My friends and I decided to cap our vacation with a Bosphorus Cruise because we thought it would be a relazing and fun way to see the city and take in the culture. Boy were we wrong.
The cruise was offered by our hotel and sounded like a good enough recommendation to take up. The night started out with a pick up from the cruise hosts which was nice and timely. We then noticed that the transport service was set to pick up multiple groups (3 in total after our pick up) which took a good chunk of time that we weren't expecting. I knew I was tired after the trip and figured if this was a problem later we could taxi home.
On getting to the tour boat the atmosphere seemed nice enough with strobe lights and music, a nicely set table. I found it a bit strange that the food was already served for every person in attendance even though not everyone was there. Again, I gave them the benefit of the doubt since it was cold appetizers - but I still thought it was strange that the hosts in no way tried to explain what each portion of the meal at any point was. The best I could describe the food would be some scooped potato stuff next to an eggplant slice with creamy stuff dolloped on top, next to the same creamy stuff piped onto the plate, some creamy stuff with orange bits in it, and some quinoa looking stuff that wasnt quinoa along with a mediocre iceberg side salad. Not exactly impressive.
The hosts come to each group and ask where everyone is from which I take as a cute way to make the experience feel multicultural. Later as the MC - a middle aged man who happens to know bits and pieces of many languages - uses these markers to basically make semi-racist, stereotyping remarks about each group...ONE BY ONE....which takes up a HUGE amount of time and you could tell he was running out of steam, running out of racist remarks to say by the end of the whole group introduction. Some groups were enthused by this and others we pretty whatever about it...my theory is the MC was guaging who was giving him the best response and using this info to carter the experience to these cultural groups and leaving the others in the dust.
My friends and I noticed that the "dance floor" was pretty small and were curious if this was really where the dancing would take place. The MC gets along to introducing the dancing portion of the evening with the main highlight of the show "The Whirling Dervish" up first. The MC asked the group to "show some respect" as a gentleman dressed in what appears to be traditional dervish garb comes from below deck and then proceeds to get into dervish pose and start twirling. The twirling continues for a good 5 minutes it seems, and in the middle of it I can't help but laugh and turn to my friend asking "is this literally all there is? he has not done anything different the entire time." The tornado dance stops and he goes back below deck...probably the least respectful rendition of a spiritual dance I could have seen. The rest of the local dance are all right and were really something I feel ANYONE on the boat could have done with a week or so of work, no offense to the dancers who im sure are hard working people. The best dancer was probably the belly dancer who probably had the most dancing experience of everyone. The people of Orient House are like many businesses and know that sex sells and used her to get the crowd going which it did for certain groups but I could see right through it - although having tits rubbed against me wasn't the worst thing in the world. The hosts then paraded her around to each group for a group picture which they later tried to sell for €30
The dinner portion was either chicken or fish with a beverage of choice. My friend got some wine which she said was not that enjoyable. I got the fish which was placed on a bed of iceberg lettuce and my friends go the chicken and a side of rice pilaf. Again...not exactly impressive. I was hoping the food would be a helpful distraction from the poor performance but I was sadly mistaken. Dinner was topped off with some mealy fruits.
The cruised dragged on for what felt like forever - we kept thinking the boat was close to port and would get excited only to see it basically just go in circles. The MC continued on to the group dance portion of the evening. This is where he used his group intro reconisence to basically appease the more lively portions of the cruise people. He spoke in their language and played for the most part their music which I have nothing against but it definitely felt very segregating which I could sense other visitors were feeling as well. I wanted to go home. During the maddness we were given the bill which my friends and I thought the hotel was going to bill us for. The total for three people - €150 - not bad compared to the prices Ive seen other people or their website post but totally not worth the price - I was pissed but we coughed it up. In hind sight I wish we got billed in lira.
As the boat finally docked to read more
