Latif is the man! Before I had ever booked anything he would respond so fast to all of my messages and was so patient with my many questions. I had a 12 hour layover in Istanbul on my way home from a business trip and did lots of research before finally booking with Latif. As someone who plans 54 trips globally — I can say Latif ranks among the top of the top. He was very aware of our concerns and willing to do whatever to help us have a good time. He’s extremely professional and I highly recommend using him. I know I will be when I come back to Turkey with more time!
Every part of this short tour was excellent. It just worked out. The driver was at the hotel at 7:30 am as promised. The guide was excellent - English was almost his first language. He knew so much about each place we visited you could tell he has been a tour guide for awhile. He was proud to show his city to visitors like me. He answered any question and was extremely easy to be around which is important for a one person tour. The itinerary was perfect for a layover tour as I was able to see many things in such a short period.
I had an amazing experience with Istanbul Layover Tours from start to finish! I am from the USA, vacationed in Greece, and flew Turkish Air. I had a 15 hour overnight layover in Istanbul and decided to do a morning layover tour in Istanbul. It was one of the smartest ideas I had!
Because it was an overnight layover, it was logistically complicated to make this work. However, I communicate with Latif over email and WhatsApp and we were able to figure things out.
My flight arrived from Greece into Istanbul at 11:30pm. By the time I made it through passport control and customs, it was already past midnight. The arranged transfer was there to meet us as scheduled.
The meet & greet was a bit sketchy, since you are handed off to multiple handlers who only speak broken English, until they put you into a van that just takes you away. It worked flawlessly, but happening in the middle of the night in a foreign country did make me feel a little nervous.
I chose a hotel that was by Galata Tower, which is also near the city center, and was dropped off there. There were issues with the hotel, but that has nothing to do with Istanbul Layover Tours. I was able to get 3 hours of sleep, which was necessary for the events of the next day.
Istanbul Layover Tour picked us up from the hotel at 7:00am and drove us to the city center. This is where I met Latif in-person for the first time. We only had 4 hours with Latif, but he made good use of every minute. The tour started off with a traditional breakfast, which included morning chai tea.
Then I was able to see Constantine's Hippodrome, the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, the Basilica Cistern, and the Grand Bizarre. Since it was a private tour, it was only my girlfriend, me, and Latif. So we were able to just go-go-go. You should know that the price you pay for the tour does not include breakfast or tickets to the Basilica Cistern (450 Turkish Lira).
Latif is the perfect tour guide. He is capable of reading his customers and customizing the tour to meet their needs. He asked if we were into food, shopping, or sight-seeing. We told him sight-seeing, so he showed us as much as he could in 4 hours. He also offered to take our picture everywhere we went. So we have really nice pictures, rather than a bunch of selfies.
Latif is also full of knowledge. He expertly knew the order we needed to do things so that we could spend the least amount of time waiting in lines and more time seeing things. He also was able to explain everything that we saw and answered all of our questions in perfect English.
And he made sure we were in a van headed back to the airport at 11:00am sharp so we did not miss our flight home. It is about a 1 hour drive from the city center to the airport. So we arrived back with roughly 2 hours and a half to make it back through security, which was plenty of time.
For an itinerary so complicated, Istanbul Layover Tours made everything run incredibly smooth.
We purposely booked our flight so that we have one full day in Istanbul. I was not quite sure what to do until I luckily found this company on TripAdvisor. Communication with Latif was great, he responded right away and the booking process was seamless. We arrived in Istanbul at 7 AM, instructions to the meeting point was easy to follow and find. The private limo van was awesome and whisked us directly to our hotel in the old city. There, our guide, Mev met up with us right away. She was really awesome , very experienced and knowledgeable. We felt like we just met our long lost friend in Istanbul. We proceeded to have breakfast at a local bakery , then to visit to blue mosque, glanced at the long long long line of Hagia Sophia so we decided to skip it and do something else better with our time. We walked through the palace park then hop on the Bosphorus cruise tour . Off the boat, we went to the Spice market then lunch then on to more shopping at the Grand Bazaar before we said good bye to Mev. Per her recommendation, we went back to see Hagia Sophia at night when all the crowds are gone and just enjoyed all the lights at the square after dark. The next early morning the Limo van came to pick us on time at 5 AM to whisk us back to the airport. Overall we had an awesome experience in Istanbul, we were so glad we booked this tour which saved me so much headache of researching and booking things separately , hoping to be back again soon.
I loved Latif as our tour guide, he provided us with historical facts about Turkey and its food interlaced with personal anecdotes and a striking sense of humour :)
Being a foodie myself, I appreciate the fact that we were able to visit both sides of Turkey and also enjoy impeccable food. The places Latif took us, we had the yummiest food in all of Turkey(we had already been there for 6 days and we did the food tour on our last day). My favourite part of the food tour was the authentic Turkish breakfast spread.
I thoroughly recommend this food tour and Latif as your tour guide. I promise, you shall not regret!
Mr