Cruise review - Celebrity Reflection May 2022

[VeryRetired]

On 6/7/2022 at 9:03 AM, rcamazed said:

We did Istanbul entirely on our own and had a fabulous time.  If you walk out of the cruise port and turn left on the main road you will walk about 5-10 minutes and arrive at the tram station.  There were guys there selling stored value cards for 50 lira (which is only about 4 dollars) that you could then insert into a machine to add money.  One card can be used for multiple riders.  You can then take the tram easily to the main tourist sites (topkapi, Hagai Sophia, Blue Mosque, and Grand Bazaar).  We arrived at noon in Istanbul and spent our first afternoon at the Grand Bazaar and then spent a little time in the Archaeological museum and then Topkapi palace and then walked to a place for dinner before taking the tram back to the boat.  On Sunday morning we went out early (around 7:00 or 7:30am) and went to the Hagai Sophia and Blue Mosque.  The Hagai Sophia is open 24 hours and there were very few people there.  We then hung out in the square between the two mosques and then went into the Blue Mosque when it opened at 8:30am.  There wasn't much to see in the Blue Mosque due to the renovation.

 

It was super easy to get around by tram, and very cheap.  Highly recommend!

 

We actually did our own thing in every port except for Ephesus where we used Ephesus Shuttle (highly recommend!). 

We will be traveling with Euro. How did you obtain Lira for the tram rides in Istanbul?

Edited August 20, 2022 by VeryRetired

[VeryRetired]

4 minutes ago, VeryRetired said:

 

Edited August 20, 2022 by VeryRetired

[ladylemondrop]

We did not tram ride as they were jam packed with people, but most places will take euros, or cards, the ship can provide lira or any currency though if you wish to use their exchange services. 

[ladylemondrop]

On 6/8/2022 at 7:34 PM, jael001 said:

Lovely video, thank you for sharing. I'm taking my daughter and her boyfriend in August and he's not been to any of the ports (or on a cruise for that matter) so looking forward to seeing it through fresh eyes.

Hoping you have an amazing time! We were the same, our sons girlfriend who we took, had never cruised or been to any of the countries we went to. She admitted mostly loved being on the ship! Think this video shows that! 🤣 have fun!