Istanbul and Izmir Tours

[pieshops]

We will be on the Jade in December.

 

We are doing private tours and have narrowed it down to Ephesus shuttle and Ekol

 

Does anyone have any experience with any of these guys, would love to hear your input.

 

Thanks in advance

[Ontariotrekker]

We used Ephesus Shuttle for a self-programmed tour of Ephesus, Mary's House and St. John's church. The van was very clean, driver was helpful and the tour guide was informative and took great care to keep us away from the crowds. Do not want to stop at a carpet place, no problem.

 

Shar

[hawkeyetlse]

We used the "shuttle only" service from Ephesus Shuttle, because we just needed transportation from Izmir to Ephesus, and we didn't want to go to Mary's House or St. John's Basilica or anything else besides Ephesus.

 

In the end, it is not a transportation-only service, because the guide actually takes you around the site. And it was low season (December, like the OP), so it turned out to be a really cheap small-group private tour of Ephesus. Unfortunately, our guide was not very good, and we would have preferred to explore the site without him, as we had originally planned. :(

[cruisercon]

We used EKOL tours when we visited Istanbul this past October.* I did a lot of research, through CruiseCritic and Trip Advisor, and emailed a number of guides.* EKOL emailed me *back promptly, quoting attractive rates.* Because of their input, we decided to fly into Istanbul 3 days early. Originally I was going to do a lot of touring on my own, as Istanbul is an easy city to get around.* However, they discounted their daily rates the more you used them.* In retrospect, that was a wonderful idea as our guide had tickets in advance, allowing us to get into attractions without having to wait; his knowledge of the times when to get into the Mosques allowed us use our time efficiently.* His name was Semih; he was knowledgeable, personable and spoke very good English. Since we had him for the three days, he was able to adjust our itinerary due to circumstances beyond our control, like the weather. He was a gem. Because of him, we feel we really saw so much that Istanbul has to offer.

We impressed upon EKOL in advance, that we wanted to maximize our time and were not interested in going to rug demonstrations, etc. and our guides honored our requests.

Once we decided to use EKOL in Istanbul, we were able to negotiate with them attractive rates for our other ports of call in Turkey.* Therefore, we used them in Kusadasi for Ephesus, Bodrum and Marmaris.* Our guide for Ephesus studied architecture in college and he was the perfect guide to tour such a rich architectual site.* He even travelled down to Marmaris to meet us and we went inland to the Dylan river plain and saw the tombs carved into the rocks.

Valentina, at EKOL was our point person.* She answered any email promptly, even with non-EKOL questions: visas, currency, hotel and restaurant recommendations. She arranged a car to pick us up at the ship and bring us to the airport. All the vehicles they used were clean, modern and air-conditioned.

Because of their discounts, we were able to keep our group small (myself, husband and our two friends). *Our small group added to our enjoyment, as we were able to tour at our own pace. We had the trip of a lifetime!* As I wrote earlier, we tend to be DIY travellers but lucked out with EKOL tours.* Planning on using them again to visit Capadocia.

[vkb2751]

We used EKOL tours when we visited Istanbul this past October.* I did a lot of research, through CruiseCritic and Trip Advisor, and emailed a number of guides.* EKOL emailed me *back promptly, quoting attractive rates.* Because of their input, we decided to fly into Istanbul 3 days early. Originally I was going to do a lot of touring on my own, as Istanbul is an easy city to get around.* However, they discounted their daily rates the more you used them.* In retrospect, that was a wonderful idea as our guide had tickets in advance, allowing us to get into attractions without having to wait; his knowledge of the times when to get into the Mosques allowed us use our time efficiently.* His name was Semih; he was knowledgeable, personable and spoke very good English. Since we had him for the three days, he was able to adjust our itinerary due to circumstances beyond our control, like the weather. He was a gem. Because of him, we feel we really saw so much that Istanbul has to offer.

We impressed upon EKOL in advance, that we wanted to maximize our time and were not interested in going to rug demonstrations, etc. and our guides honored our requests.

Once we decided to use EKOL in Istanbul, we were able to negotiate with them attractive rates for our other ports of call in Turkey.* Therefore, we used them in Kusadasi for Ephesus, Bodrum and Marmaris.* Our guide for Ephesus studied architecture in college and he was the perfect guide to tour such a rich architectual site.* He even travelled down to Marmaris to meet us and we went inland to the Dylan river plain and saw the tombs carved into the rocks.

Valentina, at EKOL was our point person.* She answered any email promptly, even with non-EKOL questions: visas, currency, hotel and restaurant recommendations. She arranged a car to pick us up at the ship and bring us to the airport. All the vehicles they used were clean, modern and air-conditioned.

Because of their discounts, we were able to keep our group small (myself, husband and our two friends). *Our small group added to our enjoyment, as we were able to tour at our own pace. We had the trip of a lifetime!* As I wrote earlier, we tend to be DIY travellers but lucked out with EKOL tours.* Planning on using them again to visit Capadocia.

 

Four so us will be in Istanbul and would like to arrange tours. Can you please tell us how much these tours cost? Thank you.

 

Meenu

[Turtles06]

We will be on the Jade in December.

 

We are doing private tours and have narrowed it down to Ephesus shuttle and Ekol

 

Does anyone have any experience with any of these guys, would love to hear your input.

 

Thanks in advance

 

If you do a search in this forum for those tour operators, you will find a great deal of feedback on both.

 

We used Ekol four years ago (also off the Jade) to tour Ephesus from Izmir, and it was a fantastic day. The company was very easy to deal with to set things up, and our assigned guide, Yelda Celik, was truly fantastic. Obviously, you'll want more current info on them. I can tell you though that Yelda has a real fan club on here; I believe she's since left Ekol and is with another company, Kagan tours; unclear whether they tour Ephesus from Izmir or only from Kusadasi, but you might want to contact them (and of course search Kagan on here too, I know I've seen their name).

 

http://www.privatetoursinturkey.com/yelda.html

 

Have a great cruise!