Basilica CisternTickets & Visitor Guide
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Contact & support · booking help

Four humans, one inbox.

Email is how we run the cistern. Eylül, Mehmet, Deniz and Ayşe — the four of us who also guide the walkway weekly — read every message and answer within two working hours. No support ticket system. No chatbot. No outsourced call centre. Just us.

The support address

Email is the primary channel.

We use email for everything with a paper trail — bookings, rescheduling, refund requests, group inquiries, accessibility arrangements, school visits, press. It gives both sides a written record, which matters more than speed in 95% of cases. WhatsApp exists for the remaining 5%.

Write to us at
support@istanbul-tourist-information.com
2 working hours Seven days a week EN, TR, FR, ES, DE
Open email
Urgent · same-day only

Running late? WhatsApp.

If your slot is within the next 90 minutes and something's wrong — missing confirmation, stuck on the tram, unsure which door — WhatsApp is faster than email.

+90 555 123 45 67

Eylül & Mehmet · 09:00–23:00 Istanbul · typically under 15 minutes during working hours.

Open WhatsApp
Who answers your message

The four of us, in the building.

No support centre in another country. We rotate shifts — on any given day, one of us is in the cistern guiding, one is in the office answering emails, and two are home.

E

Eylül Koç

Head guide · audio curation

Seven years at the cistern, three at Hagia Sophia before that. Wrote the audio guide's Medusa chapter and the sixty seconds of recorded silence. Mon, Wed, Fri.

M

Mehmet Yılmaz

Operations · Byzantine history

PhD candidate at Boğaziçi, writing on spolia reuse in late-antique Constantinople. Knows every column's origin. Tue, Thu, Sat mornings.

D

Deniz Arslan

Scheduling · accessibility

Handles school groups, wheelchair arrangements, peak-hour logistics. Former museum-education specialist at the Pera Museum. Wed–Sun afternoons.

A

Ayşe Demir

Languages · international guests

Fluent in five languages, native in three. Handles French, Spanish, German and Arabic correspondence. Evening shifts and weekends.

Support scope · the honest boundary

What we can help with — and what we can't.

Transparency about scope saves everybody time. Some things we handle in-house; some sit with the Ministry of Culture; some belong to your airline. Here's the split.

We can help with

  • Booking changes & reschedules. Within 2 hours of your slot, if we have availability. Within 24 hours, always if the new slot is available.
  • Refund requests. Up to 24 hours before — automatic, no explanation needed. Less than 24 hours, case-by-case with human judgement.
  • Pre-booking questions. "Will my 73-year-old mother manage the stairs?" "Is the late-evening slot worth the walk in the dark?" Genuinely curious emails get the same response time as paying ones.
  • Missing confirmations. We can resend the QR in under five minutes. Spam-folder casualties are our most common support issue.
  • Accessibility arrangements. Wheelchair, guide dog, claustrophobia concerns. Email 24h ahead and we brief the door staff.
  • Language requests. Audio guide in twelve languages. Correspondence in English, Turkish, French, Spanish, German. Arabic and Russian replies within 24 hours via Ayşe.
  • Invoice & VAT receipts. Proper Turkish fatura with our VAT number. Needed for business travel reimbursement.
  • Group & school bookings. Schools 30% off weekday mornings with 7-day notice. Groups of 10+ get 10%.
  • Complaints & feedback. Good, bad, unbalanced. Every message gets a human reply; critical feedback shapes next quarter's planning.

We can't help with

  • Tickets bought on other sites. GetYourGuide, Viator, Klook, etc. have their own refund policies and we don't have access to your booking. Contact them directly.
  • Ministry box-office walk-up tickets. If you bought at the door on the day, the Ministry of Culture handles any disputes. We don't sell or administer those.
  • Hagia Sophia or Topkapı questions. Our portfolio covers both — but they have dedicated sites (Hagia Sophia support, Topkapı support) with their own support teams. Faster that way.
  • Unscheduled Ministry closures. Rare (twice in three years) but outside our control. If it happens, we refund automatically within 48 hours — no email needed.
  • Hotel pickup, transport, tours. We're a ticket-and-guide product. The cistern is two streets from Hagia Sophia and four minutes from Sultanahmet tram stop — no pickup required.
  • Lost personal items on site. Ministry handles its own lost-and-found. We can point you to the right phone number, but we don't hold lost items at our office.
Refund & rescheduling · plain language

The policy, as we apply it.

Policy version 4.2 · updated Jan 2026

Three windows. Same policy every day of the year. No weather clauses, no "non-refundable under seasonal promotion" exceptions — we don't run those promotions.

>24h

Before your slot

Full refund, no questions. Automatic upon email request. Processed to original payment method within 3 working days. Or reschedule to any open slot, same day or a different week, for no fee.

24–2h

Same-day window

Rescheduling free if we have availability. Refund at 70% (we've held the slot for you and it can't resell). If the reason is illness or documented travel disruption, we'll usually grant full refund at our discretion.

<2h

Last-minute & no-shows

Not refundable in most cases. The staff scan and the audio licence are paid regardless. Exceptions for genuine emergencies (documented). Rescheduling possible if a later same-day slot opens up.

The flip side: if we cancel your slot (Ministry closure, staff emergency, system outage), you receive a full refund automatically within 48 hours — no email needed — plus a goodwill credit for the inconvenience. Happened twice in the past three years, both handled within 24 hours.

Who you're booking with

A small licensed operator, not a platform.

Istanbul Tourist Information Ltd is a TÜRSAB-licensed travel agency, registered in Sultanahmet, Istanbul, trading since 2016. We run five related micro-sites because Istanbul's attractions each deserve a dedicated explanation — and because lumping them together makes support worse, not better.

All our guides hold Turkish Ministry of Tourism licences. Payments are processed by Stripe — we never see your card number. Correspondence in English, Turkish, French, Spanish, German; translations via Ayşe for Arabic, Russian, Italian.

If you need to escalate — a dispute we can't resolve to your satisfaction — TÜRSAB maintains a formal complaint channel. Details on request.

CompanyIstanbul Tourist Information Ltd.
TÜRSAB licenceA-7812
Turkish VAT3470891204
Registered officeSultanahmet, Fatih, Istanbul 34122
Trading since2016
Team size4 core guides · 2 rotating
Guide licenceTurkish Ministry of Tourism
PaymentsStripe · PCI DSS compliant
The formal documents

The small print, kept readable.

Three documents. We rewrote them last year in plain English, line by line. If the lawyers don't push back, we'll keep them this way.

i.

Booking terms

What you agree to when booking. Covers the fast-track scan, time-slot window, no-show policy, our obligations if we cancel.

Read terms
ii.

Refund & change policy

The three windows above, formalised. Nothing is hidden — what's on this page is what's in the signed document.

Read policy
iii.

Privacy policy

What personal data we keep, for how long, why, and your GDPR rights. Short version: email, booking slot, payment reference. That's all.

Read policy
Read the FAQ first — genuinely faster

Forty-two questions are already answered.

Before writing, scan the FAQ — most questions have detailed answers already there. If yours isn't, email. Two-hour response during Istanbul daytime.

Open the FAQ Skip to email