Travel Log: A Long Escapade (Prelude)

Destination: Greece & Turkey
Duration: 18 Days 17 Nights (Aug 06~Aug 23, 2012)

A Prelude: Planning

Have you ever feel tired of working? Heavy steps when you walk into the office? Thinking about going home whenever you are in the office? Well, then perhaps it’s time to plan for a holiday to rejuvenate and pamper yourself! Your boss might be horrified but you won’t want to burn yourself out, would you?

Have you ever feel like this?

This trip was planned quite late to begin with – one advice for traveler: do not plan your holiday in last minute else you will have to pay extra for basically everything. =(

Our basic idea for the trip is simple – Turkey with a dash of Greek Islands since we missed out Mykonos on our Greece tour last year (link). A simple idea could turn complicated once you start planning. Where in Turkey do you want to visit? How do you get from Turkey to the Greek Islands? Ferry? There is always the risk of ferry strike in Greece then you will bear the risk of being stranded and miss your international flight. We experienced the ferry strike last October and we are just weary about it.

A Simple Idea?

Thus our final decision is: Take a cruise! But the cruise would have to stop at the island for at least a full day so that we can go explore the islands. We notice a lot of cruises only stop in a port for few hours hence making exploring minimal. Research research research!!!

Another headache is the travel date - Which date is appropriate? Which date has the cheapest flight tickets? Since we want to get on a cruise for Greek islands, our date option is limited to July, August or early September – the summer vacation month for Europe. So basically you will have to bear the extreme heat of the summer and pay more due to peak season.

Hot! Hot! Hot!

We are not sure about how effective our planning method is though – after getting the cruise schedule, we booked our air tickets from Malaysian Airlines based on the cheapest option. One thing we learned is: the flight ticket is cheapest if you fly out on a Wednesday and return on a Wednesday. However, it would be either too short or too long if we chose this option. We end up choosing to fly out on a Sunday red eye flight and return on a Wednesday. The cheapest option costs RM2268 per pax for a PEN-KUL-IST-KUL-PEN round trip but our choice cost us around RM2.8K.

Believe it or not, MH offers the Cheapest Flight to Istanbul!

After the flight is booked, we continue to book our cruise “Costa Atlantica 8D7N Greek Islands” from a website.
http://www.allcruisesfromturkey.com/
The agent is very responsive and even reply email during weekend. They even have promotions for the cruise fare and this website basically offers us the lowest fare if compared to other websites. The bad news was the cheapest room type was fully booked due to peak season and last minute booking. We had no choice but to choose the next cheapest available room type called “Obstructed view Balcony Cabin B1”.  The price difference between the cheapest option and this option set us back EUR320 per pax (EUR509 Vs. EUR829 excluding EUR120 port tax). *gasp in horror* The agent even send us a photo of the room balcony to inform us how obstructed the view is. Well, we just don’t care to pay another EUR150/pax for a non-obstructed balcony. Guess we should console ourselves that the safety boat is right below our room balcony (hence the obstructed view) so that we can jump straight on it in case something happens.

Costa Atlantica

The Obstructed View from Balcony by the Agent

Now we have to engage ground tour agent in Turkey to tour around Turkey based on the cruise timing and port location. We end up engaging Magnificent Travel Agency (http://www.magnificenttravel.com/) in Turkey for our ground tour as they are super responsive and patient even though we keep bugging them about few different scenarios. There are some agents who simply sound rude after you ask them for a few different scenarios. We have no idea about Magnificant Travel’s reputation but are able to see some good reviews from Tripadvisor. Guess we would have to experience ourselves when we get to Turkey.

Finally our itinerary is out! Let’s hope everything goes well for our trip!

Day 1 (Aug 06, 2012) – Arrival Istanbul and Istanbul city tour
Day 2 (Aug 07, 2012) – Istanbul to Cappadocia (domestic flight) and North Cappadocia tour
Day 3 (Aug 08, 2012) – Hot Air Balloon and South Cappadocia tour
Day 4 (Aug 09, 2012) – Cappadocia to Pamukkale via Konya – Konya tour
Day 5 (Aug 10, 2012) – Pamukkale & Aphrodisias tour
Day 6 (Aug 11, 2012) – Ephesus tour
Day 7 (Aug 12, 2012) – Priene, Didyma and Miletus tour
Day 8 (Aug 13, 2012) – Kusadasi to Izmir for Costa Atlantica Cruise boarding
Day 9 (Aug 14, 2012) – Mykonos, Greece
Day 10 (Aug 15, 2012) – Santorini, Greece
Day 11 (Aug 16, 2012) – Rhodes, Greece
Day 12 (Aug 17, 2012) – Heraklion (Crete), Greece
Day 13 (Aug 18, 2012) – Kos, Greece
Day 14 (Aug 19, 2012) – Samos, Greece
Day 15 (Aug 20, 2012) – Arrival in Izmir Port – domestic flight to Istanbul
Day 16 (Aug 21, 2012) – Bosphorus Cruise & Two continents tour in Istanbul
Day 17 (Aug 22, 2012) – Free day until depart to Istanbul Airport
Day 18 (Aug 23, 2012) – Arrival in KL for transfer to Penang

Turkey Ground Itinerary

Costa Atlantica Mediterranean Route

There are still a lot of preparations for the shore excursion for the Greek islands though – should we join the cruise shore excursion tour (pricey!!!) or go on our own? Research research research! Not to mention we are completely BROKE before even step on Turkish soil.

HELP!!!

One thing I would add is if you are a Malaysian interested to visit just Turkey - joining Malaysian travel tour agency is actually a great idea especially those packages below RM5.5K. We add up our Turkey ground tour and airfare and it total up to around RM6.6K-RM6.7K (depend on EURO currency as ground tour is booked in EUR) but I guess it would be cheaper if we manage to get the cheapest MH airfare and follow the non-customized Turkey budget ground arrangement. I notice some budget ground tour (10D9N) only cost EUR695 per pax. So if you manage to get the airfare lower than RM2268 and take this budget ground tour, the total would be around RM5K only.  But those budget tours would required you to stay on overnight bus rather than hotel in some nights. So I guess Malaysian travel agent package is quite a fair deal.

The Actual Adventure (Click on the Links below):-
Day 1 - Bosphorus Cruise & Topkapi Palace
Day 2 - North Cappadocia
Day 3 - Hot Air Balloon & South Cappadocia
Day 4 - Konya
Day 5 - Pamukkale & Aphrodisias
Day 6 - Ephesus
Day 7 - Priene, Didyma & Miletus
Day 8 - Costa Atlantica 8D7N Greek Islands Cruise Embarkation
Day 9 - Mykonos
Day 10 - Santorini
Day 11 - Rhodes
Day 12 - Heraklion (Crete)
Day 13 - Kos
Day 14 - Samos
Day 15 - Disembarkation & Transfer to Istanbul
Day 16 - Istanbul City & 2 Continents Tour
Day 17 & 18 - Grand Bazaar & Back to Reality