Trying to decide on Ephesus tour

[Pearl64]

I have posted this on the Other Mediterranean board with little help. We are on the Riviera's maiden voyage and have researched tour companies for Ephesus. We have looked at Melitours (recommended by Rick Steves), Ephesus Shuttle, EKOL, and tourguideinturkey(Kagan's company). We are unable to get the guide Yelda for our tour. Our dilemma is to use Melitours which requires the payment upfront and a sliding cancellation policy or Kagan's company with known guide Taner which requires no upfront payment and can cancel in reasonable time. The price is similar with the two tours. The only difference is one includes lunch and the other it is extra. Does anyone have any experience with either of these two companies and/or Taner Kara?

 

I know there are experienced travelers on Oceania's board. So, if anyone has additional information our group of six would certainly welcome it.

 

Pearl

[Benita]

We have used Ekol twice - in Kusadasi and Istanbul. Both guides were excellent and the pricing so good that we did not look for extra couples to join us and just went with my husband and me. If you go to Ephesus, make sure you see the Terrace Houses.

[Caroldoll]

The car and driver and a guide were wonderful. We both loved Ephasus and in no way would we miss it and we would go again. We started at the top and went down. The card and driver were there waiting. The guide was fabulous and spoke excellent English. We also went to the house where Mary lived her last days. Very inspirational. Ephasus makes Pompeii look like a town dump. It is lovely and worth everything to go to. Wonderful tour and tour service.

[Paulchili]

We used Kagan once and his wife Lale once in Istanbul - both outstanding.

Never in Kusadasi.

Whatever you decide to do, make sure you see the Terrace houses in Ephesus.

[bornfreenowexpensive]

We went with EKOL and loved it. Just the two of us, a guide, and a driver.

[pier]

We went with EKOL and loved it. Just the two of us, a guide, and a driver.

 

That's what we did, and it was great. We also used EKOL for 3 days in Istanbul, again just us, the guide and the driver. It was a remarkable experience. I recommend it highly.

[tanny18]

And if you want another opinion, we used New Faces Tours in '07 for 2 tours - one to Ephesus with the Terrace Houses; and to Antalya In June 10 we used them for Istanbul, Trabzon, and Priene, etc. And just recently in Kusadasi, we used them to go to Izmir!! Also no upfront money...balances at the end of the tour. Reliable, friendly and easy to correspond with. If you want e-mail address, ask me. Arlene;)

[no fuss travel]

We used EKOL in Ephesus. Alex was our guide and he was fantastic. The cost for the two of us was more reasonable than we would have paid to take the ship's tour and see less. We did Ephesus, Terrace Houses, Virgin Mary's House, and John the Baptist Church. Alex also did bargaining for us for items that we wanted to purchase and he did not take us to friends to do our purchasing.

[rhohea]

And if you want another opinion, we used New Faces Tours in '07 for 2 tours - one to Ephesus with the Terrace Houses; and to Antalya In June 10 we used them for Istanbul, Trabzon, and Priene, etc. And just recently in Kusadasi, we used them to go to Izmir!! Also no upfront money...balances at the end of the tour. Reliable, friendly and easy to correspond with. If you want e-mail address, ask me. Arlene;)

 

Could you please email me the email address for New Faces Tours. Thanks Arlene. Rhonda

 

rhohea23@yahoo.com.au

[skigrams]

newfacestravel.com - Don't forget to include the Terrace Houses.

Bobi

[Christine Frances]

Also you can try Go Ephesus at http://www.goephesustour.com. I also agree, do not miss the Terrace Houses:D.

Excellent tour!

[travel_please]

We will be stopping at Ephesus in September (Marina) and are exploring the option of an iPod tour as we’ve been to Ephesus before on a guided tour.

Our two options are the Oceania “Discovery Walks Tour” or taking a taxi to/from Ephesus and downloading the $9.99 iPod tour from iTunes. I’m trying to figure out which makes the most sense.

Is it easy to get a cab to/from Ephesus? And, if so, how much does that cost?

Also a question about the Terrace Houses: Are they on the site of Ephesus and we can just walk over and pay the extra entrance fee to see them? I really want to include these as we missed them last time.

Any answers to these questions would be appreciated. Opinions welcomed, too. :)

[Riverroad]

Are you on the Sept 19 Istanbul-Athens cruise on Marina? If so, come to the Roll Call board and join those of us who have been chatting there.

I, too, have booked Ekol for a tour of Ephesus for just the two of us so I'm glad to hear that others were happy with them.

[christinerd]

We were in the area just 2 1/2 wks ago and used Ephesus shuttle and got Erme. He was excellent. Good english, you can understand him, and very knowledgeable. I highly recommend.

[Pearl64]

Dear travel please,

 

Look at Rick Steves's new book Mediterranean Cruise Ports. He gives you step by step how to do this on ones own; however, he recommends booking a tour.

 

We are still searching our options. The important item is the guide. How can you be sure you get a good one? I think that is our dilemma. And, I think the guides freelance among the companies like in St. Petersburg.

 

Pearl

[AdvenLee]

We are planning on doing a ship tour (Oceania) of Ephesus and the Terrace Houses in November. Has anyone done this ship tour? Do you really see the Terrace Houses as well as private tour companies?

[Kane]

We are planning on doing a ship tour (Oceania) of Ephesus and the Terrace Houses in November. Has anyone done this ship tour? Do you really see the Terrace Houses as well as private tour companies?

 

We did the ship tour last month, and it was very good. A large part of this was because our guide was excellent and knowledgeable on all aspects, including the geography and reasons why Ephesus declined and was buried (forces of man and nature).

 

The Terrace Houses are on the site ... the tour includes the extra tickets required for entrance. They are interesting to provide an insight on how the elite lived, but the major elements of Ephesus (which you will see) are actually much more impressive. I suspect the Terrace House tour is as good as a private one because you enter at the bottom and follow the stairs to the top ... the goodness will depend on how talented and knowledgeable your guide is.

 

I assume it will be fairly cool in November ... it was warm but not hot when we were there. The Terrace Houses are enclosed in a $17 Mil tent structure and our guide told us we were lucky, as it gets to be like a sauna inside during the summer.

 

Good/Bad news: Bad news is that the ship tour ends at a carpet store. Good news is that this store is one block from the dock ... you can escape the sales pitch.

 

Except for the carpets, our guide briefed us on what to buy/not-buy in the open markets. One tip: you can buy an ancient Roman Coin, guaranteed to be at least 2,000 minutes old :-) They vary in price from about 10 Euro but I showed the hawker the last remaining Euro in my pocket and got one ... 2.5 Euro.

[binkysmom]

I would really recommend doing a private tour over the ships. We went with 8 other people on our roll call for a private tour and we got to a lot of the sites faster than the ships tours. I even have some pics of Ephesus where it looks deserted! We were ahead of the big bus tours and got to see what we wanted (including the Terrace Houses). The tour itself cost us $25 usd each and we each paid extra for the Terrace Houses.

[CintiPam]

We used EKOL Tours and Ali was our excellent guide for a six-hour tour of Ephesus, which I specified to include the Terrace Houses, the Archaological Museum in Selcuk for Ephesus, St. John's Basilica, and the sole remaining pillar of the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and definitely no shopping. (Kusadasi port has great shops right by the cruise port, so spouse happily returned to ship and I happily purchased gold earrings and gorgeous hand-painted ceramics.)

 

Private tours are very reasonably priced in Turkey, so we did this private tour just the two of us, our first private tour ever and one of the best.

[ccpuff04]

My wife and I have been to Ephasus three times and each time have merely walked off the ship and into the waiting hands of a plethora of tour guides and cars waiting at the dock. You can wheel and deal, pick the guide you feel good about, and take off. At a significantly discounted price. I realize that many may not want to "risk" it, but I can assure you . . . there will be 20 or 30 guides and drivers eagerly waiting to take you around the area. Pick where you want to go ahead of time, set a time you want to be away from the ship, and take off. We've never paid a dime until we returned to the ship and each time were more than pleased with the service we received. They are polite and trustworthy. So don't feel pressured into making an expensive reservation. Adds a little excitement and fun to your cruise . . .