Istanbul Bosphorus Cruise And Dolmabahce Palace Tour - hel dag

Waited 45mins for guide to collect from hotel and phone numbers given for contact were unobtainable. Eventually taken by coach to another stop where we waited for another coach before setting off. Trip to palace by coach was slow in the traffic but the palace was interesting. The next stop was a spice market, again via coach (to meet a sponsored turkish delight vendor) and then onto a two-course fish lunch with only water offered to drink. We then waited to collect additional half-day trippers to go (still by coach) to a cable car which due to inclement weather wasn't running! Eventually we were driven to the dockside for the Bosphorus cruise which was a simple return trip up to the palace again and back on one of the smaller, older boats. The water was very choppy and due to the boats size made for quite an uncomfortable 45mins ride. Finally, after boarding the coach again we were taken to a friend's leather shop for some more selling opportunities. At this point the traffic had come to a standstill so we were advised it would be quicker for us to walk back to our hotel (in the dark and rain). The advertisement says "Traveling primarily by water enables you to reach far-flung attractions without stressing over public transit or multiple taxis" and this is a blatant mistruth as all of the transiting between sights was by a coach in heavy traffic and often with delays while organisers sorted out what happened next.

The company operating this tour was totally unorganized. They used the same vehicles to operate more than one tour. We spent a lot of time sitting in a bus waiting on another tour or delivering another to their location. At the start of the day it was a hour and a half before we met our tour guide. Then as we drove from location to location on the tour we rarely got any information as to what we seeing as we passed by. We did eventually see what we signed up for but it took much longer than it should have.

The Dolmabahce Palace was huge and grand. The guide had to assist another group visiting the Beylerbeyi Palace, and it would have been better if there were two guides to assist both tours. Overall, the tour was a good visit to the European side of Turkiye, including a good lunch, cable car ride, Bosphorus Strait cruise. The guide was knowledgeable and tried to assist guests with their needs.

Dolmabahce palace was awesome. Our tour guide Korhan was very knowledgeable and he made the trip very enjoyable. He was very patient answering all our questions. He was punctual with the pick up and drop off