We took two tours with this company, a half-day tour and a full-day tour and both were…read morewell-organized, and reasonable for the services provided. I did extensive online research for Istanbul guides and found them to be very expensive. However, this company's tours were a good value for the money. On the full day tour, lunch at a hotel was included and it was a fine meal. The guides were well qualified, although it was sometimes difficult to understand their English. In the morning of the full-day tour, however, each person got a set of headphones to carry/wear as we sat on the bus and as we walked about. This was a very good system to insure that people at the back of the bus or on the outer ring of the crowd could hear. I highly recommend this company and suggest that you avoid private guides that will charge as much as $200 to $300 per day. We paid 118 Euros for two people for a full-day tour including lunch The tour covered the major sites in Sultanahmen (Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, etc.) and also offered a wonderful ship tour of the Bosphorus.

in istambul we purchased an excursion as part of our (excellent) cruise on Viking Cruise Line. We…read moreleft the ship on bus, drove to the Blue Mosque, then walked to the Sultans Palace and finally to the spice bazaar. Our Tura Turizm tour guide was excellent. She was good at keeping the group moving, spoke English well, was enthusiastic about sharing information about the sites, had a nice voice, gave us plenty of time to see things and seemed very sincere in wanting us to appreciate what we were seeing. She gets an A+. The last stop was the spice bazaar. I'm glad we went because it's definitely something unique. The noise, the smells, the building...all made for a great experience. Our guide did give us tips on shopping in the bazaar, acknowledging that there were some shops that could be "trusted" more than others. So, she brought us to a specific "trustworthy" shop where they gave us samples and explained their merchandise . I bought a couple of things, and the salesperson used his calculator to assure me of the price in U.S. dollars. When I paid for my items, I was encouraged to use a credit card instead of cash (hmm?). Before I signed the credit slip I asked to know the amount in U.S. dollars and, was told the correct amount. I signed, left, and returned home to a credit card charge $100+ dollars over the what should have been charged. The credit card company said I could dispute it, but needed more information from the store. I tried to contact them multiple times, incliding via the email address on their website, but got no reply. I learned a lesson (use cash in a place like that) and came home with Spice bazaar story to share, but I can't help thinking that the tour guide would be really embarrassed to know that this happened in the one store that she recommended. If Tura Turizm would have responded to me in any fashion, I probably wouldn't be writing this tome of a review. Oh, and the store in the Bazaar was named Bogazicibah.

We took a guided tour of Ephasus in Turkey as one of the shore excursions from our cruise. The…read moreguide himself was SUPERB: warm, knowledgeable, and fascinating. The bus had greatwestern-style air-conditioning (!) and was a welcome respite after the heat of the day walking through the ruins, which were among the most incredible we've ever seen. Our guide was able to bring the ancient world to life with his stories blending culture, history, and myth. Yet, one major drawback: upon our arrival in Kusadasi, at the end of the tour, we were taken on an "educational visit" of the carpet store Topkapi to learn how Turkish rugs/carpets are made. This was simply a sales job, and a badly done one at that. After an interesting demo of silkworms and weaving, we were ushered into a large room (seated at the back - truly trapped!) and shown carpets. The loud, aggressive sales manager was fakely over-friendly and frankly dishonest; he said several things about rug prices, for example, which we later learned in Istanbul were not true. Not to mention that his prices were grossly inflated. It's too bad that this company chose to end a wonderful tour with this charlatan: we are sure that American consumers are far more intelligent that he supposes. They kept telling us that they "didn't want us to get a negative idea about Turkey or carpet salesman"; unfortunately they imprinted a further stereotype.

The most wonderful tour company. I reached out to them at the last minute during the holidays to…read moretry to book a tour to Cappadocia, Ephesus and Pamukkale. Mustafa Ceviz bent over backwards to arrange everything and even customized the trip to make things work for me. Everything was flawless. The accommodations were more than I expected and all of the experiences were top notch. He even reached out several times during the trip to check in. I would absolutely recommend this company to anyone looking to book an experience in Turkey.

Istanbul Tour Services / Turkey Tour Services is a travel office centrally located in Istanbul,…read morejust 3-5 min walk from the Sultanahmed. They specialize in offering tours to various interesting places all over Tourkey such as Ephesus, Cappadocia, Pamukkale, Gallipoli, Troy. They offer both day tours as well as tour packages. Together with my friends we decided to book a Cappadocia tour with them. Mustafa, who is the owner was super responsive and friendly. He replied to our email within less than an hour and took care of booking our flights, hotel, tours to local attractions as well as a balloon flight over Cappadocia! Everything went super smoothly! The balloon flight was simply AMAZING!! One of the best experiences in my life :) If you are in Turkey, you have to visit Cappadocia!