Highlights of Bodrum - Derya , our guide, was excellent and very knowledgeable. Not only did we see all the sights but we learned about the history as well. The traditional village lunch and rug demonstration were amazing. Highly recommend Derya and this tour

Toured museum - Enjoyed the castle with Ufuk as our tour guide. Hot day but made the most of it. Bring lots of water and sunscreen when it’s hot.

Fabulous! - Bodrum was amazing and "Shining Star", the name our guide went by was absolutely fabulous. She took us around and we walked through the castle, the mausoleum of halicarnassus, the turkish rug demostration and overall tour of the area. Really appreciated "Shining Star's" insight and care during our time together.

The good, the bad, the ugly…. - First the good: we met our tour guide and driver at the port in Bodrum. The van was very nice and comfortable. The driver did a great job navigating our trip. My mother has somewhat limited mobility, so our guide recommended that we didn’t walk to the castle as it would be potentially difficult for my mother. She said we would get close to it, but we wouldn’t go in. I appreciated the recommendation. When we got to the village of Etrim, we were greeted by the restaurant owner who was very gracious and kind. It was outdoors with many tables and other groups were showing up at different times. So it was not just us sitting in somebody’s house. There were many dishes to try and they were all terrific! Then we got a demonstration of carpet weaving, and were shown multiple carpets by a very charismatic gentleman. Since we were the only ones in there, we felt a little uncomfortable about not buying a carpet after his demonstration. However, I will say that he handled it graciously and did not make us feel bad at all. After we departed, we got a nice ride through Bodrum’s city center and then dropped off back at the ship. It was really beautiful seeing the city center and the harbor. The bad: Our tour guide joined us for the lunch portion of the excursion. It was nice to share the meal with her and gain her perspective on things. However, at the end of the meal, she insisted that we try the Turkish coffee. We explained to her that we did not drink coffee and did not really like it at all. . She kept pressuring us over and over and over again to try the coffee. I thought it was strange that she was so pushy. Afterwards my wife said that she was probably pushy because she wanted to have coffee. While we were seeing the demonstration of the carpets, our tour guide had coffee delivered for her to have during the presentation. All she needed to say was, I would like to have some coffee if you don’t mind. That would’ve been fine. You would be surprised how hard she was pressuring us to drink coffee. Also one minor thing. The description says that if you get beer and wine, you’ll be charged extra during the meal. That made sense to us. However, when two lemonades and one water cost $17, that was surprising. Not a big deal, but not great. Also, though I appreciate anyone who can speak multiple languages, it was a little challenging understanding our tour guide. The ugly: early in the trip, we unexpectedly pulled into a candy store. We were assigned a personal sales person and were taken around the building to check out what they had to sell. They did have samples of just about everything they sold. So that part was good. However, as we found out later, the prices were anywhere from double to five times greater than at our next port of Kusadasi. All of that, however, was not the ugly part. When we were on line to pay for our purchases, our tour guide came up with a bag of candy and handed it to the cashier who was currently ringing up my mother’s order. We thought that maybe she was getting them for free since she brought business to them. However, we were wrong. She had my mother unknowingly purchase her candy for her. That was a little disappointing. So they were parts of the trip that we enjoyed and parts of the trip that were disappointing. We usually do well with Viator. But this one I think I would consider a miss.