Thank you Burhan for your amazing Service. - Our guide Burhan was amazing with all the knowledge of past history and humble attitude. We never felt we are rushed or told to hurry up. In Grand Bazaar we had to do some shopping but he stood along with us and also helped us with bargaining in local language. I highly recommend his service.

Fabulous informative guide, overall a great tour and great introduction to the city. - We did the Essential Istanbul tour on Dec 25th. We were 6 people total a family of 4 and ourselves (a couple). Our guide was fabulous, clearly very knowledgeable and experienced and also well known to other guides and staff at attractions whom all greeted him warmly. He moved the tour at a pace to suit us and took time to allow photos. He also took some fabulous photos of us. He covered a great range of history and factual info and well as cultural and practical info. The tour allowed us to see alot in a day with minimal queing the guide knowing the best route and timings. I only wish we did this tour when we first arrived rather than at the end of our trip.

20000 steps and counting! - Be prepared to walk 20000 steps. Had a great time exploring istanbuls religious and historical sites. Lale, our guide, was lovely company and very knowledgeable. Highly recommend if you want to tick off as many sites in 1 day.

Outstanding tour that is highly recommeded - Outstanding tour that covered the major sites in Istanbul. We saw the hippodrome, blue mosque, Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace and Grand Bazaar. Elev was our guide and was very knowledgeable. She gave us a lot of information related to the history of all the sites we visited. We are highly satisfied with the tour.

Value rich - Without our fabulous friendly experienced guide, we would have just been observers superficially taking in the Istanbul experience. Instead we learnt so much and had a very rich experience.

Everything we expected & more. - Our was enthusiastic & passionate about his country’s history & culture. He delivered his commentary in an interesting & well Informed manner. I wish all guides were this good.

Great tour! - Our guide Lale was very personable and knowledgeable - we learned so much about each of the sites we visited including all the relevant history. Topkapi palace in particular was wonderful to visit with a guide like Lale who could give us some meaning behind everything we were seeing. I wish we would have been told ahead of time that Hagia Sophia was not included in the tour; however, we went there later on our own after visiting the Hagia Sophia interactive museum and that was awesome too. This tour was a great way to see some of the major sites in Sultanahmet, especially if you are short on time. I do recommend visiting Hagia Sophia and Basilica Cistern on your own though, since these sites are not included in the tour.

It was a great trip with... - It was a great trip with a lot of information on the cultural monuments, a nice athmosphere and fun.

It was okay - It was good, but we basically skipped Hagia Sofia even though it was on the list. We only stopped to talk about it from the outside for a few minutes. Then I needed to pay wapping $50 to get inside the palace at the end of the tour. I felt like it wasn’t engaging overall.

It’s not worth the money - you are better off doing it on your own - This tour is way overpriced for what it offers. Save your money and do the sights yourself. The tour started quite well with a very detailed narration in the Hippodrome. However, as we continued the tour into the Blue Mosque and then to the walls of Sophia’s mosque the stories, descriptions and engagement started fading. Definitely other tour guides from other companies were more detailed and were sharing facts, stories and traditions. For lunch, we were given an hour and told to find a place ourselves out of a list of recommendations. While this may seem appealing to some, I am used to other tours arranging lunch so that you don’t have to deal with the stress of having to find a place and eat in such a short period of time. Also, tour guides take that chance to introduce you to local food and traditions. When we got back we were asked if we wanted to go to a local carpet maker shop. This was not listed on the tour and one of the reasons why I chose this tour in the first place. As majority of the group wanted to go, we opted to attend. We spent a full hour in a shop that sells overpriced rugs tapping into potential buyers’ emotions with made up stories about handicraft, traditions and long term investments. They do this by first showing handmade rugs at astronomical prices to then proceed to show you machine made rugs which are nothing unique and mass manufactured. People in my group bought a rug that was 60% less in sites like Etsy. We then proceeded to the palace and here the guide was minus interested in continuing the tour and was giving us the bare minimum information. He rushed us through the Hamman and skipped some rooms both at the Hamman and palace because he couldn’t show us all. Also note, that the entrance to the palace is 1,500 TL for the palace, Hamman and Haiga Irene yet these guys buy the tickets on your behalf and never show you Irene. I bought this tour to learn about Turkey and Istanbul as much as possible within a day and I feel I learned more through one of the free walking tours I did the day before.