Enjoy a relaxing Experience the serenity of the biggest Princes' Island in Turkey, Büyükada, on this full-day guided tour from Istanbul. After traversing the Sea of Marmara by boat. On Büyükada, learn about the island’s history from your guide.
See all Princes's Island Kınalı Island, Heybeli Island, Burgaz Island,
Full-day trip from Istanbul to Princes Iland (Heybeliada and Büyükada) by boat
Marvel at top Istanbul sights like Topkapi Palace and Kiz Kulesi
Spend time at leisure on the largest of the Princes’ Islands and embrace laid-back island life
Hear the island’s history from your guide and learn of its role as a place of exile for banished Turkish aristocrats
Hotel pickup and drop-off by air-conditioned coach included
Posted By : dansZ2680WG
Main idea : if you want to visit the islands, please plan your trip by yourself...lots of ferry boats are travelling over there.
Resons:
1. The trip by boat was planned to start around 08:30. We were picked up from our hotel at 08:00 and until 09:30 we lost time picking up so many other tourists...driving from hotel to hotel. Finally we have arrived at the boat and we started the actual trip around 10:00.
2. Our ticket was advertising one tour guide, but we never heard a word from him about anything during our trip to the islands - no description for any touristic objectives.
3. The trip supposed to start from a port inside Bosphorus strait and we supposed to pass under the Istanbul bridge, Topkagi palace...this never happened. Instead the boat left the port from South of Bosphorus strait, never passing under the bridge - nothing from trip description from Tripadvisor 🤔.
4. Once arrived in the first Island we were instructed that we can stay only 40-45 min to visit (not 1 hour as advertised) - for obvious reasons (we were late due to late departure)
5. After 45 minutes we came back, as instructed... And we were schocked to see that so called LUNCH was served INSIDE THE BOAT. This was an unbelieveble feeling...never in my life saw so much disrespect for custumers...people staying in line of 30-40 m and wait to get a plate of food...(mix of some pasta, some chicken and rice...all in the same plate)...all eaten from normal plates and forkes (not even bothered to serve by paper plates, plastic forks - for obvious igienic reasons). ABSOLUT DISASTER. After complained to the guide, he promised private meal...which we politely refused from obvious reasons. OFCOURSE, we had to pay our selfes for own lunch while we have arrived in the next island.
6. We have arrived at the second island: advertised 3 hours stay; we have stayed only 2 hours on the island. Not enough time to do anything for this short time.
7. Finally we have arrived back to the Istanbul port - instead of taking all the tourists back to the hotel or ciry, the guide started pressing the people that we have to visit some leather shop ( not mentioned anywhere in the presentation). We have politelly refused, as in the mean time we have read lots of reviews from other tourists complaining about this visit to this kind of shop. If you are interested, look for 1 star review and you will see more details, as we did not go there. We left the bus at the port and went in the city by our selfes.
Finally, if you want to visit the islands (which are very nice and unique), you should plan your visit by your self using local ferry transport.
Maybe Tripadvisor should take more attention when they advertise trips under their name, as for sure we were not expecting to such awful experience...
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Posted On : 2024-06-24 15:14:02 
Posted By : Karl_P
It was nice experience. The pick up was timely. The transport was comfortable. The boat was nice. The island trips were good. (1st island stop could have been a little longer.) The final visit to the leather shop could be expedited. ☺️
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Posted On : 2024-06-17 10:19:48 
Posted By : Marco_P
Our tour guide was wonderful, the boat ride was beautiful seeing amazing sites. But from pickup to boat took an hour and 20 minutes with lots of stops and sitting around. Islands were pretty but not much to see but vendors selling their items.
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Posted On : 2024-06-15 12:52:18
Posted By : Rick_M
Great experience, guide was very helpful and informative. Cost is very reasonable and well worth it, would book this tour again.
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Posted On : 2024-06-10 12:59:04
Posted By : 665fergusq
There was no tour element to it at all - no information about anything was provided - only thing that was said was the name of the islands - spent the first two hours driving around Istanbul picking up people in hotels - much less time that they say on the description - 40 minutes at first island, 2 hr at second island - played very loud dance/club music the whole way out there - 2 Turkish coffee cost me 200 lira? At the end they tried to make us go to a ‘fashion show’ - where they try and pressure you into buying clothing in warehouse
Looked online and can get ferry yourself there for a fraction of the cost/ spend way longer there
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Posted On : 2024-04-23 14:09:14
Posted By : habibo996
The Island was lovely we had great time our tour guide Suleyman was very good and friendly food and shopping was nice recommended.
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Posted On : 2024-04-06 08:47:35
Posted By : S1961GKpaulm
Our guide for the day was a lovely guy but there wasn’t much guiding to do. It’s mostly a glorified taxi service from the hotel to the ferry(s) with lunch included. If I was to do it again, I’d organise it and visit the islands my own way. You sit on the bus during the pickups for like 45 mins to an hour.
The islands themselves are beautiful. We got approx one hour on the smaller island and approx 2 hours on the larger island. The lunch was pretty good to be fair.
I do have one serious gripe about the whole experience tho. It’s not on the schedule but they bring you to a leather store where you sit through a catwalk show, then given the hard sell by some slick salesman and then ushered up to store itself where your followed by some “helpful” sales merchants. I felt extremely awkward and uncontrollable throughout and left and made my own way back to the hotel.
You pay for a tour, not a sales pitch.
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Posted On : 2024-04-03 01:28:52
Posted By : coggeshall_couple
Picked us up at 8am, went around the houses to pick up different people, then we drove to the Hilton where the majority of people got off, no explanation what was happening, there was only us and another couple left.
Arrived at the boat an hour and a half after we were picked up, the boat looked quite old and dirty. There was a bar which had snacks and drinks (you had to pay for) there were two toilets, both holes in the floor, as a woman (and with mobility issues) there was no way I could ever imagined being able to use them. They were filthy, even if I could manage to use them, I wouldn't have. If you are providing a tour for people of different nationalities you need to have facilities for those guests.
Three hours after we were picked up we set sail. Luckily it was a nice day, we sat outside which was nice.
We eventually set sail three hours after we were picked up.
We visited two Islands, one for one hour, 20 mins and the other for 30 mins.
Because the boat was so filthy we decided to get lunch at a local restaurant on the first island, this pretty much took up most of our time. Even if we hadn't eaten there wouldn't have been enough time to explore. At no point we were given any information about the island.
When we got back on the boat, lunch was served. We didn't have any, it looked like chicken and rice.
Before we got off to visit the second Island we were asked if we wanted to hire a bike or go on an electric car ride, we declined. With only 40 minutes there was no way it would have been worth it. We almost felt as though the guy in charge was on a commission. Again, didnt have enough time to explore the island, managed a quick bit of shopping before heading back to the boat.
On the way back to the mainland the guy in charge decided he fancied himself as a bit of a DJ, some people got up to dance, we were badgered a bit to join in, a fight almost broke out, two guys squaring up to each other and the crew getting involved.
Another guy continued to hassle people to buy his perfume and aftershave, had enough of that outside the Grand Bazzare, didn't expect it on a 'nice, relaxing boat trip'
Although it was nice to sit on the boat in the sunshine we felt it was a waste of our time and money.
Our advice would be, don't bother booking this trip! Hop on a ferry (much cheaper, quicker and easy to navigate) you can then take your time, browse the islands, grab some lunch, a bit of shopping and explore at your own pace!
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Posted On : 2024-03-24 02:24:32
Posted By : chronism581
We expected to spend 2 hours guided-touring Istanbul. We then expected to stay for one hour at the small island and 3 hours at the bigger one.
Instead we went straight to the port with zero city guided touring, we spent half an hour longer than expected in the smaller island followed by a mere 30 minutes at the bigger island which I personally had a vested interested and thus booked this specific tour. Needless to say the experience felt rushed and below of my personal expectations which included nothing more than being able to enjoy this trip without fearing I would be left stranded.
As if that wasn't enough though, the trip ended at a leather shop in Istanbul for a runaway show. I am not proud to say I was made aware of this change. Had I known this was the planned trip I would refrained from making this booking. I would not recommend this to fellow travellers unfortunately as I escalated this to the travelling company which refused to issue a partial refund, citing that we had been on this trip which did not reflect the expected itenary. Hopefully the company policy might change!
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Posted On : 2024-03-17 13:43:49
Posted By : Dhruv_P
Our guide was informative throughout the tour and he even helped us with understanding how to travel in Istanbul, understanding the roads, tram, Metro (since we had more 2 days there). In fact, he strongly recommended we use metro for our way back to Sabiha airport which we did and it Proved very cost effective.
Coming to The tour, it's a basic tour to the islands. Enjoyed the ferry trip though a bit long but can't do much about it. On reaching the island there was electric car ride where the driver didn't bother to explain or inform us about any of The buildings. She just drove about for 20 mins and brought us to drop off. Followed by lunch which was basic and usual. Guide then gave us 2 hours to explore the island, we saw wooden buildings and local Markets. It's a pollution free island. We were then driven back to Istanbul port. Shown a fashion show for leather products. And finally back to our hotels.
Overall decent experience but if not too Keen on a ferry ride or simply roaming on island with nothing great or over the top to look out for, you can think of giving it a skip.
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Posted On : 2023-11-29 01:16:30
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