked as Point + Money because we wanted to make sure the stay would count towards the requirement even though people said pure point booking also qualified. We got an upgrade to a room with a nice balcony.
Conrad is up on a slope from the shore, by a community park. While the bar has excellent view due to the height and the panaramic angle, it is quite high above from the water front.
Double Tree Moda has no lounge but the rooftop bar was a hot spot in town. Breakfast was served in the restaurant.
We did not use Marriott brands in Istanbul since we used the several days at Istanbul to fulfill the Fast Track to keep Gold.
Since we had been in Istanbul 3 times before this visit - so there was no need to go visit any sight. The only sight we went was the 七城堡 on Golden Horn part of Istanbul. 這是一個相當"野"的地方, especially the outer perimeter of the fortress. They are the ramnents of the old structures that protected Istanbul from enemy attacks. When we mentioned to the Conrad lounge manager we wanted to go there, he had some disapproval shown on his face but he did not say much, just told us to be careful.
