Vicki Buholz, Jenny Rens and I arrived safely in Turkey on March 2 though it was March 3 by the time we finally got to our hotel in Side.

We flew from Miami to Istanbul to Antalya. The flights were full, but on time.

I had access to the Turkish Airlines lounge as 1 million miler and could have one guest so all of us were able to go into the Turkish Airlines lounge which had really good food both in Miami and in Istanbul. That was good because we had arrived early in Miami and had a long layover in Istanbul.

Istanbul airport is almost brand new and it was really quiet. We walked from the International to the domestic terminal, which takes a while, but there are people movers the entire distance and there’s probably some shuttles, but we walked. It takes about a half an hour.

We went through passport control then security so don’t bring water off the plane that you aren’t planning to drink before catching your next flight if you’re transferring there.

The Turkish Airlines lounge is undergoing a renovation so you have to take a bus from the lower level near G3 to access it, but it was quick and well signed.

It seemed very cold in Istanbul. We had one of those flights where you are bussed out to the plane instead of using a walkway, which is very common in Europe. The plane was already mostly fall when we arrived. I guess Istanbul was just a stop over for that flight.

It was a quick one hour flight to Antalya but Turkish Airlines served a meal both in coach and business kind of unusual these days.

I had arranged a pick up at the airport, which went very smoothly and fortunately it was a big van because we had too much luggage of course.

We are staying in Side which is about 15 minutes away from Ali Bey, which does not open until Wednesday.

We’re hoping to explore today, March 3 and go off to the resort tomorrow morning.

It’s off-season here so a bit quiet and cool. This area is really built for late spring, summer and early fall tourism.

Our hotel seems nice owned by a husband and wife who greeted us at the door upon arrival. They stayed up late to meet us. It does have a quirky shower system… with a very tiny tankless heater that gets lukewarm but other than that, everything’s great.