Top Istanbul Private Sightseeing Tours

We had one day to explore Istanbul while on a cruise and decided to do this tour to hit the highlights and it was the best decision! Sude was our tour guide and she made the experience as smooth, pleasant, and educational as we could have hoped for. We stuck with the tour's suggested itinerary but Sude was very flexible when we made a requested change last minute and accommodated us happily. She was super knowledgeable about Istanbul and Turkish history which gave us a great foundation for all the sites we saw throughout the day, she also took us to one of her favorite Turkish restaurants in the area for lunch that definitely hit the spot, and accommodated us on a timeline to see everything while still escorting us back to the ship in time before our disemarkation curfew. Highly recommend this tour and guide! Sude was excellent!

Comprehensive tour. Mert our guide was extremely knowledgeable and passionate about history. The only downside was he disuaded us from going into the Hagia Sophia due to scaffolding and renovations. Luckily we decided to go into the Hagia Sophia the next day on our own - it is well worth it, scaffolding and all.

Songül, our guide was very efficient and well informed. She was able to tailor our tour to what we wanted to see and helped avoid some of the crazy long lines we experienced (though not all). Even though this tour was marked “skip the line” we were not actually able to skip any lines to enter, we just avoided the lines to purchase tickets. The line for the Hagia Sophia was so long, we actually ended up not going since it would entail waiting for more than half and hour in the rain and cold. Our guide was able to redeem those tickets for ones to the interesting but lesser known and less crowded Cistern of Theodisius instead. We also went to the Blue Mosque and the Topkaki Palace, the latter of which was essential to get a guide for since the complex is overwhelming without one. Songül found a great place for us to have lunch (you end up paying for the guide’s meal which we were not aware of) and then took us to a ceramics store where we purchased some nice handmade pieces after being given a demonstration by the owner. This seems to be the thing in Istanbul - everyone is trying to sell you something and it’s hard to walk away, especially in the Grand Bazaar which we could barely stand to spend 15 minutes in, the crowds were so dense and the pressure from salespeople so intense. A good tour, but unfortunately bad weather and way too many other tourists made it difficult to fully enjoy.