We Slept in Istanbul's Secret Airport Hotel (Turkish Business Class experience)

For the next 24 hours we are going to be traveling from the Netherlands back to the us. Now normally a flight from Europe to America shouldn't take 24 hours, but we're taking the long route through Istanbul so that we can fly Turkish Airlines business class, which was recently voted the best airline in Europe. They were just coming around with the dessert cards and you just had to take whatever you wanted off of it. So first we'll have a short flight from Amsterdam to Istanbul, but when we get to the Istanbul airport, we have an eight hour layover.

I'm tired.

Thankfully, they have some unique sleeping options. The first option is the Yotel, which, which is an interesting chain of hotels that exist in airports around the world. We actually spent 72 hours at one of those hotels while we were living in the Singapore airport.

I think the kids call this double fisted.

I would say that's actually option C. Then there's this priority pass lounge that has these pods that kind of look like coffins. But best case scenario would be getting to sleep in the secret hotel inside the Turkish Airlines lounge. There are a lot of requirements for this, which I'll explain later in the video, but technically we should have access. So I'm really hoping that's where we end up tonight.

And.

And then finally we will board our 11 hour business class flight on Turkish Airlines from Istanbul to Chicago.

I was super sleep deprived when filming this video, which you'll see in just a moment. But that probably explains why I forgot to tell you one of the most important things which is that if you go to the Turkish Airlines website and try to book a long haul business class flight, you're going to see that it costs over $4,000. But I just wanted you to know that it doesn't have to be anywhere near that expensive. If you're using miles and points, a 13 hour flight in Turkish Airlines business class can actually be booked for as little as $217 in taxes and fees plus 65,000 points. And in next week's video over on the Daily Drop YouTube channel, Brendan is going to explain exactly how you can do this and give you a ton of different examples. So if you don't want to miss that, be sure to head over to Daily Drop, Click subscribe and yeah, I just wanted you to know that while these super luxurious business class experiences might look super expensive and out of reach, they don't have to be. Okay, that's it. Hope you enjoyed the video. It was a fun one and a really nice treat. After walking 100 miles in the Netherlands.

Okay, let this exciting travel day begin. Welcome to the Amsterdam airport. Thanks to our fancy business class tickets, we breezed past all the lines and went straight to the lounge. It's our first time in this newly renovated Aspire lounge and we are very impressed. Spectacular views of the Runway, yummy food, great start to the day. You may have noticed that we look a little more tired than usual.

Is that comfortable?

Or that I'm walking pretty slow and with a little bit of a limp.

That's what Kara needs right there.

And that's because we are fresh out of the Netherlands. Biggest party the four day march. Nate is living his best life. I feel like I can't walk. We just walked 123 miles in four days. Harder than it sounds, but also so much fun. And you better believe I am still wearing my Dutch royal decree. I'll spare you the details in this video, but just know my feet are struggling big time. If you missed it, check out out our last video. And this wall made more sense.

Is that a little dance? Whoa, are those feet moving? She's faking it.

This 737 is kind of old, but they did bring us welcome champagne. And this is just a quick three hours over to Turkey.

So far not the smoothest start to the top rated airline in Europe. We have now been sitting on the Runway for two hours and we have no idea why.

After an unexpected very long delay on the tarmac, we are finally in the air. Everything should just get better from here. We got towels and a delicious two course meal. Actually so surprised to get this much food on such a quick flight. Ended with the Turkish coffee and a gorgeous sunset landing. Hello Istanbul. Now the fun really begins.

We made it.

Excuse me. It is midnight. We just got off this like dark plane came into the airport and then boom. There's like a million people. Feels like the middle of the day. This airport is nuts. I really don't want to sleep. Like I want to go do all the Turkish Airlines business class things, but I'm tired.

So. What was supposed to be an 8 1/2 hour layover has now turned into a 6 hour layover to try to get some sleep. Our first plan is to head to the Turkish Airlines lounge where hopefully we can get access to one of the hotel rooms that's actually located inside the lounge. There are a few different requirements to get in and we've never been able to meet all of them before. But hopefully today is the day. First requirement is you have to be flying business class. Check. Then you have to have a flight coming in or out of Istanbul that's at least eight hours long. Our 11 hour flight leaving to Chicago qualifies for that. And then the part that tripped us up in the past is your layover has to be between four and nine hours. Our layover is eight hours. Well, was scheduled to be eight hours and 25 minutes. So we were barely squeaking in on the high end. And then last but not least, there obviously has to be availability. You can't book this ahead of time. So we just have to show up and hope for the best.

I actually read somewhere that if you have a Dutch royal decree medal that they reserve a room for you just in case.

We got that for finishing the walk, which was just a couple days ago. And during the walk, we slept less than four hours a night, every single night, because we had to be walking by 4am every morning. So we're both exhausted. A nice soft, quiet bed for the night would be amazing. That's the lounge up there. That stretches all the way from there all the way to there. It's huge.

Okay. It is the moment of truth. Hello. Do you by chance have any other rooms available?

Sure. Can I have a boarding passenger?

Yes. No way.

The secret door.

Just like a Dutchman.

These are all the private suites.

Wow. Awesome. I love it. It is so hot in here. How do I turn it on?

On, On? Yes.

Oh, thank goodness for this bed. It's actually quite comfy. Kara and I each got our own room.

I have a place to put my stuff.

They've even left us with slippers, a.

Cute little desk they provided, water, television.

See what kind of view we have from this room. Oh, we're just looking straight down into the terminal. I'm so grateful that I'm not that guy.

I can't count how many airport chairs I've slept in.

Welcome to my secret suite. Have you felt the bed? Watch this.

I'm so happy I don't have to try to sleep on a chair.

Life is good. So this lounge was originally opened in 2019 and shortly after it opened, we came here and we filmed a tour. And I think the lounge is still exactly the same. Normally I look back on our old videos and I cringe thinking of, like, ways that we could have done it better. But I actually don't think we could do this tour better today. So I will let 2019 Kara with long hair show you around the lounge.

This lounge is huge and super nice. But by far the best part is.

The food.

In the back of the lounge. There are several chefs hand making dough, preparing one of our favorite dishes in this country, Turkish pide.

There is also a soup station, an entire island of little mezzi kebabs, some meat from a street cart, countryside butter, a hibachi grill, traditional Turkish moussaka. Drinks, drinks and more drinks. Manti or Turkish ravioli, hand cut by this lady. I love that. This entire lounge is basically one giant open kitchen.

Thank you. Tons of coffee stations with Turkish coffee and tons of delicious dessert. As far as non food related things go, there are napping pods. I'm having way too much fun to sleep right now.

Popcorn station, a place to keep your kids entertained. Remote control, cars, video games, tons of TVs. There's even an art gallery. This is my favorite thing about the old lounge.

In summary, not a bad place to spend a few hours. I know we were just complaining about how tired we were, but we have left the hotel room because we could not pass up a chance. Have some more Turkish P day.

I've been thinking about this all day.

Even better than I remember. Especially because it's midnight. There's something about this that just feels like I deserve this.

Also, I think knowing that we have a comfortable bed to sleep in tonight has somehow made me less tired. Yes, when there was a chance that I was sleeping on the airport floor, I was feeling miserably tired. But now that we have a bed, what's another 30 minutes?

Okay, time for bed. We're gonna get maybe three hours of sleep tonight. Should have been more like six, which I was excited about, but you know, it's better than nothing. And.

That'S way better than a hard chair in the airport. So I'm just going to stay positive and sleep so well in my cool, quiet, soft bed.

Good night.

I kind of am tempted to just stay up all night and party at the Turkish lounge, but I guess that's what the flight is for tomorrow.

Morning.

Wow, this is nice. They even put a robe in here. Hair dryer, slippers, sofa.

Did you sleep good?

Yeah, for three hours.

I was so out. I had no idea where I was when I woke up.

It's in a dark room.

It's like, what is this place? What country am I in? Do I have to walk today?

Wow, talk about some good water pressure. Okay, we got 10 minutes until our flight, boys. I gotta make this fast.

This is way better than putting mascara on in an Uber.

10 out of 10 shower.

That was almost perfect. Just one slight issue. We ran out of time for coffee hour. I started boarding five minutes ago. What Are you looking for my first.

Pair of compression socks?

You think Louis Vuitton sells compression socks?

I've never worn compression socks before, but I've been putting my swollen feet all over Instagram. People are starting to worry me. They're talking about, like, blood clots. Yeah, I just feel like it wouldn't hurt to wear them.

The problem is they're just a bunch of really expensive stores that definitely do not sell compression socks.

Got sweet treats for our flight.

All right.

And this is home sweet home for the next 11 hours. It's so sleek. I feel like I'm riding a sports car right now. Real quick, Nate from the future, here we are, obviously back in the van and training for my 100 mile ultramarathon is in full force. You're going to get to see all of that in next week's video. But for now, I need to tell you about the one and only AG1 who has been supporting our channel for over four years. Now. You've probably heard us talk about him before, but just hear me out. This bottle right here has 75 vitamins, minerals, and whole food source ingredients all in one easy scoop that you just put into 8 ounces of water and then you're good to go. Right now, when I'm training, I'm trying to do as much good stuff for my body as possible, which is why I'm in these recovery boots. And I'm also trying to put a bunch of healthy things in my body in. This is by far the easiest thing that I do because not only does it have all the vitamins and minerals, but when you're running super long distances, digestion is almost always an issue. And this has prebiotics, probiotics, and I'm not saying that bad things aren't going to happen to my stomach while I'm running, but I'm giving it the best chance possible by drinking AG1. If you've never tried AG1 before, you don't have to be an ultra athlete. We drink this in our daily life, especially when we're traveling, to help boost our immune system. And right now we have everything here to show you. Normally, we're on the road, we don't have all this, but if you Want to try AG1 using our link, you're going to get, of course, your AG1 that you order, but then you're also going to get a free jar to put it in the shaker that I've been using, five free travel packs and an entire bottle of vitamin D3K True Drops to Boost your immune system. Also, one of the biggest things we love about AG1 is that it replaces your entire supplement cabinet. Like we don't have room to store extra, extra supplements in this van. I don't know if you can see how much these cabinets are overflowing, but instead of having to have a bunch of different bottles of stuff, it's all just in one convenient pack. It's kind of a no brainer. Click the link down below to try AG1 for yourself. Now back to this very luxurious flight and just let me soak this in because life is about to get a lot harder next week.

It is approximately 6:06am and the chef just handed me the one. Haven't even had my coff. What are we about to eat?

What time is it?

Neither.

Nighttime. So they just go straight to breakfast.

Breakfast is by far my least favorite meal on an airplane. It makes total sense that they would serve breakfast at 6:07, but I really hope we don't get breakfast.

Usually I try to do a full sea tour before we take off, but considering I slept for three hours, I'd like to have a coffee before I do that. As usual, I am beyond excited for this business festival. This seat is very unique, so don't take my tiredness for lack of enthusiasm. I don't like this thing. Do you want all my critical thoughts before I have coffee? This is annoying. You're really close to your neighbor, which is amazing if you know each other. But if you were a stranger, this is like a bit close.

But on most business class seats like this goes all the way across. So if you're flying together, this could go down. Yeah.

It's gonna be so sad that I have to do this every time I want to talk to you. Once again, if I'm being crit, the foot hole is very narrow. Like there's not a lot of room for activities, which is fine. It's very intimate.

What's a positive word for small?

This is kind of fun. What else can I criticize? All right, one more critique. No one's offered me a welcome drink yet. Really thought I was about to get a coffee and I can just feel myself.

Fading. Just in case you're new around here. I am not a picky person.