Customer reviews page:8

We had the misfortune of booking this shambles of a tour prior to our arrival in Kusadasi.We were met at the cruise port by our "guide" - I use that term loosely. And escorted to our van.We were driven to the House of Virgin Mary first and were escorted around. Thankfully we arrived before the cruise ship passengers that were behind us.After this we were taken to Ephesus. The itinerary said we would have 2 hours and see the terrace houses. We had about 45 mins and were rushed through. We did not have time to really take in the vastness of the ancient city. We also were told we were not allowed to visit the terrace houses as it was not in our "itinerary". This was incredibly disappointing.The promised "lunch" was never provided by the guide who seemed more interested in getting us to a shop. In fact the only options we were given for our last visit was ceramic, leather or carpet/rug factory. Clearly they are raking commission from this activity. We was taken to Baggio Rossini where we was made to sit through a boring fashion show for jackets we were never going to buy.Overall you can do better!

Great place. 1) Get a tour guide - theyre not too expensive, at about £40 Euros. Barter with them! 2) You start the tour at the top & work your way down to the bottom. 3) It takes about an hour. 4) Marvellous sights, but terraced houses are extra I think. 5) Marys House nearby is worth a visit but we were underwhelmed Take a hat/sunshade - its hot!!

We had such a wonderful time with our tour guide Gonça, Rose. She has enthusiasm for her profession and is very kind. We enjoyed our time with her very much. There is so much to see and without a tour guide to share with you the discoveries they are uncovering you would miss so much. The terrace houses were fascinating, we were so glad she found a perfect time to get us in so we had plenty of time to enjoy it. It was nice to see how the terrace house employees knew our guide and would have fun together. It gave you a sense of community appreciation. After seeing Ephesus we went to lunch and it was wonderful. Everything was delicious and fresh. We enjoyed having lunch with our sweet tour guide. The staff at lunch were hospitable and generous Then we saw the carpet making ladies and they are so talented, patient, and enjoyable to watch. Our daughter was given the opportunity to enjoy the process. These are beautiful rugs that we now appreciate more about.Gonça was a delight to spend the day with. This is the best way to see Ephesus. Thank you for taking such good care of us. We felt very welcomed.

We had a one day visit in Kusadasi on our Royal Caribbean cruise and decided against a ship organised tour. Instead, after research on Trip Advisor found About Ephesus Tours. We booked online and found them very prompt and professional to deal with. They arrange tours for a lot of cruise folk so we knew we were in good hands. We met our tour guide Filiz Capraz at 8.30am and she led us to our minivan. It was just my husband and I on the tour, and we had the guide and driver to ourselves. Filiz came with us to all our destinations and provided us with historical information about the sites. We found Filiz to be highly knowledgeable and a very pleasant person to spend the day with. First up was The House of the Virgin Mary, believed to be the last house of Mary, mother of Jesus. This is a very holy and revered place for those who hold specific religious beliefs. As a person who is not religious, it was simply a destination of interest. Next stop on our itinerary was the fascinating ancient city of Ephesus. Filiz told us that only 10% of the old city has been excavated and much of what lies beneath the ground will never be excavated. The highlight of Ephesus is the Celsus Library and much of the facade has been reconstructed. Also in Ephesus we saw the massive theatre that can hold up to 25,000 people and still hosts concerts to this day. Overall a highly impressive historic site and well worth the visit Our guide then took us to a leather factory and store called Baggio Rossini. We sat down in a room while bored looking Turkish models showed us various leather jackets, music pounding and lights flashing. I fell in love with a suede/leather reversible jacket that I managed to haggle an incredibly good price on. I understand why we were taken there but the whole fashion show thing was not really for us. We had a quick stop at the Temple of Artemis, a ruin with only a few remaining bits before a delicious lunch at a traditional Turkish restaurant. This place was definitely the tourist trail and we looked like the only foreigners in for lunch. After lunch we stopped by a ceramic shop/workshop, the Ephesus Ceramic Centre where they produce beautiful pieces that truly are works of art. We had already said we did not want to see the carpet making and were happy with our choice. We then headed up into the hills to visit Sirince Village, a cute village with stalls and shops along the main street. Some shops are aimed at tourists but others are market stalls for locals. I visited a jewellery store called Demetrius of Ephesus who made a lot of the jewellery worn in the Brad Pitt movie, Troy. I bought a ring with the Turkish mined stone, Sultanite. I also tried Turkish coffee they cook in hot sand and bought some delicious fruit wine from Isiksoy. We were dropped back at the cruise terminal on time, around 4.30pm. We thoroughly enjoyed our day and can recommend this tour company in Kusadasi.

Epesus is a site that you must visit, one of the ancient wonders ofThe world. If staying in kusadasi area it's easy to visit on local transport. Dolmus from kusadasi will take you to selcuk from here you can walk or grab a cab. This way you can arrive at 8.30 when it opens and beat all the cruise ship crowds. It does get ridiculously busy which rather ruines the atmosphere. It's very cheap to get in and there is an amazing amount of history to enjoy.

We took tour of cruise ship 12 people it was wonderful tour with great guide, Ephesus is a site not to miss.After the tour we ended up at a Carpet School for lunch under the shade of tree perfect way to end a perfect tour.

We were picked up on time at the port. The 4 of us were escorted to a beautiful new Mercedes van , our guide Efzgi (sorry for the spelling) was amazing. She was very knowledgeable and proud of her country. We went to the house of Mary before all the large tour buses got there, and off to Ephesus - she taught us a lot about the history there. I would highly recommend!

Arriving in Selçuk take a tour to know the whole history. It's a city before Christ. It was a prosperous city, it had the sea where the goods arrived. But the sea was moving away and more innumerable earthquakes made the city to end and today there is no longer the sea, but a sand and bush floor where in the past was the sea .The story is very interesting.

We took a private tour of Ephesus with Filiz. It was excellent. She is knowledgeable and set a good pace. All arrangements were by email and everything worked out perfectly with a pickup at the Izmir airport. Highly recommend this company.

We took the Ephesus half-day tour with Sibel as our guide. The tour was excellent taking in the Virgin Mary House and the Temple of Artemus as well as Ephesus. Sibel was very knowledgeable of each of the sites and gave us an introduction to each as we arrived followed by more details as we toured the sites. Ephesus was great to see and was made even better by Sibel's knowledge and information about each of the areas of the site. In addition, she was very friendly with a great personality and sense of humour. She quickly understood our needs and adapted the tour to take account. The tour was then completed with a wonderful lunch is a traditional restaurant sampling some local food. A great way to end the tour!