Shahd Sameh

Great experience from start to finish. The itinerary was well thought out, the local guides and city managers were excellent, and everything ran smoothly.

A special thanks to Shahd and Ahmed, who were incredibly attentive throughout the trip and always quick to answer questions. They did a great job helping us navigate the uncertainty when the conflict with Iran started and worked with us on itinerary adjustments as things evolved.

Would absolutely recommend them and would use them again.

Hotel Reviews

The Zen Wellness Resort

Aswan

The Zen Wellness Resort in Aswan was generally nice, and the hotel itself was fine. However, the restaurant service was quite disappointing. It took over two hours to get dinner, but this was the only disappointing meal we had during the trip. We arrived late in the evening, but the wait was still much longer than expected. Aside from that, the hotel stay was okay.

Novotel Cairo 6th of October

Cairo

The hotel itself was nice with no major issues. However, the location was not ideal as it was quite far from the airport. Since we only stayed one night on arrival and one night before departure, being closer to the airport would have saved us a lot of time. We tried to change the hotel but the change fees were too high, so we kept the original booking.

MS Miriam Nile cruise

The MS Miriam Nile cruise was a highlight of our trip. The rooms were pretty nice and comfortable for the three to four nights we stayed on the boat. The overall experience on the cruise was good and it added a special touch to our journey along the Nile.

Activity Review

Day tour to visit Pyramids, Sphinx & The Grand Egyptian Museum

Cairo

The day tour to visit the Pyramids, Sphinx, and The Grand Egyptian Museum was enjoyable, but there was a communication issue regarding the timing during Ramadan. The pyramid complex closed early, which was not clearly communicated to us. Because of this, our time at the pyramids was condensed and shorter than expected. We still managed to see everything, but it was a bit rushed. The lunch included in the tour also contributed to the timing issue.

I only interacted with Shahd over WhatsApp, and overall it was a little tough to figure out who to talk to to get help during the trip, between Shahd, the local rep Samara, the guides, and the drivers. I would recommend there be one WhatsApp conversation for coordination with guests for the future.

Of the people we interacted with Samara was the friendliest and the best fit for interacting with our family. We had 3 days of activities on this trip. We did get to see the highlights of Egypt that we wanted to see, but it was overall the least pleasant trip we've had on a year filled with family travel. The guides we had for seeing the pyramids, the GEM, and the Valley of the Kings were a really bad fit for our family. They did ask for feedback, and were able to adjust a bit, but it was rough. It felt like the guides were prioritizing going through their pre-scripted content instead of listening to our questions, and adjusting. For the museum, we spent an hour listening to the guide before going into any of the exhibits and then only had 10 minutes to look at King Tut's tomb treasures. This was all during the coolest part of the day too, so then we were rushing to get to the Sphinx before it closed. Our family felt like we were being scolded by the guide any time we wanted to stop and look at something or ask questions.

In Luxor, it was worse. It was super hot and the kids were tired. They did not love being scolded for not listening to the guide. And neither did we! At one point, we were directed to read a display on the wall, and then the guide talked nonstop so we couldn't actually read it.

We also felt like the guides were especially dismissive of our daughters in a way that felt patriarchal. We had to have lots of family discussions about sexism and culture. Some expectation setting up front is necessary if that's what we would experience across the board.

There was nothing about this trip that was tailored to independent travelers, as KimKim advertises. We could barely have a conversation or exploration as a family on this trip.