Kusadasi - Ephesus Shuttle Tour or Ship's "Ulitmate" Tour

We will be on the Royal Princess cruise 13th August 2016,visiting Kusadasi and we have a small dilemma... we put our names down for the ship's "Ultimate Ephesus and Terrace Houses with an Expert" which at the time was only waitlist availability for US$69.95pp, max group size 25. Not expecting this to be confirmed we went ahead and also booked with Ephesus Shuttle's Group Tour of Ephesus and Terrace Houses for US$45 pp, max group size 20.

Well, of course our waitlisted ship's tour has now been confirmed (current price is now US$98.96)!

I guess we're wondering just how much more "special" the Ultimate tour is likely to be. Has anyone done this Princess tour, or which one would you recommend? I have read only good reviews for Ephesus Shuttle (hence booking with them). The tours pretty much cover the same things, ship's includes a stop at rug making place and shopping and is 1 hour longer than the other.

Any feedback much appreciated, thanks!

Having done almost exactly the same tour with Princess in the past, as well as having done (since then) a private tour of Ephesus with Ephesus Shuttle, I think I'm pretty well qualified to advise you to take the private tour. :D

The Princess tour is only "Deluxe" in that it is a smaller size than most of their big-bus tours AND it goes to the Terrace Houses, which very few cruise tours include.

But your private tour is providing all that to you, at a lower price, and with fewer people.

The ship's tour includes that carpet-shop tour (thinly disguised as an "educational" stop to see how rugs are woven), but I'd be surprised if your private tour doesn't also try to include a shopping stop somewhere. They almost all do it.

In short, go with the private tour.

We used Ephesus Shuttle in 2014. I agree with everything that Cruisemom said - go with the private rather than the ship tour. FYI: when booking with Ephesus Shuttle (we had a group of 10 from our ship's rollcall), I specifically requested that we not visit any carpet or leather shops and my wish was honored. In addition, we added a visit to the Terrace Houses with Ephesus Shuttle.

We used Ephesus Shuttle in 2014. I agree with everything that Cruisemom said - go with the private rather than the ship tour. FYI: when booking with Ephesus Shuttle (we had a group of 10 from our ship's rollcall), I specifically requested that we not visit any carpet or leather shops and my wish was honored. In addition, we added a visit to the Terrace Houses with Ephesus Shuttle.

I agree that with a private tour, you can request not to stop at any of the usual stops and Ephesus Shuttle also honored my request not to do so.

But the OP is doing their group tour, so I suspect they will not be able to modify the itinerary.

Thank you both so much for your valuable replies - exactly what I was hoping to hear to convince us we would be doing the right thing going with the private tour!

Thanks again, Cheers!

I am clearly in the minority here but I would not recommend anyone use Ephesus Shuttle. We used the a few years ago and I was very disappointed. In the first place our guide seemed as though he was reciting all of the information he passed on and was bored silly. He seemed to rush us through Ephesus itself and then left us on our own at the House of Mary and another stop. Then he took us to a carpet shop. I explained to him that we has explicitly asked in our tour confirmation not to stop there. He said it was part of the tour. I said I was absolutely not interested and owned all of the rugs I wanted or needed. He said I might enjoy watching the silk worm process. After this discussion went on and started getting uncomfortable I finally relented. When they took us into the room to look at carpets they guy got very frustrated when I kept saying they were lovely but I was not looking for a carpet. After a while he got the hint and angrily drive us back to the ship. When I contacted the company to tell them how displeased I was about this the owner said I should have just told the guy we did not want to stop there. Well I did but did not want it to get ugly. So here you have another side of this company.

Last year when we returned we used the most wonderful private guide I have ever used anywhere named Tugrul Sokeman. We went to Priene, Didyma and Miletus. It was much more expensive but it did include a substantial amount of driving and a terrific lunch. Not only did he ask us questions so he could adjust the tour to what interested us most but he was fun and interesting. And most importantly he spoke with sincere enthusiasm. He said every time he visited these places he tried to see some new little thing or understand more about them. He gives tours of Ephesus and were I to go back to Kusadasi. I would definitely either take another tour there or as he suggested visit Pergamon (who we have not visited). Oh and he took us to this amazing place high on a hill outside of Kisadasi for a late lunch. He had listened to my saying how much I loved Turkish food and was interested in learning more so he ordered a wide variety of dishes, most of which I had not had in three previous visits to Turkey.

.. we put our names down for the ship's "Ultimate Ephesus and Terrace Houses with an Expert" which at the time was only waitlist availability for US$69.95pp, max group size 25. Not expecting this to be confirmed we went ahead and also booked with Ephesus Shuttle's Group Tour of Ephesus and Terrace Houses for US$45 pp, max group size 20.

Well, of course our waitlisted ship's tour has now been confirmed (current price is now US$98.96)!

The same happened to us on for our end of July cruise, except our ship's tour would be $110 each - a huge increase over the advertised price.

In the end I have booked a group tour with Ephesus Shuttle which will take us to Ephesus, The Terrace houses and a brief stop at the Temple of Artemis. I do not expect a stop at a rug demo or lunch, which is fine because we are only docked for the morning.

Everyone's experience differs and Ephesus Shuttle receive regular recent good reviews so I don't intend to change any plans.

We were very pleased with Ephesus Shuttle for our tour

I am clearly in the minority here but I would not recommend anyone use Ephesus Shuttle...

Thanks for your input Chairsin, it's always good to get reports from both sides of the story but we think we'll go with them (Ephesus Shuttle) anyway!

Who ever you go with defiantly go inside the terraced houses they are amazing and most people skip past as they aren't prepared to pay the extra to go in

We have used Ephesus Shuttle 3 times with excellent results. You might want to check out their private tours. We found the price difference not that great and prefer a private tour of 2-4 people where we set the pace rather than a group.

The Terrace houses are definitely worth the extra charge.

We were there last month and requested Melike as our guide for the second time. She is excellent. As with most tours, who you have as the guide makes all the difference.

No pressure to go to a rug factory. We did once because my wife wanted to. The other times we said we were not interested and they drove right by it.

I have the same problem and I'm on your sailing! Perhaps we could share a private excursion? I was looking at privatephesus.com, recommended by other people on the board.

Anyhow if you would like to, post and I will post back with my email. Or post your email :)

Ps--if the link doesn't work, it is my bad typing :)