Odyssey vs Steves Tour
 

Considering a trip to Turkey. Has anyone had any experience with Odyssey Tours? We have compared them to Rick Steves and find they are longer, cheaper and seem to be more exciting ie: 6 days on a sailing vessel. We usually go independently but thought the Odyssey looked like a good deal. Any comments would be appreciated.

I hate to throw another curve at you but. . . A couple of years ago I heavily researched the Turkey tours thinking we would do it that way. I was most impressed with OAT (Overseas Adventure Tours) with their fairly active program including the 6 day gulet cruise as well. There have been a couple of very favorable reports on here regarding the OAT tours since that time -- you might want to see if you can bring it up with a search -- or I will try to do that. The only drawback for us was that they included airfare from the US -- a great deal-- except that we were already going to be in Europe and they wouldn't credit that. In the end, we decided to do it all independently and also rented a car in Cappodocia, driving to the coast and up along the coast to Kusadasi before going on to Greece. Frankly we were glad we did the trip independently. You might want to check out OAT. As I recall Odyssey was my second choice -- similar itinerary. I did not like the Rick Steves tour outline.

Hi Patrick, Tried to email you direct but did'nt get the email address right so will try the forum.<BR><BR>I did find the OAT tour site and their tour does indeed look very similar to Odysseys. My wife and I particularly like the idea of the 6 day Gulet sail. Problem is OAT departs from NY and we live in NC. The Odyssey tour departs from NY or Charlotte and of course Charlotte is only a couple hrs drive for us.<BR><BR>Your post did get us thinking about going independently, we have traveled on our own in England, Germany, Ireland, and Italy and really do prefer it to tours (Neither of us like to wait for others) Guess we thought the deal from Odyssey looked pretty good - $2995 each for a May departure. I wonder if this tour could be done significantly cheaper on an independent basis????<BR><BR>Did you by any chance price taking a Gulet sail when you were there? Can this even be done or is it just thru a tour? You said that you were glad you went independently, is this due to the freedom you have? Did you find any problems locating the sites you wanted to see or getting tickets for them?<BR><BR>You mention renting a car in Cappadocia, how did you accomplish the rest of your travel? Would it make sense to fly into Istanbul, spend a couple of days and drive a rental from there to the spots mentioned on the tour?<BR><BR>Finally, what time of year is best, weather wise? Considering we might want to do some snorkling and beaching, on the coast yet don't want to swelter in Istanbul?<BR><BR>If anyone else would like to comment on the above please do so, we are looking for all the information we can get.<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>

No wonder you couldn't email me. I just changed my more usable email address this week to the earthlink one and now click it on when I post after using an aol address for years. I had not yet realized that I missed a 2 after the patash, so I've been misposting my address for the last week.<BR><BR>I haven't looked at the OAT catalogs for awhile but I thought they offered airfares from many cities. Or were there high additional charges for those?<BR>We flew into Istanbul for 4 or 5 days, then flew Turkish Air, very inexpensive to Keyseri where we rented a car through Auto Europe. It seemed like it was a waste to drive that extra distance from Istanbul and we were not interested in Ankara.<BR><BR>We liked the independence and being able to stay in each town a couple of days. Actually it is one of the very few trips where we didn't have all reservations. We left a couple of nights open along the coast and checked out places that I had written down. Had no problem getting rooms in either of them in May. We had booked the Antique Teatro hotel in Bodrum months ahead as it was highly recommended. We were there two nights. One night we were the only guests, the other night there was one other couple. This was in May and I think that is one of the very best months to travel in Turkey -- or it could extend into early June, but I suspect it is more likely to already by hot by June.<BR><BR>In Marmaris there were hundreds of gullets sitting along the harbour. You could go up to them and book on the spot. In fact they were willing to set up whatever you want. We talked with a couple at a restaurant who had just booked three nights by themselves with the three man crew and the total cost including all food was something like $600. They talked with several other operators who had one or two couples booked and were looking for another couple to join them. So in May, it would be very easy to book on the spot -- and you get to choose the boat and crew you like. We did a one day sail out of Bodrum and did some snorkeling off the boat. The water was wonderful to me -- and I'm from Florida so used to warm water.<BR><BR>We were amazed how few problems we had in traveling in Turkey. Language was rarely a problem, although we had a fascinating dinner in Konya at a nice restaurant where not one person spoke a word of English. One man at a table near us spoke German and Turkish so we were able to get him to order wine for us (I can do that in almost any language except Turkish).<BR>Once in driving, the sign we were supposed to look for was missing and we ended up in the middle of nowhere -- literally. We waited for a car to come along to the intersection. I flagged them down and shrugged saying "Ugrup?". The said "Ugrup" and pointed which direction to go. We repeated this procedure at the next interesection. But what an adventure and something else interesting to talk about and remember.<BR>

We didn't take a gulet cruise, but I agree with what Patrick has to say. We stayed in Kalkan for a few days and talked to a couple from England who were going to do their 3rd or 4th gulet cruise. They never booked in advance, just found something when they got to Turkey. <BR><BR>Also talked to 2 couples from New Zealand who said that the gulet cruise was the highlight of their trip to Turkey. They loved it. <BR><BR>I'm thinking we'll do that when we go back - and we definitely want to go back!