Habiba Mohamed

Habiba made the whole planning and booking process extremely easy. She gave us a lot of great options and suggestions and took into consideration the things we did and did not want to do while in Egypt. Overall, the whole planning and booking experience was great. While we did still greatly enjoy the trip and our visit to Egypt, there were a few things that we weren't so happy with.

Our trip began in Cairo. After we landed at the airport, we were able to find our guide easily and he and our driver took us to our hotel. The guide (sorry I can't remember his name!) was very friendly and knowledgeable and told us a lot about Egypt and its history during the one-hour drive to the hotel. We were very impressed with our driver, as well. Cairo traffic is no joke, but he navigated it like a pro.

Our hotel was NOT what we were expecting, though. Great service, but the place simply was not done. Our itinerary said we were staying at the Great Pyramids Inn in Giza which, if you look it up on Tripadvisor, is a beautiful (completely built) hotel with a restaurant/bar on site. The hotel photos that were provided in our itinerary were extremely misleading. A completely different hotel. We were brought to the Royal Great Pyramids Inn (or something like that, Royal Pyramids Inn, I can't remember), which is still under construction. The first 4 floors are still being built and there was construction going on the whole time and there was a lot of dirt and dust from the construction. It looked nothing like the photos. Our room was very pretty and well decorated with a great view of the pyramids, but again, it wasn't finished. There were no towel racks or bars or hooks, nowhere to hang anything. Lots of hangers but no place to hang. We had to set our towels on a small table to dry them. 10 bottles each of shampoo and body wash, but no other toiletries (conditioner, lotion, etc.). The power went out for a little over an hour on our second day. That happens; not a big deal. It made us very hesitant to take the elevator in the building, but the staff insisted that we take the elevator anyway (I think because of all the construction mess on the stairs). The staff was incredibly kind and friendly, so that made it not quite as big of a deal that the hotel was totally different from what we were expecting. We were under the impression that there was a bar and restaurant on site. They did feed us the first night and breakfast was provided, but I would hardly call it a bar/restaurant. They were also surprised to hear that I am a vegetarian, even though I made that clear in our questionnaire before we started planning the trip.

A different guide took us to Cairo Tower the second night for dinner. We were expecting a nice romantic dinner, just the two of us, but our guide actually sat with us the whole time at dinner, and didn't eat anything. He was perfectly nice and pleasant, but it was a bit awkward. It also seemed like there were lots of issues with us getting into the tower and getting dinner because the guide kept having to get up to talk with the restaurant staff, and it took about 20 minutes for him to get our tickets into the tower. We weren't given a menu and were told that our options were chicken or beef. We were told that there were no vegetarian options, even though we noticed on our way out that the menu had plenty of vegetarian options. This was frustrating since I had included the fact that I'm a vegetarian in our questionnaire before we started planning the trip, so I would have hoped that some arrangements would have been made in advance. We also weren't offered any drinks or anything and had to ask for water after we'd been sitting there for a while. We saw after the fact that there were lots of drinks/wine/cocktails, etc. on the menu.

There were a few instances where our guides took us to places that weren't on our itinerary and which we would have expressly declined if we'd known in advance. Eg., we went to a papyrus store to "learn how papyrus is made" but it was really just a high-pressure sales pitch to get us to buy something. We were also taken to a jewelry store and a perfume store. Towards the end of the trip one of the guides pulled up to the front of an alabaster store. We said "we're good here, we don't need to go in" knowing that we'd just be pressured to buy something. I have no problems with these businesses or their sales tactics and I understand they're all just trying to make a living, but I would have appreciated a heads-up that we would be visiting these places. Because we would have said "no thank you." Our trip was jam-packed with sightseeing and we had very little downtime to begin with, so we would have preferred to skip those extra little outings that we didn't ask for.

It also seemed there wasn't clear communication with the timing of our itinerary at times. For example, we took a 3-night Nile Cruise and our itinerary said we would have lunch onboard on the last day before we departed on a 4-hour drive to the next destination. But we actually had to check out of the cruise at 8am that morning so we had to ask our guide to take us somewhere so we could buy lunch before we left.

None of that ruined the trip by any means. We still had a great time and got to see and do all the things we wanted to see and do. All of our guides and drivers were friendly and kind and helpful and, with the exception of the Cairo hotel, our accommodations exceeded our expectations.

Our agent Habiba did a good job of organizing and coordinating our visit to Egypt. She helped us arrange the activities and adjust our schedule so we could see all sights that we wanted in the time we had available. I would recommend using Kim Kim and our agent Habiba to book a trip to Egypt. It made it easy. That said, there was a bit less flexible in hotel choices than I preferred and pricing of the trip was not broken down in the billing, so it was difficult to say if things were a good value.
We were very happy with how Habiba organized our pickup and transport to the hotel at each step of our trip. The guides are well trained in tourism and in Egyptian history. They always had our interest in mind. Mustafa met us each time we arrived in Cairo and made sure we were settled in our room before leaving us in our hotel. This was great as one hotel was over booked and we had to move to a nearby sister hotel.
Our guide to the pyramids and national museum was enthusiastic and patient with us as toured these sites. He offered us the opportunity to visit the additional, fee to access, areas of the pyramids in advance so we had the option to go. We had sufficient time to see what we wanted. The only suggestion I have was to schedule the national museum at the end of the day or give an actual ticket to the guest so they can re-enter after the tour, if possible. There is so much to see and our hotel was next door. It would have been nice to just sit and observe or slowly walk around until closing. Th citadel and Coptic area were included in the tour day. I was not that interested but these sites but they were well worth the time. The meals served during the day were excellent. Portions were ample and good quality. They were served banquet style or in a restaurant. I would suggest following Habiba’s suggestion to staying at the Steigenberger if you want something cleaner and non smoking. We stayed at the Cleopatra which is advertised as a bit less but everyone smokes in the lobby, we could smell cigarette smoke in our nonsmoking room which came equipped with an ash tray 😂. We stayed 3 nights in Cairo near Tahrir square. We had some time in the evening to stroll across the Nile bridge, have local food at a night market, attend a cheese festival, and talk with locals. We left early (3am) to continue our trip to Aswan, our driver was right on time.
We took a small cruise vessel (10 passenger), the Nuut Dahabiya, from Aswan to Luxor. It was excellent, the highlight of our trip. Very peaceful in the Nile, great air quality after visiting Cairo. Our guide, Ehab, was very kind and patiently explained the history of the sites we visited. His English was excellent. He stayed with us on the cruise ship, so we had opportunities to talk at night about the food and culture. We visited interesting sites during the day, a granite quarry, a sandstone quarry, Komboku, Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Karnak, other sites and museums. Ehab was very flexible and accommodated our schedule by adjusting tour times to let us have more time at our hotel in the morning and tour in the afternoon as we had an evening flight to Cairo. We stayed at the Iberotal Luxor. It was excellent. Has a good breakfast and good food and beer at the pool.
We stayed the last night at the Great Pyramids Inn across from the new Grand Museum. We had breakfast over looking the pyramids. This is a new hotel which was not completed but they have some rooms open. The staff was excited to see us and provided us with an excellent breakfast. They were eager to please.
Driver was right on time to take us back to the airport and we left satisfied with our trip.
The only reason I did not put amazing for the rating was because there were a few hiccups. Overall this was a trip of a lifetime, thank you Habiba and Kim Kim.

The whole organisation of the trip was very good. We saw a lot of things in quite a short time which was a bit rushy, especially that the gudies took us to some not incalculated places where you can buy local crafted souvenirs (which are the same quality as in the bazaars but way more expensive).
The guides were highly qualified and interesting. We would like to highlight the tour guide we had on our Nile Cruise 'Ahmed Moussa' for his easy going and friendly behavior while sharing and explaining tons of knowledge and answering all our questions.
Altogether we enjoyed the trip very much but the Hotel in Hurghada was definitely not the right choice for us as it was not that clean in our room. Also it is made for families rather with children which is not too enjoyable for a couple.
We quite regreted a bit that we were planning to go from Aswan to Hurghada by car as it was a very long ride.
We would also like to mention that our Airline lost our suitcase when we first arrived in Egypt and Habiba was very helpful and tried to call them and organise it back to us. Unfortunately the luggage is still missing but we definitely could count on Habibas help!

Hotel Reviews

Steigenberger Pyramids Cairo

Cairo

Nice and clean place, food was ok.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Pyramids are seeable from pool, but a bit far from the airport and rather located in a not so nice neighborhood

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

M.S. Esplanade - Mayfair Cruises

Aswan

Very clean and nice boat. The stuff was super friendly. The pool on the upper deck is amazing but a bit small. A bit strange that you have to pay for the coffee and tea for breakfast. But the buffet was amazingly decorated and with high quality and delicious food!

Authenticity & Character

Probably the best ship on the Nile (according to our guide)

Location

Staff

Very friendly and polite

Cleanliness & Comfort

Gravity hotel & aqua park Hurghada

Hurghada

Altough it is a very nice and huge hotel with beautiful decoration, the rooms are not even close to the ones on their website. The rooms on the ground floor the poorest ones, with not only super basic furniture, but also hygienic problems and canalisation smell. We had to ask several times for for a new room, which was better, but still not as on their website. It is more a quantity then a quality place, which might be a good fit for certain families with children, but not for anyone with higher standards (eventough we didn't expect western standards there)

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

The staff is kind and polite but they were short in employees as they almost couldn't handle the people queuing up for questions and check in/out

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Pyramids and Cairo Sightseeing

Cairo

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Luxor East Bank

Luxor

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Luxor West Bank

Luxor

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Edfu, and Kom Ombo Temples

Aswan

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Tour to High Dam, Philae Temple, and Obelisk

Aswan

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Diving Tour in Hurghada

Hurghada

It was an amazing experience to discovery scuba diving but also a but scary as the safety instrucion was like a 10 minutes talk in a big group. We also could only dive once because some one of us had ear pain from the pressure change of diving so quickly. Also the communication of when who goes to prepare and dives was missing. But grat boat, beautiful reef, nice food and friendly stuff.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport