6 Hours in Istanbul with Free City Sightseeing Tours
We love this city of Istanbul, so having six hour to sightsee is a plus in our book, even if it means a long layover after a very long trans-atlantic flight.
Now Istanbul, the European Capital of Culture in 2010, is making your layover at Istanbul Atatürk Airport even more productive by offering "tourIST" free tours, and even hotel stays, for guests in transit through the country of Turkey.
Here's how it works: If you have a transit flight from Istanbul and have more than 6 hours waiting time for your connecting flight, you can visit the Hotel Desk at the international terminal to join a free guided coach tour of the glamorous city that connects Europe to Asia. They are open daily from 8am to 6pm. There's no need for an advance reservation, making this a great wait-busting option for those whose flights are unexpectedly delayed.
After you book the tour (and they're given twice daily in English most weekdays), you and your family will be picked up by a private tour guide. Don't worry about hand luggage. Whatever is not checked can be stored at the airport for a nominal fee, or brought with you and left on the sightseeing coach (at no charge) while you're out exploring.
The tour focuses on the most significant historical places and departs at 9am and ends at 3pm, or departs at noon and ends at 6pm. Visitors are taken to the airport after the tour ends via free shuttles. All expenses for transportation, meals and museum fees will be taken care of by Turkish Airlines.
It gets better. If you're flying in Economy Class and have more than 10 hours' wait (or if you're in Business Class with more than 8 hours' layover), the Hotel Desk will arrange a hotel room for you the same day as your TourIST program.
However, transit passengers who want to benefit from both services have to pay for the hotel service, which is a room night at a 4- or 5-star city hotel selected by the Hotel Desk staff at your arrival.
To join the tour, visit the airport's Hotel Desk (+ 90 212 463 63 63 / ext. 2426-5532; email: hoteldesk@thy.com). For more information about this fun itinerary, visit the TourIST website.
Comments
istanbul
Turkish Airlines
If you do not speak Turkish, avoid the airlines no matter how good that deal seems. The customer service is non existant.
We had a multi-leg trip with Turkish Airline from Rome to Istanbul to Cairo to Athens. We only ended up taking the flight from Rome to Istanbul.
Their flight from Rome to Istanbul was comfortable and relaxing. The staff was cordial. We only had carry-ons because of the horrible experiences other users have had.
Our overall experience with management, however, turned out to be extremely frustrating and awful. Our first interaction with them was when we tried to cancel our Istanbul to Cairo part of the trip because the US department highly suggested that no US citizens should travel to Cairo. We had called Turkish Airlines prior to the trip, but the staff spoke limited English and didn't understand that we wanted to cancel only one leg of the trip. They would planning on canceling the entire trip which we didn't want.
We then decided to keep the trip but use one of the layovers that was originally intended from Cairo to Greece but stops at Istanbul to get to our final destination- Greece. However, due to their international rule and regulation, they canceled our entire trip leaving us no way to get to Greece. They didn't inform us via email or phone like many other airlines do. We found out the day before we were supposed to leave when trying to check in for our flight.
We accepted the fact that there was nothing we could do but when we asked on the phone what we could have done to have prevented this, the manager started yelling that she couldn't help us, and that it was our fault for losing the tickets. We asked again. She admitted that she couldn't understand our question and started shouting at us that it was our fault and hung up on us. I was furious.
Looking at the other posts, I think the moral of the story is - Do NOT book with Turkish Airlines unless you speak Turkish. The staff's English is very limited, and trying to change flights or dealing with management is just a pain, ends up with customers losing money and valuable time.
Really Turkish Airlines?
I've had such bad experiences with the customer services at Turkish Airlines. ON the phone, the managers who are supposedly "English" do not understand simple sentences and when they don't, they get frustrated and hang up on you.
We had a multi-leg trip with Turkish Airline from Rome to Istanbul to Cairo to Athens. We only ended up taking the flight from Rome to Istanbul.
Their flight from Rome to Istanbul was comfortable and relaxing. The staff was cordial. We only had carry-ons because of the horrible experiences other users have had.
Our overall experience with management, however, turned out to be extremely frustrating and awful. Our first interaction with them was when we tried to cancel our Istanbul to Cairo part of the trip because the US department highly suggested that no US citizens should travel to Cairo. We had called Turkish Airlines prior to the trip, but the staff spoke limited English and didn't understand that we wanted to cancel only one leg of the trip. They would planning on canceling the entire trip which we didn't want.
We then decided to keep the trip but use one of the layovers that was originally intended from Cairo to Greece but stops at Istanbul to get to our final destination- Greece. However, due to their international rule and regulation, they canceled our entire trip leaving us no way to get to Greece. They didn't inform us via email or phone like many other airlines do. We found out the day before we were supposed to leave when trying to check in for our flight.
We accepted the fact that there was nothing we could do but when we asked on the phone what we could have done to have prevented this, the manager started yelling that she couldn't help us, and that it was our fault for losing the tickets. We asked again. She admitted that she couldn't understand our question and started shouting at us that it was our fault and hung up on us. I was furious.
Looking at the other posts, I think the moral of the story is - Do NOT book with Turkish Airlines unless you speak Turkish. The staff's English is very limited, and trying to change flights or dealing with management is just a pain, ends up with customers losing money and valuable time.
someday i will go to Istanbul for Holiday....