Originally Posted by
tomparskate
I am aiming to do the walking tour 1600-2100 on saturday. My plane lands at 1530. I’m *Gold, will I have time to pop into the IST CIP lounge briefly?
Depending on where you land you'll be lucky to make it for the tour at all. Even with *G (and thus the priority line at immigration) it'll be somewhere between tight and impossible.
As for the lounge, forget it. If the lines at immigration are short, and you know exactly where you're going, and you're arriving from a secure origin (so you don't need to clear transit security), and you're on time (and don't get a bus gate) then you probably won't be able to make it. If even one of those isn't true, no chance.
(And no, there's no way to check the lines at security before you decide - not only do they obviously vary over time, but by the time you get to where they are it's too late to avoid going through transit security to get to the departures area/lounge)