Istanbul airport

The flight:

We got tickets with Turkish Airlines and it cost about 3000dkk per person both ways (403euros, 394usd, 351gbp) in February 2022. We wanted to choose where to sit but that cost extra, can't remember how much but it was quite a lot. My mom who was going with me to Turkey decided to pay for that so we could be together.

When we went to the flight, we were used to going directly to our gate, but in this case we had to go through Passport Control first, so make sure you get extra time to stand in that line. I had no idea but fortunately the line wasn't so long and we had gone to the gate a bit early so we made it. Because the gate closes 20 minutes before departure time, so don't be late!

If you sign in more than 24 hours before the flight you can choose your special needs meal! I chose gluten free and my mom chose a diabetic meal.

The flight was super smooth! The staff was friendly and the plane was just fine, screen for each person, clean and not too old and the meals were just fine.

Landing in Istanbul:

We then landed in a huge airport.

After we landed I turned on my phone. I had taken some snapchat videos during the flight so as soon as I turned my phone on, they started uploading. Then I got a message from my phone company....the price of download was 75dkk (10euros/10usd/9gbp) per mb!!

I hurried up and tried to find the settings to take off mobile data and data roaming....but by this time 6 minutes had passed so when I managed to stop the data I got a message from my phone company that I had spent 80% of my allowed data abroad so they stopped the data for me but I had already spent 450dkk (60euros/60usd/52gbp) in those 6 minutes!

Be smarter than me, BEFORE YOU TAKE OFF THE FLIGHT MODE go to settings and take off mobile data and data roaming.

You can then buy a turkish phone card if you want to use the internet while in Turkey.

Getting out

We got out of the plane and tried to look for signs to point towards getting our luggage but had a really hard time finding the signs where to go! Eventually we saw a little logo of a bag on one sign and followed that.

We followed the signs until all of a sudden they disappeared. We were so confused. We had no idea where to go.

We saw a HUGE line in one place with passport control but we needed to go to luggage so we were confused. But then we found a staff member and she told us that in order to get to our luggage we need to go through passport control First!

So we went into this line that contained probably hundreds of people, never been in such a long line in my life!

I don't remember how long it took but it was easily an hour or more.

Then when it was our turn, we had to remove hats/masks/glasses and look into a camera, wait a bit while they inspected the passport and then were free to go on.

By this time we were stressed about leaving our luggage for so long, we did find some signs to go to the luggage but again they were so hard to find.

When we arrived our bags and other bags had been taken off the conveyor belt and arranged in a line.

I thought someone did that to clean the conveyor belt before next luggage arrived, my mom thought someone lined them up to steal them, in either case we hurried up and got our bags xD

Next was to find an exit and I kid you not, the signs were TERRIBLE. They pointed to the right, left and forward at the same time! 

We were so confused but in the end my mom saw a big yellow sign saying EXIT and we walked towards that.

When we got out, my god, the amount of people was insane!

I have never been in such a big crowd!

The car service: 

Next was to find the car service we had hired (through the hotel), we had good instructions with pictures sent to us beforehand so we found the office and they said they would send one of their staff to take us to the driver (since the driver don't go into the airport anymore since covid).

The guy stepped out and told us to follow him.

He walked pretty fast and started diving into the insane crowd of people and we had to hurry up to not lose him in the chaos!

I have no idea how we could have possibly found the driver without him because you could not see where you were going because of the insane amount of people at the airport. It was so crazy and chaotic!

We then met our driver, a boy who looked like he was 14 years old or something, he grabbed the smallest bag we had and started walking away very fast. Me and my mom were hauling big bags trying to not lose him either. When we got to the car we went on the most insane and scary cab ride I have ever been to!

That boy drove like a maniac!

He drove SO FAST, we were thrown around back there and he just flew over the speed bumps so the car was thrown up so much, he was obviously speeding. And it was completely dark and driving in the dark where there was no way of seeing where we were going (and we couldn't use google maps because the internet is so insanely expensive on data roaming) was so uncomfortable.

We did arrive safely but jebus that was crazy.

But we were SO GLAD we found a car ride BEFORE we arrived in Turkey because if we had taken a random cab and had this experience we would be sure that we were being kidnapped D: but we knew the hotel had a good reputation so it was probably safe, and btw. the other drivers at the same company were much better, we felt much safer with them.