2 Day Cappadocia Tour from Istanbul

I am very satisfied with the tour and the services of the company. The itinerary was followed as scheduled. The company was in contact with me all the time. Food was great and the hotel was nice. Transportation in Istanbul was great. Overall it was a great experience visiting a magical place.

Imagine being in a car driven by a reckless driver, who doesn't speak or understand English, doesn't know where the hotel is, and being driven around deserted back streets at 1 am in the morning!!! The ride to and from Ataturk airport as part of this tour was horrendous. The pick up from the hotel was by 2 drivers who did not speak or understand English. They kept asking Ataturk? We explained that yes, it was a domestic flight to Kayseri airport from Ataturk. Despite several requests for the domestic terminal, we were dropped off at the International terminal. By the time we found our way to the domestic terminal, no seats were available, and we had to wait for an agent to assign seats, while Turkish-speaking travelers kept cutting in line ahead of us. We almost missed the flight. Cappadocia was wonderful. The tours were nice. The people were nice too. On the return pick up from Ataturk to our hotel in Istanbul, we agreed to wait for 15-20 minutes to pick up other passengers on a shared ride to town. After we had waited 45 minutes, we asked to be put in a taxi or take us and return for the other passengers. More than an hour later, the other passengers came out of the gate. As we got on the van, we requested that we be dropped off at our hotel first. Again, the driver did not speak or understand English. Having ridden from Ataturk to our hotel previously, I knew the route and knew that the drive was about 1/2 an hr. at that time of the night. The driver took us on the highway, took the bridge over to the other side of the city wrong side, came over again to the right side on another bridge, stopped at the Istanbul airport shuttle office to ask for directions to the other hotel for the other passengers, dropped them off, then proceeded to drive us around the area, running red lights, driving fast and dangerously. He stopped at a place to ask for our hotel, didn't know what he was told, but kept driving us around again. Through all this we had mentioned Hagia Sophia to him. There were signs all around to Hagia Sophia, but he just kept driving around the back streets without getting there. He did not know where our hotel was, clearly could not read the signs or decided to ignore them. We felt like we were kidnapped. In the end when we saw the Basilica cistern, and he had stopped to talk on the phone, we asked him to open the door we were pulling on the handle, it was locked and once he unlocked the door, we just jumped out of the van, and walked to our hotel. By the time we got to the hotel it was 1:30 am, we went to our room and called the local contact number for the tour and complained. He said this should never have happened, and that they should have put us in a taxi, and that he would come and talk to us the next morning to make things right. Well, he never showed up, and we couldn't wait to just return from there. Viator, I have always booked through you because we've had good experiences with our tour operators in the past. They have been English speakers, and reliable and safe. This was a horrible experience with airport transfers, and we wouldn't wish any other tourists to go through a similar experience.