The Wonders of Turkey: Classical Turkey 13 Day Tour

Customer Reviews

• MG

  Mary

  · November 28th, 2024
  We were shocked to find that we were the only 2 people on our tour! Evidently when Dorak books your trip, it is guaranteed. We are so gratefly to our amazing and knowledgable guide, Bora, and our bus driver, Kemal. You cover a LOT of ground on this tour- 2200 miles/3800 km. That said, it is done in a reasonable way with only 1 or 2 long days in the comfortable and clean bus (thanks Kemal). We stopped at excellent roadside places at least every 2 hours. We were surprised to have an upgrade on our first hotel in Istanbul in the Old City. It was a very nice hotel and had an amazing buffet breakfast. It was located very close to the tram. We arrived a day early so that came in handy. Bora met us promptly on the first morning and we toured Istanbul together. He stayed with us explaining about Topkapi Palace with great detail about the structure of the place and how the Sultans lived, including that their kitchen inspired the merging of many cultures into what is now their cuisine. Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque were interesting, as well as the Cisterns. When we had a free lunch, Bora was quick to recommend a great place throughout the trip. Highlights certainly include the balloon ride over Cappadocia's Fairy Chimneys. Because we went in November, it was deemed "winter" there, which meant the heat was sometimes on in our room, making it rather warm. When we were in Anatalya our hotel had an elevator down to the Mediterranean
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  Dorak Tours commented on this review

  Dear Mary, We are so happy to hear that you enjoyed your experience on our tour! We are proud that you appreciated the excellent service provided by Bora and Kemal. We aim to make every moment of the tour memorable by balancing relaxation and... Show more
  Trip date: November 2024
• 

  Olaf

  · November 3rd, 2024
  The tour provided a very good all around view of the country, which is mostly shaped by its history and geology. The touristic aspect didn't fall short either, as a free day to our own leisure (think walking trips, day on the beach) was included as well. Unfortunately, the balloon flight in Cappadocia was cancelled due to weather conditions, but at least I got compensated by another opportunity in Pamukkale, which was fantastic. The guide was very knowledgeable, he certainly knew his stuff about Turkey's history. However, he didn't tell us about the airport-style security measures in some venues prior to our visit. Twice I got caught out by them having to leave a prohibited item behind, and then had to go back to the entrance at the end to retrieve it. Some advance communication about the security would have been useful to save us the extra bother and waste of time this incurred. Beyond that, the guide seemed to have some attitude issues, appearing at times a little impatient and anxious, at one point telling another visitor (not from our group) off in front of everyone only because she had tried to squeeze past him too closely. Outside of tour proceedings, i.e. during free time and at meal times, he would not socialise with us but keep to himself or sit with the driver, who, btw, did a great job getting us safely around the country. The hotels were all of a good standard, although I was expecting more of the food. Dinners mostly consisted of buffets, which apparently weren't put out on heatable trays, so if you arrived a little later in the evening, chances were your food was already cold when you collected it. Overall great sites and great experiences; but the service aspect could have been better.
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  Dorak Tours commented on this review

  Thank you for your insights! I appreciate your feedback about the guide and the dining experience; those are important points for future improvements. If you want to come back to Turkey, we are at your service :) -Ozge Dorak Tours
  Trip date: October 2024
• FA

  Fiona

  · October 2nd, 2024
  Dear Dorak Tours My husband and I (Australian tourists) went on your ‘The Wonders of Turkey: Classical 13 day tour’ from 11 Sept to 23 Sept 2024 with only 9 guests and it was great. We picked this tour as it ticked all the boxes for us eg Hot air balloon ride in Cappadocia, pay our respects to the ANZACs at Gallipoli, Antalya and much more. Firstly, Turkey is a wonderful country and has a lot to offer the tourist from bustling Istanbul, walking through the Ihlara valley and visiting ancient ruins. THIS IS OUR FEEDBACK HOTELS: (+) The hotels we stayed at were amazing. Beds were comfortable and breakfast was great. (-) The dinners they served was the same every night! It would be appreciated if there was more of a variety. The hotel at Cappadocia was lovely but the room had no ventilation and felt stuffy, it needs a fan or air conditioner as it was hot and uncomfortable in the room. The window could not be opened to allow ventilation due to the room facing the road and there would be no security with the window open. Antalya was a free day however, the hotel was away from all of the main attractions making it difficult to get around when you want to explore the attractions in Antalya. ITINERARIES: There were 3 different itineraries going around in the group. Tour Radar: Some had the printed one from Tour Radar (they did not receive an updated one from Dorak by email) Dorak: Some had a version that was emailed 9 Sept. Guide: had a different one that appeared different to ours. This caused confusion within the group. Such as hotels, we were staying and what was on the agenda each day. I would like to point out the original tour was booked to go to Izmir but we ended up staying at Kasadsi. To my disappointment, we were supposed to be staying at a hotel at Pamukkale that had natural hot spring pools that we could enjoy a relaxation. We arrived at another hotel way out of town (North Point) with just an ordinary looking pool. IHLARA VALLEY: This was supposed to be a 1 hour walk as per the itinerary, instead it took 3 hours to walk, approximately 8 kilometres! We ended up stopping for lunch at Vadi Dinlenme Tesisleri at approximately 3:25pm. I would suggest Dorak needs to improve with this stop of the itinerary for future tours. FAREWELL DINNER: There was nothing booked. We where all at the hotel it was late and we were all tired. We could not eat at the hotel because there was no booking. We had to catch a tram, 2 stops and walk a bit to get to dinner. We were tired and didn’t feel like going but we did and it was lovely food. BUS DRIVER: Hasan was an awesome driver that drove us safely around Turkey. He also dropped us off from door to door whether it be the hotel or the place we were visiting. Great service! TOUR GUIDE: Erdogan (Endo) he was a nice man. We have not meet a tour guide like him. He was a little relaxed with time management, which made us feel anxious about missing some attractions on our itinerary. However, we did not miss any attractions and in fact, Endo achieved extra above normal operations. Eg Our bus was the first to arrive at Troy. We are very grateful he arranged for a replacement USB containing photos from our Hot air Balloon ride, which we had lost. Endo also arranged for our Jeep Safari tour to pick us up from our last stop of the day making the whole process seamless and easy for us. However sometimes there was confusion when he changed the meeting points at the end of an activity. This did not affect us as we always found our way back to the bus on time. Endo was always polite and easy to get along with however there was one customer on the bus who was rude and he was raising his voice at Endo on the bus, which made it very uncomfortable. Overall we had a great time and enjoyed the trip. Thanks Dorak tours and regards Fiona Armstrong-Watts and Shane Watts
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  Dorak Tours commented on this review

  Hi Fiona, First of all, thank you very much for all your wonderful feedback. We are delighted that you enjoyed Turkey and had a good experience :) Thank you for your feedback regarding the dinners; we will work on improvements in this area. Room... Show more
  
  Trip date: September 2024
• AP

  Adithya

  · November 23rd, 2023
  PLEASE TAKE 5 MIN AND READ IT COMPLETELY, it was a fantastic experience with Dorak, we had a pleasant surprise with the way things were planned and implemented. We couldn't have explored Turkey in a better way as 13 days trip is not an easy task,Dorak made things easier for us, it's an amazing company. We were lucky to have Yasir as our tour guide, he made us feel comfortable throughout the trip, an amazing human being, you are in safe hands with him always. Our driver Tolga was professional and experienced, we never had any inconveniences throughout the trip, below are my positive and negative comments...FYI - I am not an insider haha, you'll have some initial concerns when you plan a trip to a new/unknown country especially when you travel with family, we were lucky to find Dorak, an amazing experience we had and the gratitude forced me to write an elaborate review, I want other/prospect travelers to have an idea how things were and this is the first time I am writing a review too. They deserve and it's an earned appreciation by Dorak and team. Positives : 1. Excellent travel agency, well planned itinerary, not even a single location was missed/skipped, all the tourist locations per the itinerary were covered. 2. Top notch hotels, food and transportation was excellent. 3. Fantastic customer support team, Dilsat and Marcos were supportive and helpful, I had prompt responses. 4. No hidden costs or any sort of last minute financial demands by the company and the team, in fact we had complimentary upgrades and activities, thank you so much Dorak and team.. 6. No forced purchases or any other activities. 7. Amazing tour guide who treated us like family members, understood special needs, accommodated all the requests, shared lots of knowledge, importantly....always smiling , he's a gem of a person. 8. I was impressed with some gestures(Could be nothing for someone, however, it meant a lot to us) by our Guide and Driver, they always had drinking water for all of us, sensible pit stops, kept the vehicle clean always, helped everybody with luggage loading and unloading, really...amazing humans, thanks is a small word. 9. No strenuous travel, itinerary is planned in a terrific way which doesn't just keeps you sitting in the coach for 7-8 hrs etc., the timing and places were perfectly planned, there wasn't a single day where we travelled for more than 5 hrs. 10. I did good research before choosing Dorak, trust me, for this price tag, you can't find any other tour package which beats this itinerary, luxury or other aspects offered, we were lucky. Price was genuine, once you land in Turkey and learn about the costs of basic things/local costs ...you'll understand this haha, for sure you'll think that the same itinerary by other XYZ company would have costed 5X -6X times or even more haha. Negatives : NOTHING,NOTHING,NOTHING,NOTHING Finally, I hope and wish that everything should go the same way to all the prospect travelers, I am happy that I took the right decision to go with Dorak, we made lifetime memories, thank you Dorak Tours, we are grateful, wish you all reach greater heights . Wishing you all happy and safe travels. Regards, Adithya
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  Dorak Tours commented on this review

  Wow Adithya, thank you so much for taking the time to share such a detailed and positive review of your experience with us. We are thrilled to hear that you had such a wonderful time exploring Turkey with us. It's always our goal to provide memorable... Show more
  Trip date: November 2023
• A

  Anonymous

  · November 15th, 2023
  We went with Dorak Tours, it was an excellent trip. The company does everything top notch. The selection of hotels was fantastic, meals were great. Places that we saw, wonderful. Our guide Yasir was very accommodating, a very sweet man, outstanding! We wouldn't hesitate to book with Dorak tours again and Tour Radar was fantastic.
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  Dorak Tours commented on this review

  Thank you so much! We are so glad you had a blast on one of our tours. Yasir is wonderful-we are lucky to have him! Hope to see you on another tour in the future! Cheers
  Trip date: November 2023
• WC

  WK

  · October 18th, 2023
  Chosen this itinerary and decided to join the tour. Service and hotels selected was excellent. Guide was very knowledgeable. Sightseeing included many unique entrances. Highly recommended.
  

  Dorak Tours commented on this review

  It's wonderful to know that you enjoyed the unique entrances to the sights you visited. Your recommendation means a lot to us, and we truly appreciate your feedback. We hope to have the pleasure of welcoming you back on another adventure soon!
  Trip date: August 2023
• 

  Diana

  · October 13th, 2023
  What an incredible tour! Istanbul was impressive and Cappadocia was an unforgettable experience. The tour guide was very informative and made us laugh throughout. The hotels were wonderful and the food inside the hotels was better than I expected. Pamukkale was amazing and the highlight for me was the Turkish bath at the thermal spa. If you do anything at all, do this! The whole process was easy and we felt like special guests. We are already planning another trip.
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  Dorak Tours commented on this review

  That's the ultimate compliment! We're thrilled you had an unforgettable experience with us. Can't wait to welcome you back for more adventures.
  Trip date: April 2023
• E

  Ece

  · September 20th, 2023
  I had an amazing time in Turkey. Classic Turkey is a very compherensive tour that you get to see many wonderful sights about the country. Historic, fun and mesmerizing. Turkish people are very hospitable and cheerful. I highly recommend this tour for the first timers.
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  Dorak Tours commented on this review

  Thank you Ece for your review! We do really know how to show off the beautiful sites that you encountered on your tour. Hopefully we will see you on another Dorak Tours in the future.
  Trip date: May 2022