Re: [guadec-list] lodging recommendations?

[Baris Cicek <baris teamforce name tr>]

Hi all;

I was looking for hotel options in Istanbul last week. That's why I
waited to answer. 

Situation is like that;
Our venue is in Besiktas, which is a very central place of Istanbul,
also well connected with public transportation even via ferries. But
since Istanbul is huge, best thing someone would like is to stay as near
as possible to his destination. That's why I checked hotels fairly close
to Besiktas. 

First of all, there's no "Etap" in Istanbul. Big hotels are mostly chain
hotels which are five stars and business travel oriented with three
digits daily costs. So our best option to have hotels in same region
instead of hosting most people in same hotel. 

That's also problematic, but I'm still trying my best to solve this.
Most close hotel region to our venue is "Taksim". Taksim is also
business travelers preference, so hotel prices are relatively high.
Hotels I talked offered group prices of 80 euros / per double room  -
with breakfast. Considering "Etap" was a fair offer for accommodation,
it had 60 euro / per double room - if you buy breakfast from the hotel -
Taksim is "expensive". But hotels are mostly better than Etap hotel for
sure. Distance from Taksim to Venue changes between 5 to 10 minutes by
"shared-taxi" (which you'll probably get introduced with this
transportation term first time in Turkey :) depends on the traffic.
Taksim is also the place where most of the GUADEC "get-drunk" events
will take place. But don't worry taxis are cheap and ubiquitous in
Istanbul, you'd see more taxis than personal cars in Taksim.  

Another option is Sultanahmet - Sirkeci region, which has mostly all
touristic places of Istanbul. There're lots of hotels there, which is on
average having prices of 70 euro / per double room. In this region
prices start from 36-40 euros (which are the hotes in Laleli) per double
room to 100~120 euros according to place and luxury of hotels. (actually
especially for hotels in Laleli there're rooms that can host 5 or more
people - those hotels generally host customers doing "luggage trade" and
vast majority staying in these hotels are Russian.) I personally don't
suggest Laleli hotels, but anyone need very cheap accommodation and like
to improve his/her Russian can consider them. But hotels in good places
have prices like 65 - 77 euros per double room. 

Connection to venue from Sultanahmet-Sirkeci region hotels is very good.
There're regular ferry tariffs and for those sea-sicks  Tramway /
Funicular connection there exists. Approximate time takes to arrive
Venue from this regions is about around half an hour - which is not
affected by traffic - and for Istanbul that's a *very* good thing. Also
travel path would be very exiting even for a Turkish.

So now I'm waiting for offers from tourism agents and hotels about the
availability and group prices. I'll put them on web page as soon as I
received offer e-mails. But prices would be similar to those - since
Istanbul is very touristic place hotels mostly do not discount much for
groups. 

If you want to book hotels from hotels.com or somewhere else, my
suggestion is - if you want to visit historic places and be in mood of
'tourist' go for Sultanahmet-Sirkeci region hotels, but if you don't
have tight budget and want to have night-life than cultural-life for a
week, go for Taksim hotels. For partners my suggestion is if you can pay
120 euro / double room - there's a very niche hotel in Taksim called
"Nippon" (http://www.nipponhotel.com.tr/) , which has rooms decorated
with feng-shui philosophy and good restaurant etc. 

As a final note, I've looked for farther hotels than
Sultanahmet-Sirkeci / Taksim hotels, and thought about arranging a
shuttle, but it really doesn't worth the mess and probably would destroy
Istanbul experience of most - there was no high price/performance raio
hotels suited our needs. 

I'll have informed list and announce the accommodation options on web
page by the end of this week. 

Thanks for your patience. 

Regards,
Baris Cicek 

On Mon, 2008-04-21 at 12:27 -0400, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-04-21 at 16:25 +0100, Calum Benson wrote:
> > On 21 Apr 2008, at 13:39, Luis Villa wrote:
> > 
> > > hey, all-
> > > Are there recommendations for hotels/lodging near the GUADEC site
> > > available somewhere? I'm looking at:
> > > http://guadec.expectnation.com/public/content/accommodation
> > >
> > > and not seeing much :) But I'd really like to start booking soon.
> > 
> > FWIW, same here... my wife's joining me for the week after GUADEC, but  
> > it's difficult to know where we might want to book for that when I  
> > don't know where I'm going to be staying the week before, yet :/
> 
> Baris has been working on it.  Lets see if we can get the
> recommendations out this week.
> 
> 
> > Cheeri,
> > Calum.
> 
> Cheers,