Bodtur Yachting & Travel, Jasmin 1 Boat

An agreeable, unpretentious way of relaxing and enjoying a beautiful corner of the world. The Bodrum company organised our participation carefully, coping with a number of changes to our plans and to group numbers. The boat, or gulet, "Jasmin I" was an an attractive modern yacht in traditional style, replete with polished timber, blue canvas cushions and fresh white paint. The crew were competent and pleasant, despite the range of demands from a fairly large number of passengers. We had no expectation of entertainment on board - it would have been unwelcome - although there was an up-to-date sound system. We were provided with pleasant and at times excellent meals and left free to do as we wished, which was to read, swim and relax as we were taken to a number of scenic and historical sites.

I was a fellow passenger/guest on the same cruise as Todd Craft in 2009, and I completely disagree with his comments regarding the experience of cruising on Jasmin 1 10 - 18 October. His mendacious and damaging review was only brought to my attention today, and I am horrified that it has sat unchallenged on this website for over a year.

I found the experience of cruising the Daca Peninsular on the beautiful Jasmin 1 one of the most delightful holidays of my life. Jasmin 1 is a truly gracious two-masted traditional gulet of some 30+ meters: all varnished mahogany, highly polished stainless steel fittings and laid teak decks. Plenty of room to lie around and sunbake on the dozen or so day beds above deck, curl up with a book on a cushion in the bows or lounge around on spacious couches on the aft deck, while below we were accommodated in six double staterooms each with private bathroom and toilet, immaculately clean and well maintained. I've been sailing for thirty years and I have never been on any vessel that could match her for the level of comfort and exquisite beauty.

Further, I found Captain Mehmet and his crew unfailingly courteous, helpful, discreet, and in the face of some very bad behaviour on the part of some of the passengers - Todd Craft in particular, they exercised a great deal of patience and forbearance. The long saga from Todd Craft regarding what he thought was missing wine is largely imagined and makes Todd sound deranged. I am confident that the "stolen" wines were actually served on those first two fairly boozy nights of the cruise (including Todd's birthday) and consumed by us, NOT the crew. I can say that I never saw any of the crew drink any alcohol through the entire cruise, except for the Captain who enjoyed an after-dinner Raki with some of us in the main saloon each evening, while doing the crossword or watching the television.

I believe that whatever Todd's problems were, they were created by a combination of cultural insensitivity and lack of communication on his part, not anyone else's. Todd and some of his friends were openly using what I am confident were elicit substances on deck, behavior which no responsible ship's captain could ignore. This behavior was compounded by Todd's incredibly bad manners throughout his time on the yacht. The rest of us were glad to see him go.

I have nothing but praise for Jasmin 1, its captain and crew and for Bodtur Yachting & Travel, and I have since recommended them to a group of 12 friends who cruised on her in July of this year and have since returned singing praises of the yacht and crew, and thanking me for the recommendation.

Unfortunately my experience on my most recent holiday (vacation) to Turkey was not a problem free holiday. There were some serious disappointments that ultimately ended up with both my partner and I leaving our 8 day long boat trip along the Turkish coast 2 nights early.

The first couple of days were glorious however trouble started when I noticed that 2 bottles of my premium wine that I had purchased and brought along for the trip (from London) were missing. Both my friend and I had noticed that one of the bottles were missing the night before however we decided to leave it without issue or comment to the staff or other boat guests. The next day I checked the fridge again and found another bottle missing. I immediately took the final bottle out of the fridge and put it in my friends cabin: we were keeping wine in our cabins to add to the fridge during later days of our trip. I was very upset that I had lost two of my premium (most expensive) bottles of wine and asked the staff, "where are the missing bottles?" My friend then came to me with the bottle that I had just put in his room and showed me that the bottle was already opened and half empty: something I had missed when I had taken it out of the fridge. This made me even more upset to point of being angry. After some fuss one of the bottles mysteriously appeared again. After I had left the fridge area it was later produced by one of the staff.

I will admit that there is a small possibility after double checking the fridge that I may have missed it being in there however there is absolutely no doubt that the third bottle of wine was open and half empty. There are only a few possibilities as to where the missing wine went: either the staff accidently served it to boat guests or it was taken and/or drunk by one of the staff or boat guests (of which the later I doubt very much). Either way this was the initial problem on our fairly expensive holiday boating week that although may seem a little petty to some showed some indications to problems that would later lead to more uncomfortable and unacceptable situations that I would like to elaborate on in due course: the lack of communication from the staff being the most serious problem.

Why weren't the staffs not asking permission to open specific wines at specific times (in the case that it was served to boat guests without my permission or knowledge)? This is a major flaw in service caused by a lack of communication. The other two possibilities are seriously disturbing: that either one of the staff or one of the guests had stolen my wine. The truth is I will never know how my wine went missing.

A further problem arose when my friends, my partner and I later in the trip started to purchase food that we could eat in our own time. To our amazement our food also went missing. It was added as ingredients and served along with the food purchased by the staff that we had previously paid for.

Bodtur Yachting & Travel also failed to mention that the '200 we had paid per person for food would be 90 percent vegetarian. Let me try to explain why we decided to purchase our own food and bring it on to the boat.

Breakfast was simply awful! I had to basically eat barely ok bread with honey or very sweet jam to make sure that I wasn't starving by lunchtime. While I was on the boat eggs were served only once and there were not enough of them. There were other foods like olives and other examples that we would not usually eat for breakfast. The worst thing was that they served Nescafe instant coffee whereby you even had to put the instant coffee in the hot water yourself. Call me a coffee snob if you like but have they ever heard of Turkish coffee? After all we were in Turkey!

Even though the coffee was horrible we would have appreciated if they had made the effort to offer to serve a late morning tea or coffee and perhaps a snack. This never happened.

When meat was served it was of very poor quality. You would have expected them to serve fish a lot considering that we were on the Mediterranean however this only happened once that I could remember. This meal was very good and my favourite.

Having said all of the above, the mainly vegetarian food that we were served was indeed very tasty.

The problem is perhaps a combination of a couple of issues: cultural difference and again as I have mentioned previously a lack of communication. Cultural differences with food are to be expected and enjoyed however it was Bodtur Yachting & Travel's failure to communicate the expected menu prior to departure and to give us options. It is also our failure not to have asked more questions regarding the food prior to departure. This does not relieve the fact that some of my friends and I were disappointed in the food and the lack of service which lead to us buying extra food that was stolen from us and used by the chef in general meals.

During the six days that my partner and I were on the boat not once did any of the staff clean our cabin. Even though the boat was promoted as having a laundry service, dirty towels on our bathroom floor were never picked up and replaced.

I was surprised that they failed to mention that there are many wasps along this part of the Turkish coast. It would be a good thing to know if you were allergic. Thankfully I am not. The boat was inundated with the insects on some days. This caused anxiousness for some guests on the boat and for those that were bitten it was a nasty experience.

Initially we anchored in some very beautiful bays however later in the week the captains choice of bay for anchorage was at best "ok". Some of my friends and I distinctly started to feel like we were being robed of our experience. We did have to linger around the same area a day and a half longer than scheduled to pick up one of our missing guests. He had got off the boat earlier in the week because he was not feeling well. The weather also was slowly deteriorating and I do remember the captain moving us around the corner from one beautiful bay to a very plain one indeed. Perhaps these were for reasons of safety. If it were this it would be totally acceptable. The captain failed to explain the reasons why and we just left the subject alone. It didn't help the fact that we were beginning to feel a disappointment in the cruise. The later stops were slightly better but nothing like the beautiful pristine blue waters that we had seen in the first part of our cruise and had expected more of.

Because of the incident of my missing wine I had reverted to drinking some of my wine in my cabin with my friends. This wasn't at all an attempt to alienate us from the other guests. In fact it was my birthday during the earlier part of this cruise and we shared our imported and premium wine with the others. I did however not want to risk another incident with the wine going missing from the fridge so I put only the wine that I wanted to share in there just prior to the time that I wanted to share it. The remaining wine we chose to drink in private in our cabin. The staff brought up glasses and ice upon request.

After the incident with the missing wine earlier in the week I have to say that I was very shy in asking the staff for service. I also stopped going to the fridge as it was made clear by the staff that it was no longer acceptable for guests to go there. I kept asking my friends to "go and ask for such and such". My partner also felt uncomfortable asking for drinks or service. Later in the week my small group of 4 decided to buy vodka and juice onshore to consume on the boat to minimise the service required. All we needed to ask for was a bucket of ice and some glasses and we could be left alone to enjoy our time.

One night as the weather worsened it no longer became comfortable to sit on the outdoor dining area to play cards as we had been doing every night. There were two groups of us playing different games and the first group had already taken up position at the far end of the interior dining table. At the other end was the captain in his usual position where he spent most of the day. So as not to disturb him my group decided to go to one of our cabins to play cards. One of our friends suggested that we go to his cabin of which we accepted because we had spent no time in any other of the cabins expect the rear two where my friends' and my cabin were located. We ordered three glasses of wine to be brought to the cabin. Much time passed and we went out to the dining area and bar to see what had happened to our order. To my shock the three glasses of wine were sitting on the bar. We quickly learned that the captain had denied permission for the wine to be taken to the cabin. The staff had not bothered to come into the cabin and politely tell us that it was not allowed for wine to be drunk in the cabin. This is another example of the lack of communication from the staff not to mention lack of service.

Now this is where unfortunately it became ugly. I was indeed drunk and I was indeed angry. The culmination of events of missing wine and bad service had annoyed me to the point that I insisted in a very rude way that the captain get up from the table and give us space to play cards. A request I thought justified if we were not permitted to drink in the cabins as we had been doing all week. In hindsight I do now regret the rudeness in which I spoke to the captain. I did make the other guests feel uncomfortable and the former group playing cards inside moved to the cold outside dining area. For those that endured my forceful and very rude temper that night I apologise profoundly. It was out of order.

I realised later that I had made the other guests feel uncomfortable. I discussed the issue with my friends and we agreed that I would apologise to the guests at breakfast in the morning. I never intended to apologise to the captain because I felt that we had already compromised to go to the cabin to play cards so that the captain could keep sitting at his usually position and because I was angry at the hypocrisy of him allowing us to drink wine previously in the cabins but not for some unexplainable reason on that particular occasion.

I also felt that he was my staff. I with friends had rented that vessel and in my experiences in the past on boats the captain is there solely to sail the boat and keep us safe. It was only after my outburst that I started to consider the captains behaviour. Suddenly I realised that the captain was acting as though he owned the boat and I for the first time acknowledge this probability. This made me feel even worse.

Bodtur Yachting & Travel never mentioned that the captain is the owner of the boat. I believe that anyone thinking of renting one of these Turkish Gulets (boats) should know that it is a possibility that your captain will own the boat. It is a failure of Bodtur Yachting & Travel not to mention this. I would never again hire a boat in the case where the captain is the owner because when I am on holiday I want the freedom to do as I please such as to have a drink in a cabin of my choice. The captain's role in my opinion should specifically be to sail the boat and to keep the guests and staff safe.

The reason for my partner and I leaving the boat came the next day when we arrived at a port after sailing for some time. We had missed breakfast due to the discomfort and shame I was feeling and also because it really wasn't much to miss after six days of it's plainness. Once we docked we went on deck. One of our friends immediately told me that the captain was sailing to port to insist that not only my partner and I were to be told to leave the boat but a few other friends also. The captain had changed his mind due to the fact that because of the very rough seas he could not make it back to the port that he wanted to put us off at and that he had changed his mind. I found this to be unacceptable and this was the nail in the coffin for my partner and I. We left the boat at that port and we don't regret it. From that moment forward until one final incident of which I will mention next we had a wonderful time. We visited the city of Marmaris and the ancient city of Ephesus, which were amongst the highlights of the trip.

Two nights later both the boat and we were in Bodrum. My partner and I were having a lovely dinner when one of our friends was sent out by the boat guests to ask for money from us for the tip that the staff had requested. This was a pointless exercise in our opinion as we found the service to be severely lacking as I have explained. We argued about this that resulted in him leaving angrily. There were other issues I believe to be apart of his angry reaction that I don't need to go into here.

Later that night I was again disturbed and upset. I wanted to know if there was any indication by Bodtur Yachting & Travel that a tip was expected. The last thing I did that night was to go through all the emails from Bodtur Yachting & Travel that I had on my laptop to find out if there was any indication that a tip was expected. All I found over and over again and one time in red writing: I quote "there are no hidden or extra charges". The failure of communication from Bodtur Yachting & Travel not to mention that a tip is expected put my mind to rest. Bodtur Yachting & Travel in many ways failed to communicate the necessary information that would make a sailing trip on a Gulet in Turkey a successful and pleasant one. A 5 to 10 percent tip that was requested is something I believe should be indicated by the booking agency especially on a reasonably expensive holiday such as this one. A tip of 10 percent for this boat would have been '476. A tip is certainly a hidden cost and extra charge if you don't know that your fee to rent the boat does not cover the staffs' financial expectations. Regardless of this if the staff had provided an excellent service I would have had no issue in providing them with a tip.

You might say that a lack of communication is possible when you are visiting a foreign country and I would agree however when you have paid '7000 for a boat for a 8 days and you have problems like the ones I experienced you at the very least feel somewhat disappointed. The main causes of the problems that I encountered on Bodtur Yachting & Travel's Jasmin 1 Gulet was the lack of service and communication that came from the both the staff of the boat and the agency itself. I doubt that I will ever take another boat cruise like this in Turkey and I would encourage others should they decide to do so to be absolutely thorough in the problematic areas that I have highlighted in this review.

Regards,