HOTEL GYM RATER

Hotel: Gülhanepark Hotel & Spa

Address: Nöbethane Caddesi No. 1 Sirkeci, Fatih, 34420 Istanbul, Turkey

 

Time of visit: April 2021

 

There’s a barbell and set of dumbbells that you can load plates onto, a bench that has a leg extension/leg curl attachment, a cable machine with high attachment and low attachment, a dip bar, two exercise balls, two exercise mats, a skipping rope and a fair amount of space.

For cardio, there’s two exercise bikes and one treadmill.

 

There is a decent amount of weight plates – 2 x 20kg, 4 x 15kg, 2 x 10kg, 4 x 5kg and 10 x 2.5kg – so you can get some fairly heavy lifts in.

 

The bench is adjustable allowing you to do flat, incline or decline bench presses, for example. At the maximum height, I was even able to use the bench – or rather its rack – high enough to use it as a squat rack.

However, since the rack isn’t very wide, the place where you would hold the barbell is in line with where you’d re-rack the bar, which makes it dangerous if you are lifting a heavy weight. It also didn’t feel very stable, especially when using it as a squat rack, and should be used with caution.

 

There’s a large bar and a small bar for the cable machine (a lat pull down bar and a bicep curl bar). There’s also an attachment allowing you to do preacher curls. There’s a bench press built into the cable machine which is really good. You can get good range of motion and there’s a decent amount of weight on the weight stack to lift. However, when doing lat pull-downs, I couldn’t get the full range of motion. Also, when doing some movements from the bottom attachment, the pulley system didn’t run smoothly and locked momentarily.

 

Does the hotel gym offer complementary towels? No.

Does the hotel gym offer complementary water? No.

 

This hotel was one of the most reasonably priced in the area and when booking, I knew that for the difference in price, the facility might not be as good as those in the surrounding area.

 

This is a small hotel gym with limited equipment. The equipment is old and it’s definitively seen better days. However, if you are staying for a short period, it does the job.

 

Opening hours are from 7am – 9pm.

 

The biggest downfall to this gym is the lack of fans / air con / ventilation in general. It’s in the basement level of the hotel, next to the kitchen and spa. Therefore, there obviously aren’t any windows. However, the fan system doesn’t work at all and ventilation is surely needed because it gets very warm and stuffy down there. I can’t imagine what it’s like during summer.

 

There was no hygiene station or any cleaning equipment available. I think it was cleaned once a day, maybe twice, which isn’t optimal. Maybe they clean it more often in the busier tourist months but at least a spray bottle and tissues or towels should be available.

 

Not sure, but it’s not bad for a small hotel gym considering the cheaper price of staying at the hotel.