Question about pre-&-post city stays ... Do it ourselves?

[philw1776]

Just did a fun pre-cruise (Silverseas) stay & tour in Istanbul with another couple. We were nervous as none of us had ever been to Turkey but we did fine on our own. You will have to pay for a cab from the airport but our travel agent got us a pre-arranged good fare in a comfortable van. Traffic in Istanbul is horrendous so stay as close to the main attractions or the trolley line as you can. The public transportation is great, clean, new, easy to use and cheap. Cabs are not expensive but ALWAYS ask the fare up front. Use Turkish Lyra unless you don't mind paying a premium to pay in dollars or euros, both gladly accepted for profit reasons!

Edited November 12, 2015 by philw1776

[JCinPA]

@id4elizabeth

 

Hmmmm. Just noticed this forum does not appear to have PM capability. I have an INBOX, with a welcome to the forum message in it, but I cannot PM anyone for some reason.

 

I want to use your tour company in Istanbul and wanted to ask you a few questions offline about it to keep chatter down here for folks following this, but I guess I cannot.

 

How did you arrange that tour? They appear to have tour menu choices where guides meet you at port, and appear to be from small to large groups, and do include vehicles, and yes, prices are higher, but that is really of no concern at all. I'd like to just have a guide meet us at our hotel and take my wife and I where we want to go based on what we've decided we want to see and public transportation is fine. Did you just Email them that to arrange your tour?

 

Thanks!

[JCinPA]

OK, I am considering the

Hotel Ai Cavalieri di Venezia

 

in Venice, link here:

http://www.hotelaicavalieri.com/

 

 

 

 

And the Witt Suites in Istanbul (made a reservation here).

http://www.wittistanbul.com/

 

 

 

 

Frankly, you all have your favorite hotels and I'm sure you'd all recommend them, but to avoid another 250 posts and my being incapable of making a choice, I'd like to NOT get a bunch of hotel recommendations, but I WOULD appreciate a post if you think I'm making a mistake for some reason, for instance, location is not convenient to public transportation or something like that.

 

 

Barring some unforseen problem I have researched these and I am happy with my choices, and I could look at hotels forever and it's just a waste of time. So please let me know if you see any issues with these. Please do not post a lot of "try this hotel, we loved it" unless you feel you can make an argument about better location, access to transportation, etcetera. Make sense?

 

 

Thanks for all your help so far, this is shaping up great! :)

[id4elizabeth]

JCinPA - I started with this company (EphesusShuttle) arranging a small group tour in Ephesus (which was great BTW) and then noticed they had an office in Istanbul. So I inquired via e-mail from their 'Contact' tab from their website. They were very responsive and willing to do whatever we wanted. I had 'customized' the small group tour in Ephesus to include the Ephesus Museum (very worthwhile) and since it was just the two of us in Istanbul, they were very accommodating in Istanbul. I sent them a list of what we wanted to see that day which turned out to be overly ambitious, but they were willing to do whatever we wanted. We even changed things on the fly during the day. He also took us to a great very nice restaurant that we would never have found on our own.

 

If your hotel is within walking distance of public transportation, I would highly recommend it over a car. Traffic in the old part of Sultanahmet is ridicuous. If you were going to other areas of Istanbul though then a car would most certainly make sense. Our guide Volkan picked us up in the lobby of the Hilton Bosphorus and we walked a block and a half to Taksim Square and public transport from there. He used his pass for us so we never had to buy tokens or tickets.

 

Hope that helps. Any other questions feel free to ask. Unfortunately, there is no PM on CC...

[Mrs Miggins]

On this cruise I believe we overnight in Istanbul so that means you will have four nights there - plus of course another day in Turkey at Kusadasi. We overnighted in Istanbul on Oceania last year and feel that we will only need the Viking overnight to complete our 'must sees'. A fascinating, huge and rather 'edgy' city and completely unlike the other port stops on this cruise.

Your hotel in Venice looks sublime. We will stay for two nights despite having visited many times before. I could never tire of Venice and it is wonderful at night.

I cannot pick between the Aqua Palace or Locanda Orseolo, which has great mentions on Cruise Critic and Trip Advisor. My eyes are rather going round and round as the hotel choice in Venice is overwhelming.

Have been reading the rather mixed early reviews of Viking Ocean but things appear to have settled down now.

Hope that Viking Sea will have had any glitches 'ironed out' by September. Not sure when its maiden voyage is ?

[JCinPA]

Mrs. M.

 

You are correct, we may board the ship on September 25th as early as 11:00 AM, but rooms are not ready until 2:00 PM. We overnight on board, and the ship leaves the port on the 26th at 2:00 PM.

 

We are arriving on the 22nd and happy to have 3 other nights in Istanbul as my wife and I love to really get to know a place a big and old and interesting as Istanbul, and I am an avid photographer, so I'll spend more time at many sites than some would.

 

We'll aim to get to the ship mid afternoon on the 25th and probably won't venture out again after that. Getting squared away on our first cruise, touring the ship and such should keep us busy. I suppose we might venture out one more time on the 26th for a short excursion, but I'm not counting on it. We'd rather spend more time there and feel we really wrung Istanbul out than leave feeling we did not see all that we wanted to.

 

You are right, there seem to be nothing BUT hotels on Venice. Does anyone actually live there? :)

 

About the first cruise, there were some issues, but people are posting much better reviews now. There were, perhaps, two things going on with the early Viking cruises, it was both a new business from their river cruise expertise, and they were new ships. I am pretty confident we will have an awesome experience by next year. My wife was pretty disappointed when we were pushed back from this year, but it actually gave me more confidence that we'll be delighted with the cruise.

 

Looking forward to meeting you on board!

[roothy123]

Take a close look at the location of the Hilton in Venice. It is across the Guidecca Canal and if you want to go out for dinner and stroll around, you have to keep in mind shuttle times.

 

I recommend staying 'in' Venice.

 

I'm not trying to defend the Venice Hilton Molino Stucky, as I decided to stay in the heart of Venice myself in order to simplify logistics. However, just in case anyone is ruling out the Hilton on the basis of location, I wanted to let people know that the Alilaguna stops at the Hilton at night (and day) and can take you to St. Mark's Square and other popular locations. Of course it's not free like the hotel's shuttle, but there is little that is free in Venice, and the Alilaguna boat is no exception!

 

As for the OP, I certainly understand how difficult it is to choose a hotel in Venice. I think I must have looked at at least 25 of them before settling on one. Between the logistics issues, price, etc. it is not an easy task!

[Carol From California]

We always book our pre and post cruise hotels separately. We also book our air separately because we always try to snag seats with mileage. We were on the Venice to Istanbul cruise in September and last year on a Viking river cruise and did the pre and post cruise plans ourselves. It is easy to find a tour guide and you can usually find a better price on the hotels. Even with paying for transfers it's a better deal all the way around. Our TA gives us a discount on the Viking cruise as well.

[binbin854]

We're on the same cruise as JC in pa

We're doing pre and post ourselves as usual. For post we've always found a few others on the ship doing their own and met up with them after.

 

 

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[inborn traveler]

We have traveled Europe on our own. Sometimes a glitch or two, but always so,cable. You can ask Viking what hotels they are booking, then stay at those hotels. We have done that and have used the Viking staff there as a resource.

 

Thank you for that reply. I'd appreciate others. We don't know those cities well, but we've lived all over the world back in my service days and we are very comfortable researching cities and touring ourselves around them. Your response is kind of what I was looking for.

 

My inclination is to set this up ourselves. I would like a couple other opinions, but boy, we can tour ourselves around pretty well on $580 a day!

[pukekolive]

We are home from our cruise 18/3 to 27/03/16 Empires of the Med on Viking Star.

 

We arranged independent stays in both Venice (4 days prior) and Istanbul (3 days post) and were amazed at how well theses sections turned out (although I was thorough in my planning).

 

Our hotels could not have been better for service, comfort and locatio:

 

Venice - Hotel Violino d'Oro - literally less than 5 mins walk from St Mark's Square, Alilaguna and ACTV vaporetto stops.

 

We walked everywhere in Venice and saw most of the museums, main churches, Doge's Palace, an evening of opera with Musica a Palazzo, a show at Teatro San Gallo, visited La Fenice Opera House and the Naval Museum.

 

It was an easy walk from our Hotel to the Alilaguna stop at St Marco Giardinetti for a 10 minute trip to the Cruise Terminal, cost Euro 8 each.

 

Istanbul - Blue House Hotel - again 2 minutes stroll to Sultanahment Square and views from our room (suite) of the Blue Mosque and Sea of Marmara

 

The cruise itself was great, Viking service is second to none, the food was wonderful in all venues and the ship relaxing but with just enough entertainment when you wanted it.

 

We only did a couple of Viking Tours:

 

Pula - A Walk through Rovinj which we really enjoyed - optional excursion

Dubrovnik - Included Walking Tour- we did this in the afternoon after walking the walls in the morning with 3 other couples - please not that the walls close at 3pm in the off season

 

We arranged independent tours in some other ports and these all went without a hitch, in some ports we joined other couples on these tours, the maximum we had was 3 couples in Athens.

 

Kotor - private 5 hour tour, just the 2 of us with Tours By Milo - fantastic!

 

Santorini - hire car from Tony's Rentals for the day Euro 40

 

Athens - Half day tour with PK Travel and guide for 2 hours at the Acropolis - they were aware that streets would be closed at 9:30am for a parade and organised accordingly. Apparently some of the Viking Tours were disrupted by this parade and spent quite a long time waiting on the buses instead of touring.

 

Kusadasi/ Ephesus - 7 hour tour with 1 other couple with MeliTours - we spent over 2 hours at Ephesus, visited a rug training establishment, leather works and had a 3 course leisurely lunch at a private farmlet. This was a great tour with a wonderful guide!

 

Canakkale (Troy/ Gallipoli) - Our only regret before our cruise was that we could not organise to go to Troy and Gallipoli so the sudden change to the itinerary by Viking due to the Brussels bombing made this a reality.

 

Istanbul - there were no Viking tours here so we had 2 1/2 days here ourselves and felt safe all the time:

 

Day One: Casual walk and lunch at Sultanahmet Square,afternoon Bosphorus Cruise and Pierre Loti Hill, evening Dinner Cruise on Bosphorus.

Day Two Walking Tour Guide from Ephesus Shuttle for 7 hours, very tiring but we covered Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace with Harem (extra) and The Grand Bazaar.

Day 3 We walked to the Spice Bazaar ourselves

 

We would advise everyon not to be too concerned about issues with independent tours or self-organised pre and post, these are easy to organise with a bit of planning and you will be happy that you did it!

[binbin854]

Hi Pukekolive-

 

Thanks so much for the details of your trip; cant wait for ours, reverse itinerary from yours in September. Especially appreciate the info on the private tours vs with Viking.

 

How far in advance did you book all of these.

 

So far we have booked our hotel AC Macka Marriott in Istanbul (we use points) and 1.5 days of private with Ephesus on 9/23-24 before we board the ship on 9/25.

 

We booked another Marriott post cruise for 3 days in Venice. Did you get private guides there as well?

 

Any tips on restaurants and things to do at night? We did get opera tickets for one evening in Venice already.

[pukekolive]

We had no guide in Venice but we had been there in 2014 with Trafalgar CoachTours for 2 days and had seen the main sights. We bought a 72 hour ACTV vaporetto pass from the machines at the airport for about 40 Euro per person. We also had a Museum Pass from Venice Unica we bought online. We went to a restaurant Vino Vino near St Marks and our hotel which we would recommend. Also we stumbled across La Terraza which had a set pizza/ pasta menu for about 14 Euro per person but full waiter service. Look for Teatro AL Gallo's Venezia Show which is every night. The Cafe at Campo St Stefano was very nice too. Most restaurants that look good from outside will serve great food in Venice! Addresses in Venice are uniquely numbered but I won't try and explain. Rick Steve's website is great for Venice.

 

We booked our cruise in July 2015 then our air and hotels shortly after. The tours and guides we worked on before and after Xmas, about 3 months prior to cruise but we were off season so book these as soon as you can.

 

Check on Trip Advisor for reviews as I found these really helpful. You will also find lots of info on guided tours in the Cruise Critic Ports of Call Forum.

 

Elaine

Edited April 9, 2016 by pukekolive

[Solent Richard]

 

Istanbul - Blue House Hotel - again 2 minutes stroll to Sultanahment Square and views from our room (suite) of the Blue Mosque and Sea of Marmara

 

 

 

Istanbul - there were no Viking tours here so we had 2 1/2 days here ourselves and felt safe all the time:

 

Day One: Casual walk and lunch at Sultanahmet Square,afternoon Bosphorus Cruise and Pierre Loti Hill, evening Dinner Cruise on Bosphorus.

Day Two Walking Tour Guide from Ephesus Shuttle for 7 hours, very tiring but we covered Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace with Harem (extra) and The Grand Bazaar.

Day 3 We walked to the Spice Bazaar ourselves

 

 

Hi Pukekolive-

 

Thanks so much for the details of your trip; cant wait for ours, reverse itinerary from yours in September. Especially appreciate the info on the private tours vs with Viking.

 

How far in advance did you book all of these.

 

So far we have booked our hotel AC Macka Marriott in Istanbul (we use points) and 1.5 days of private with Ephesus on 9/23-24 before we board the ship on 9/25.

 

We booked another Marriott post cruise for 3 days in Venice. Did you get private guides there as well?

 

Any tips on restaurants and things to do at night? We did get opera tickets for one evening in Venice already.

 

Good morning Binbin.

 

I can certainly vouch for the Blue House, we have stayed there twice on Istanbul stopovers. You even get full authenticity with the early morning 'call to prayers' which is all part of the Istanbul atmosphere.

 

Now just in case you want some ideas on what to do while there, here are two links from my blog that may be of assistance to you...

 

https://solentrichardscruiseblog.com/2013/07/29/one-way-to-do-istanbul/

 

 

https://solentrichardscruiseblog.com/2014/02/12/one-way-to-get-around-istanbul/

 

Whatever you choose to do, have a great time, it's a fabulous place.

[binbin854]

Hi

Your blogs are terrific. Thanks so much for the tips!

-Robin

 

 

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[Solent Richard]

Hi

Your blogs are terrific. Thanks so much for the tips!

-Robin

 

 

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Thank you also. Very kind of you to say so.

[Solent Richard]

Hi

Your blogs are terrific. Thanks so much for the tips!

-Robin

 

 

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And of course there is the 'Nocturnal' edition...

 

https://solentrichardscruiseblog.com/2014/08/11/one-way-to-do-istanbul-the-nocturnal-edition/