This is a little last minute but I am hoping someone can help. We will be on a Viking Ocean cruise over the week of Christmas that has a stop in Kusadasi. I am looking for a private guide to take me, my husband and our four adult children to Ephesus. I know Viking offers excursions but we are looking for a more personal experience.
Any recommendations are greatly appreciated!
Thank you
Jennifer M
I understand you want a private guide, and I hope you find one. You might look in a Rick Steve's Istanbul guidebook, he does cover Ephesus as a chapter. If you do not find a guide, we found the Viking guide to be quite good. We really enjoyed the Ephesus stop. I believe there might have been an additional tour that you can add on for Ephesus.
Hi ssidocs, We may be on the same cruise! We booked an excursion with Ephesus Shuttle. Aylin has been responsive (usually within 12 hours or less) and tailored the excursion to fit exactly what we wanted. In fact, we also booked an excursion with them in Istanbul. A couple of weeks ago I just reconfirmed our reservations with him. So polite and professional! Can't wait for our first cruise!
Another vote for Ephesus Shuttle. We've used them twice. Excellent guides and great value.
Hi Jennifer, my husband and I were on a Viking cruise recently and we wanted to explore Ephesus, The Virgin Mary's House and St John's Basilica in more detail. We searched this forum for a guide, and we saw the name of Mutlu Bulut. We hired him for our stay in Kusadasi and we hired him for a post cruise extension for 2 days in Istanbul as well as more time in Laodicea, Colossae, and Hierapolis. We will post our trip report in this forum in the next couple of days. Please see that post for more details on what we were able to see.
I am sure the other recommendations mentioned above are very good. Our experience with Mutlu was excellent. We would hire him again. His email is [email protected]
Please let me know if you have any other questions.
Sincerely, Angela
Update on Kusadasi/Ephesus Tour-/Mutlu Bulut as Guide****
Having returned from our trip, I wanted to update this post on our experience. We were able to book a day with Mutlu Bulut as our guide and he was fantastic. He picked us up with a driver from the port in Kusadasi. He was there on time [early actually] and was easy to find. On the drive to Ephesus he provided us with information about the country itself- the culture, people and industry. At Ephesus he provided a very detailed, and very interesting, tour of this just amazing [not to be missed!] historical site.
What I really appreciated were his email communications prior to our arrival, asking how we were interested in spending our day together. He offered suggestions but was very open to the seeing the sights and experiences that we wanted to have as a family.
I told him that we wanted to eat local cuisine as well as go to rug shop to purchase at rug. He found a very authentic family restaurant [which is what I had requested] in a nearby town where we had a delicious meal, followed by baklava at his favorite bakery. He took us on a tour of the Ephesus museum and then we ended our day, as requested visiting a rug making school (and bonus trip to a pottery shop in town. )
All in all, it was a really wonderful experience to spend the time with Mutlu as our guide. His name Mutlu means "Happy" and I think this name is perfect for him!
His email is [email protected] should you like to consider using him on future travels! I highly recommend him!
Jennifer Miller
Hello Jeniffer,
I am glad you had a great experience with your guide Mutlu. I am planning to return to Turkey and will try to make contact with your guide. I traveled a great deal in Turkey twice, with private guides. this year the guides were not as good as the previous times. However, I hope you did not end up at a big rug outlet in Kusadasi named BaroK Carpet & Jewlery, right at the port of Kusadasi. I was there through an excursion with Oceania and they even sponsore the business, but they are outright a scam of a business. I was lied and scammed with two area rugs purchases for $ 3000 that have the value of barely $ 300. They misrepresent the quality and make of the rugs and simply take advantage of tourists. I hope that your buying experience was succesful but anyone reading this post, please, be aware and careful.
Sara Y.
My husband and I just took the Celebrity Cruise with stops in Greece and a WONDERFUL stop in Kusadasi, Turkey. This stop was made special to us by the wonderful guided tour by Mutlu Bulut. We found Mutlu by reading the Rick Steve’s Mediterranean Cruise Ship Book. Rick Steve’s recommended Mutlu and we found his recommendation exceptional. We have been on many guided tours throughout our travels and Mutlu is the best we have ever had!
When I first reached out to Mutlu Bulut, he responded so quickly and secured our tour for our day that we were in Turkey. He arranged for the private car and was very easy to arrange everything for that day. He was very detailed with all the planning and made it a pleasure to meet at the port. He was waiting there for us as we exited the port with a sign with our names. He then took us to the driver and car that was waiting for us to take us to all the sights.
As soon as we got in the car, Mutlu was ready and excited to show us all that we wanted to see that day. He is so good at his job, that he made sure we understood the history and geography of Turkey. He showed us a map of Turkey and talked about all the sights we were to see that day. He’s so friendly, has excellent command of the English language, and has passion and enthusiasm about everything he showed us that day. He is so very knowledgeable and continued to show us wonderful small details of the sites we were seeing and had wonderful stories to go with all the sites. I cannot express how truly educated and enthusiastic Mutlu is about all the sites. His knowledge made that day the best day of our whole cruise.
After seeing the sites, Mutlu then took us to an authentic Turkish lunch and then a school of Turkish rug making. It was such a wonderful place to see the craft of making rugs.
If you get to Kasadasi and want to see the sites of Ancient Ephesus, you must reach out to Mutlu Bulut. He will customize and make your experience truly wonderful! He has a new email address that is easy to get a hold of him. Just email him and see if he is available for your visit to Turkey. His email is - [email protected].
We look forward to coming back to his beautiful country and do more tours in different Turkish cities. We can’t wait to return.
