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Review for All Inclusive - Extended Biblical Ephesus Experience

Turkey

Overall the tour was good. The tour visits ancient monuments with marble roads, which are very steep and extremely slippery. We had 4 people in our party of 13 slip on the marble ground and fall. Those who slipped in fell were ages 15, 45, 60, and 73. The marble streets get covered in a thin layer of dirt, which is extremely slippery on the marble if you are not careful. The tour difficulty is listed as "moderate", but I'd call it "moderate to difficult" depending upon individual guests' physical ability. Our guide was extremely knowledgeable about biblical history. He was an expert in mosaic and fresco restoration, and had tons of information about Virgin Mary and Apostle Paul. We did have one pretty uncomfortable moment on the tour that I feel needs mentioning. Our lunch break was done at the local women's co-op, which is a rug weaving factory. We received a lovely lunch and tour of the rug making facility. The people were nice and showed us how they weave the rugs. We were all then ushered into a showroom with stacks and stacks of rugs. It was then and there that we realized they REALLY wanted us to buy the rugs. They got a little aggressive and it started getting uncomfortable because we were in a small room with most of their sales team laying out rug after rug after rug. After about 30 minutes, I finally had to tell our guide that no one was interested in buying rugs. The rugs were incredibly beautiful, but we weren't prepared to buy $5,000-$20,000 Turkish rugs. Our tour guide seemed annoyed, and reluctantly led us back to the bus. By that time, we had been at the co-op for nearly 2 hours and the whole group was eager to just get back to the ship. We skipped Terrace Houses and did a very short tour of The Basilica of St. John. I could tell our tour guide was upset with us for not buying any rugs. So, if you go on this tour, I would be very clear from the beginning of your intentions for buying rugs and how much time you want to spend at the co-op.