It's been a little over a month and I needed time to write an objective detailed review, given how furious I am before and during the tour.
Overall Summary: Nightmare through and through. Communication was lacking, responses were minimal, and lacking any details. Was not helpful on providing what to expect, how to prepare, an no clue on the itinerary. Better if you just do it all on your own or go with a more reputable agency. Only saving grace was Marsy from Alatruk and the cave hotel owner.
A) Before the start of the tour summary: Hassle to get any communication from company. This was already the red flag.
They had an itinerary that is a cut/paste from all the other tours and competitors, but it’s not enough. I tried to contact them for the finer details of what to expect and how to prepare such as start/end times, types of clothes to wear, and if there strenuous hiking/walking. It was next to impossible. No email listed. I called Viator for help on contact info they only had a phone number.
Called half a dozen times prior and connected 2x. The communication was poor, had a dismissive attitude (kept telling me “don't worry”), and didn't answer my questions of how to prepare. I asked for an email and for them to reply to it to confirm the booking and send details, he gave me an address that they never replied to despite multiple emails. I had to escalate to viator and leave negative review before Ii got any response from the company. I thought it was just a misunderstanding hence my initial review on viator, but this is not a misunderstanding.
Received our flight details only 12 hours before departure. No hotel info (more on this later on end of day one).
B) Day one summary: Excessive transfers, bad quality tour, and no information on our hotels leading to huge amounts of frustration, fear, and uncertainty.
Transfer Part 1 - We got on a 6am flight and landed at 7am. No clue on who to look for and what time the tour starts. There was a guy holding a sign that had my name, but significantly misspelled, but we didn't figure this out after passing each other up a dozen times.
3 hours and 4 buses later and after landing we finally 'started' our tour. Would be nice to know the 3 hour gap so we can sleep or catch a slightly later flight. From the airport, we got kicked off our first bus because it was full even though it was reserved, had to get off our second bus in the middle of the road (very shady and scary when no one knows who you are and they are hurrying you), the 3rd bus took us to the opposite direction from pamukkale and parked in the middle of the road for 25 minutes while the driver went to smoke, pick up other employees and to the tour office, and 4th bus was the tour group that started 9:30am....but not really since it went to pick up additional guests well until 10:15am
The tour office - The actual tour itself was Turkey Magic Travel, it was awful. Not sure why we had to go to the office before the tour, it didn’t make any sense, seems they took us there to upsell us. The office was terrible, we asked for an itinerary for the day so we know what time we're done and at least try to prepare given we have been asking non-stop. We met the "owner", don't believe he is the owner, but think he was trying to hype himself up. He was unprofessional and said, "you're going to see everything", which doesn't answer the question at all... we kept pushing for an itinerary and how to prepare. He got annoyed and literally switched topic to upsell us paragliding. We insisted on knowing the plans or the day and he said the tour guide would know. Really unprofessional.
The actual tour to pamukkale - The tour guide was awful as well. He was uninformative with simple statements like “these are red rocks”, “these are beautiful red rocks”. When asked by everyone to elaborate more on the history or significance, he would respond with “sure” and not say anything else. When I continued to push for more information he finally provided a little more context and history, but gave a huge snide and sarcastic remark, “does this satisfy your question or do you need more”? My response was “yes, I need more, keep providing more and i shouldn’t have to ask you”.
Timewise he was awful too. He said he’s going to give us ALOT of free time to explore the pools (2 hours) and sites (1 hour). But we all quickly realized that he’s just lazy and did not want to provide context to what we’re looking at or an actual guided tour. We saw other tours still together and the tour guides giving so much historical context to everything. We were jealous. He really should just ask the group what they want to do and actually listen.
Preparation - Pamukkale is a hot hike and they don’t tell you that despite so many pleas to answer god damn question, from the photos you'd think it would be cold, but its not. Also they don’t tell you can’t leave your belongings on the bus during the tour. This meant alot of people lugging around hug backpacks and all their stuff with them while hiking the ruins. A family had a baby with them and the guy had to lug the stroller and bags.
Continued request for itinerary - the group was pretty fed up with the tour guide not answering what is next. His responses were always, “it’s a secret!”. Seriously, no one is amused at this this type of responses when we’re all tired and don’t know what the hell is going on. One stop ended up being to some type of bed bath and beyond shop to sell us pillows. I’m glad this tour ended when it did. I think he thinks the tour went well, but aggressive and defensive when anyone wasn’t happy.
Transfer Part 2 - When the tour ended, we were taken back to the tour office after it and put on a different bus for a bumpy rough ride to Kusadasi. The bus was another tour group that visited Pamukkale for the day, which is fine, the problem is that no one on the bus knew who we were and where to drop us off at. For 3.5 hours, we were frustrated and confused that no one knew anything. Calls to Kotor went unanswered and no one picked up, keep in mind that there was no email for details like a local name or number, let alone the hotel info.. Finally a staff on the bus said that they managed to find our names on a list that said were going to Selcuk… except the “itinerary” on the product page never mentioned staying in Selcuk. We called the hotel and they said they don’t have our names at all for the night. We were in a state of confusion and frustration where the staff on the bus doesn’t have the right info on where we are going, and we don’t know where we are going. This was already awful and everyone was getting sick from the driving. Finally the tour guide of this bus, a stranger at this point, decided to call all the different hotels in Kusadasi to see if our names were registered anywhere. After the 7th or 9th call, she found our names at a hotel, and thank god she was there.
Her name was Marsy and we told her all the awful things that have been happening and it was just day one. She was assured us that she will help us sort the tour for the next day out. She said she’ll try to call the tour company to figure out what’s going on, gave us a time on when she’ll come back in the morning, and with her contact information if we need anything in the meantime.
You can imagine how awful this is was an we tried to contact Kotor to still no availability. We ended up escalating to Viator to stop the tour immediately and refund the remaining portion…. And we can just figure things out ourselves, but seems Viator was really on the side of Kotor here… not understanding how truly of an awful of an experience it was. They said they will get back to us by mid-day on Day 2 and suggested we continue the tour until they have a response from Kotor Tours about a refund or stoppage.
C) Day 2 - Summary: Still awful Kotor Tours, saved only by local tour guide intervention.
On day two, Viator came back to us and said that since we continued the tour (on their recommendation), there’s no way they can cancel the tour and provide a refund. Also Kotor tour said the original hotel was in Selcuk at a 3 star hotel, but decided to upgrade us to a 4 star in Kusadasi. This is interesting since the copied/paste itinerary said Kusadasi and never mentioned staying in Selcuk and they didn’t update the transfer operator yesterday. Overall, a punch in the gut when Viator decides to side with a unprofessional operator.
Viator also said Kotor never lied or were unresponsive and that they don’t give out details (flight info and hotels) beforehand because they are concerned people will cancel. Really? If they are concerned, why don’t they change their cancellation policy to 1 week and send out the itinerary within that 1 week? Also they can’t give out basic information on how to prep because of this concern either?
Marsy on the other hand came back at 8:30am and spoke with us on the situation. She made a few phone calls to understand what’s going on but unfortunately it’s outside her realm to influence…. which to be honest, is appreciated. Fortunately she found out our next tour was with her company, Alaturk Turkey Tours, and able to convince them to have us join her tour if we liked, which we were happy to do. Marsy was a 10/10… very informative, insightful, and communicative. She had a ton of energy, positive, and always gave us the upfront truth about things (history, insights, point of views). She set expectations in the beginning and allowed us to know how to prepare for long walks, food, and even when we had to stop by for an obligatory “factory” visit. The factory visit was actually good since we knew it was happening ahead of time with a fashion show, we decided we might as well enjoy it rather than making it cringe-worthy.
Transfer to the airport- Marsy was good on this too. After the tour ended, she was made sure everyone knew the end of day itinerary (drop offs to airports or back to hotel).
Arriving in Cappadocia and Transfer: Again knowing that it takes 2 hours to get to our cave hotel and town from the airport would have helped since we didn’t have any opportunity to eat dinner…. And there were no walkable restaurants in the area. Luckily the owner of the hotel was nice enough to cook us dinner late night. We didn’t even know when our tour in the morning starts nor which route since we still haven't received anything from Kotor travel. The hotel owner was nice enough to call to find out these details for us, which was 9:30am
D) Day 3 - Summary: Decent tour of Cappadocia, but still a mix up details.
We woke up at 8am to find that an email had been sent in the middle of the night (while we were sleeping) for us to be ready at 9:30am. Seems Kotor might have stepped up in providing information, but still lacking details and not timely information at all.
This was supposed to be a red day tour, but instead it was a green day tour, which included a “hike”, again we weren’t prepared. Again the actual tour isn’t provided by Kotor, but contracted another tour company. The tour guide, Ikut, was nice but didn’t give us information when it started and we were worried it would be like Pamukkale where the tour guide isn’t forthcoming with details and just overall bad. After some back and forth, we found out Kotor Tours booked it backwards and we were on the second day of 2 day tour, so all the context and information was given the day before. Ikut was nice enough to go over all the history and context from day 1, but it was a backwards booking and frustrating. Also, Kotor Travel decided to book and mix local (turkish) with international (english speaking) tourist together, effectively dividing his time in half to explain the sights, history, and context. We felt the experience could have been better, the tour guide didn’t have enough time to tell us everything and give us free time to explore.
Since Ikut’s company was giving the next day tour, he provided the itinerary for the next day and what to expect. It was actually nice knowing we had the evening free and not flying blind.
E) Day 4 - Summary: Air Balloon ride was nice and Tour was nice.
At this point, we decided us to liaise with the hotel owner given its our last day and ignore Kotor Tours since they have been unhelpful at best (sending emails in the middle of the night while we are asleep of when to be ready). The hotel owner gave us local info and told us what to expect and when to be ready in the morning. The tour again was booked with both turkish and english speaking tourists, so the tour guide tried his best to service both but it was still not the best. The tour needed one dedicated guide for each language whether it was Turkish, English, Spanish, etc.
Overall: In hindsight, I would not book this tour again. I booked it because I was busy planning other parts of the trip. But it would have been easier if I just winged it. This is the only company that refuses to send out details, that I’ve come across. Also knowing that they are not actually the tour operator makes us feel as if we were ripped off by a middle man. When we realized how big the mark ups were, which is the actual cost vs what they charged, we felt like we received an extremely poor deal. We were flying blind the whole time and that was way worse then winging it ourselves last minute, which would have at least given us control and clarity. The only saving grace was Marsy on day 2 and the hotel owner in Cappadocia.
