Guided Istanbul Tour: Bosphorus Cruise with Dolmabahce Palace Visit
4.0
31 Ratings
Fatih
Experience the grandeur of the Ottoman Empire on a guided Istanbul tour. Visit Dolmabahce Palace, cruise the Bosphorus, and explore the city's highlights in just 2.5 hours.
Duration: 5 hours
Cancellation: 1 day learn more
Highlights
  • Kucuksu Pavilion - Stop point during our boat tour to visit the Ottoman palace at Bosphorus.
  • Rumeli Fortress - Rumeli Fortress is the stop point every Monday and Thursday with our tour guide.
  • Dolmabahce Palace - Pick up from your hotel/meeting point and transfer with other parts of groups to visit Dolmabahçe Palace to see one of the best Ottoman Palaces
  • Beylerbeyi Palace - One of the best attraction we will be seen on our boat tour and get information by our tour guide
  • KIz Kulesi - Explore the Tower has been subject to many myths, used by many civilizations with your guide. A place worth seeing with a unique location. In the middle of two continents.
  • Galata Tower - One of the places that we will see on our Boat tour and the tour guide will give the information about the Galata Tower.
  • Bosphorus Strait - Separate European and Asian continent. There are many things to wonder about and get information all about from our tour Guide.
  • Halic - Golden horn is a natural lagoon apart from Bosphorus strait.
  • Suleymaniye Mosque - Mosque of Suleyman The Magneficent from 16th Century.
  • Bosphorus Bridge - 1st Suspension bridge of istanbul from 1970s
  • Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge - 2nd Suspension bridge of İstanbul.
  • Hagia Sophia Mosque - Famous Hagia Sophia mosque/church from 6th Century
What's Included
  • Includes Dolmabahce Palace Ticket
  • Hotel Pick-up Service
  • English-Speaking Tour Guide
  • Kucuksu Palace Garden Ticket included
What's Not Included
  • Hotel drop-off
Additional Information

Embark on a journey into the regal history of the Ottoman Empire with a guided exploration of the Dolmabahçe Palace. Bypass long lines and gain swift entry to the palace. After your palace visit, take a 2.5-hour boat cruise that highlights key attractions on both the European and Asian flanks of the city. A bonus feature of this tour offers you the chance to delve into an Ottoman palace located on Istanbul’s Asian side.

  • We visit Rumeli Fortress only on Thursdays On Mondays Both Rumeli Fortress and Küçüksü Palace will be closed and visits replaced with freetime in Bebek neighborhood.
Location
IBO Cruise and Tours
Divan Yolu Caddesi
Cancellation Policy

For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.

Customer Ratings
4.0
(31 Ratings)
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Ann
Jun 6, 2024
IBO Tours are Brilliant - Booked a few tours with this company and are really good, everything was booked and planned, we also did a private Istanbul old city walk with private guide, Cappadocia transfer and 3 days in Cappadocia with tours. Would definitely book with this company again and all the staff are wonderful.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Maureenmj9894qj
Jun 3, 2024
Relaxing way to take in some of Istanbul's sights along with a good history lesson - Great start to our trip. Amirhan Sanli was our friendly knowledgable and enthusiastic tour guide. His knowledge of the history of Istanbul was great and helped us create a picture in our heads of how it was. He happily took questions and was always able to answer them The boat trip was relaxing and very enjoyable while other attraction were pointed out to us. Recommend this trip
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Travler10101
Jun 2, 2024
GREAT DAY - This excursion was booked on a whimp the night before and it was perfect! We didn’t have anything planned so we thought we would try it and we have no regrets! Our tour guide came to pick us up from our hotel and then we headed straight to the palace. On the way there he was talking about the city and giving us good information. At the palace he was very enthusiastic about telling us all grh information and he knew a lot. [ Our tour guides name was Emirhan Sanli ] after the palace tour we bused to teh boat and did a boat cruise and got to stopover in Asia which was great to see ! Our guide supplied us with so many facts along the cruise and answered all of our questions. 10/10 recommendation!
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Harry
Jun 2, 2024
Amazing Cruise - This was an amazing experience. Great tour of the palace and awesome boat cruise giving good perspective of the size and diversity of this amazing city. Emirhan Sanli was a great guide. His enthusiasm and knowledge were very appreciated!
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Christianto_s
Dec 27, 2023
Great time - Pickup was quick and on time. Was given enough tome at the palace to have a look at everything and was early enough to beat most of the crowds. Was also early enough to access the back of the palace where the sultan lived. The boat ride itself was very nice though it straddled lunchtime. So would recommend to bring some snacks to carry over until tour ended at around 1430. Guide was excellent and knowledgeable and kept us all informed. Port where the tour ended was right next to the tram so was able to hop on to the next destination directly.
Review provided by Viator
864emaann
Mar 12, 2023
10/10 amazing experience - Absolutely a 10/10!!! The hotel pick up was the start of the amazing tour. I loved seeing all the buildings and the streets while driving to our destination. Dolmabahce Palace was breathtaking. I learned so much history of the palace while walking around taking it all in. The boat tour was amazingly informative. I learned so much about Turkey and got to see so much in just a couple hours. Mohsen, our tour guide was very kind and very helpful as was the rest of the stuff. I definitely recommend this tour to others if you are interested in history.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Michael_p
Dec 2, 2023
Great Tour - I recommend this tour. Guide was knowledgeable and we got to see Dolmabahce castle and harem and enjoy the ride over the Bosphore with complimentary tea.
Review provided by Viator
Matt_s
Apr 11, 2024
Save your money. Disorganized, RUSHED & limited - CLIFF NOTES: Like others have stated, this tour is disorganized. You're basically buying an extremely rushed "tour", followed by a boat ride..... My problems are listed below: 1. I arrived at the meeting point almost 40 minutes early. These people were aware in advance that I was going to be meeting at the IBO Tour location, so I'm unsure why I had to wait past the instructed meeting time. After waiting 20 minutes past the meeting time and worrying, I ended up using the Viator app to reach out to the tour guide. The person who eventually came out was not the guide. I was rushed on to a train. The tour guide called me and asked who I spoke with. I told him that I had no idea. He said that I needed to go to the Kabatas train station, and I had no idea where that was (I expected to follow a group to the boat). He asked what direction the train was going and what the next station was. I had no idea because I wasn't familiar with the area at all, the train didn't tell me in English where it was going and the person who put me on the train didn't tell me. At first, he thought it was going the wrong direction. LUCKILY, I was going the right direction. I pulled up Google maps to 2. The tour guide was new. He was a good guy, but he was very nervous. I don't know why. We were a small group of 4. He had trouble spitting out words coherently without stumbling all over the place. I really wanted to tell him to RELAX and enjoy the day with us! No one is out to judge him. It was a very nice day out and a good little group. 3. Dolmabahçe Palace was VERY VERY rushed. We were given about 15 minutes to tour it. Remind you that this building has 285 ROOMS with 40 or so corridors. We had no chance to listen to the audio and learn about the history or use of the rooms. I literally SPEED WALKED a portion of the building and at most got a one-second glance at some of the rooms. I believe the ad stated that we were supposed to be in there an hour, and even an hour is honestly WAY too short. It was also disappointing that we didn't get a chance to go into the front of the palace. We went around to the back. I would have loved to spend more time in there. 4. Per the tour, we were supposed to go through Küçüksu gardens. We did not. The place was closed, so we were told just to walk around for 30 minutes. The most exciting thing that I saw was a dead cat... and it was sad. So between arriving at a place where I was supposed to be and no one was there, having a sloppy tour guide, being rushed, and not being able to tour 1 of 2 things that we were supposed to do, I'm disappointed and cannot recommend it. I should have just paid to see Dolmabahçe Palace without a rushed tour. The boat ride was the best thing about the whole adventure.
Review provided by Viator
Richard_k
Jan 12, 2024
No tour - Despite a late night confrontation and a very early morning call confirming the tour, it was canceled 10 minutes before the pick up.
Review provided by Viator
Reslanek
Nov 2, 2023
Not honest - They were supposed to pick us at the hotel. 15 minutes before, they called us to ask to take a taksi saying that they will pay it. Finally we did pay and they didn’t want to pay the 600 liras because for them it was too expensive. We had an agreement to at least pay us back half of it the next day, and they never came to give us back our money. The tour was also quite lame. Too expensive for what is it and very not honest.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
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1 Adult
June 2024
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