Review of Special Egypt’s 5-Day Egypt Highlights Private Tour with Flights

My boyfriend, my brother, my sister-in-law and I just got back from a week in Egypt which was probaby the most memorable trip I have ever taken for a number of reasons. Next week, I’ll write more about the trip overall, but this week I wanted to focus on a review for Special Egypt’s 5-Day Egypt Highlights Private Tour with Flights that we booked on Get Your Guide.

I genuinely was unsure how to approach this. First, Egypt is incredible. We saw so many beautiful and amazing things. We met many very nice and helpful people. The food is pretty fantastic. We also wound up going on this supposedly private tour with four other strangers who were pretty cool, which I can only imagine how much worse this tour could’ve been if they were not.

The ratings on Get Your Guide are pretty good for this, which I suspect is because the tour guides very hard sell you on a five star review and how much getting that five star review matters to their livelihood as freelancers. The tour guides were largely quite good, some were phenomenal, so the guilt in giving anything less than a five star review is real and if you start to read some of the reviews carefully, you will notice things like mentions of how disorganised this tour is.

You don’t learn the itinerary for the next day until the evening before, so you can never plan ahead. This matters because the itineraries are often insane, stretching into 20+ hours of going from leaving one hotel to getting to your next one.

The only people I can imagine willingly booking this are like 18-25 year olds with boundless energy if they honestly posted their itineraries before booking. But maybe I’m wrong, so I decided for the review to just share our experience in detail below.

And if it’s TL;DR for you (but if you are considering booking this, I highly recommend reading it):

The tour was a chaotic mix of amazing sights and constant logistical frustrations. Communication often came late via WhatsApp, with surprise fees, rushed schedules, and unnecessary shop stops (papyrus, perfume) eating up time. The pyramid day was brutally hot and exhausting, capped off by a midnight flight to Luxor. Sleep deprivation compounded everything, with 4 AM/5 AM pickups scheduled repeatedly despite delays and cancellations (like the balloon ride).

The highlights were the monuments themselves (Pyramids, Valley of the Kings, Karnak, Kom Ombo, etc.) and a few excellent guides (esp. Gabriel in Luxor/Aswan and Wadhi the driver). But mismanagement – late-night flights, minimal downtime, unclear info, sudden changes, surprise fees, unsafe/squeezed transport, and guides pressuring for 5-star reviews – undermined the experience.

By the Alexandria day, you salvaged some joy (catacombs, spices, fortress, boat ride), largely thanks to a fantastic driver Wadhi and a good guide. Overall: spectacular sites, but exhausting, disorganized, and sleep-deprived tour management.

Would never book again. And would absolutely never have booked with a properly shared itinerary.

Tour Itinerary/Timeline

Sunday 2:47 PM – WhatsApp message from tour company asking us where to pick us up (it was sent to them earlier in the week).

Sunday 3:56 PM – Received WhatsApp message with flights to Luxor for Monday, leaving Cairo at 21:55 and arriving at Luxor at 23:35

Sunday 9:55 PM – WhatsApp message with the pickup time (10:00 AM) and details for the start of the tour. We are also told at this point there is a $5 per person waiting fee for the driver if we want to actually go in the pyramids. I had messaged specifically to ask if it’s possible to go in the pyramids before booking the tour two months earlier. No fee was mentioned then.

Monday 10:07 AM – Tour begins. We meet Youssef. He is absolutely lovely and communicates spectacularly on WhatsApp about his approach and a brief delay due to traffic. He loads us into a van to see the pyramids. He tells us a story about the little bracelets with the rocks and how they are good luck and gives us each one. He leaves us with Mohammad.

Monday 10:15 AM-ish – We are off after picking up four others that we will solidly trauma bonded with over the course of the week from a hotel across the street. Mohammad is our guide. Mohammad doesn’t really seem to love his job for the most part, but when my partner got ill after visiting the pyramids, Mohammad took incredible care of him, checking on him repeatedly and bringing him water.

Monday approx. 11:00 AM – We arrive at the pyramids. Solid timing for the bright, hot August sun. We pay to enter the pyramid and Mohammad tries to talk us out of going into the pyramid. All eight of us are set on going into the pyramid. We pay the 250 EGP each to him to wait. We spend approximately 2 hours at the pyramids. We see the Pyramid of Khafre and go inside it, then go back to the panorama view point and one of the women in our tour group rides a camel there. The rest of us wander the souvenir shops and get coffees. Then we go to the Great Pyramid of Giza and then down to the Sphinx. It is, of course, incredibly hot, but it is August. This is no one’s fault, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of consideration for sitting or shade as part of this tour.

Monday approx. 1:00 PM – We are loaded back into the van, with increasingly struggling air conditioning. We are told we stop at a shop quickly and then go to lunch. We stop at a papyrus shop and are shown a brief demonstration about how they make papyrus, which is cool, but then we spend forever in this shop. My partner gets very sick – heat exhaustion or food poisoning, we are not sure but he has no relief from this situation until we get to the cruise ship the next day.

Monday approx. 2:00 PM – We are taken to a perfume shop, ushered to an upstairs room and hard -selled essential oils. There is a demonstration. He tries to force us to try them and I tell him not to put any on me because I get skin allergies. He says no one is allergic to these essential oils. My Physician’s Assistant sister-in-law says that is a lie and backs me up when I refuse to let them put the oils on me. The man is clearly irritated with us all that no one buys anything.

Monday approx. 3:00 PM – We are finally taken to lunch. It is buffet style. It is totally fine. The service there is very good. But we are rushed by Mohammad because he tells us we are going to miss the Egyptian museum, where the mummies are.

Monday approx. 3:30 PM – We pile back into the van.

Monday approx. 3:58 PM –  Mohammad convinces the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization to let us in. We have one hour to explore. This is sufficient time to see the mummies (there are a lot of them), but not enough time to also see the artifacts in the museum space above the mummies.

Monday 5:00 PM– Depart the museum. The air conditioning no longer works in the van.

Monday approx. 5:45 PM – Drop off at Cairo Airport. We are on our own to navigate ourselves through this until we get to Luxor. We go through three security checks before getting to the check-in gate area, where we are told check in for our flight will start at 7:55 PM. The place is very full but we manage to find seats in a more hidden corner by the kid’s area. There is one food kiosk back there where we find something for dinner. There was no information about any of this, so we were just hopeful as we went through the security checkpoints that there would be food, since we were all also having connectivity/WiFi issues.

Monday 7:34 PM – Receive WhatsApp details from Ereen for the follow day about the pickup which will be at 4:45 AM. We all wonder why on earth we were put on a flight that lands at midnight rather than starting the pyramid day earlier and getting into Luxor at a reasonable time.

Monday approx. 7:55 PM – Go to check-in our bags. We are informed the flight is delayed an hour and a half. Check in will now be at 9:30 PM. The signage doesn’t say this. The signage is lying. Inform Ereen so that the Luxor airport pickup guy will still be there when we arrive at 1:30 AM.

Monday 9:30 PM – Drop off our luggage. See the flight is delayed until midnight. Of course, flight delays are no one’s fault, but should we ever have been on a flight scheduled this late in the first place? You know what would’ve easily solved this? Skipping the papyrus and essential oils/perfume place, which were not mentioned anywhere when booking the tour.

Tuesday 00:01 AM – Begin loading into plane. One of the doors on the bus between the terminal and the plane breaks. They spend about 10 minutes fixing it.

Tuesday approx. 1:00 AM – Take off towards Luxor.

Tuesday approx. 2:15 AM – Land in Luxor.

 Tuesday approx. 2:40 AM – Collect luggage and meet up with airport transfer guy.

Tuesday approx. 3:00 AM – Arrive at hotel. Shower because we are absolutely filthy from going to the pyramids.

Tuesday 4:20 AM – Get call from hotel reception, that we never asked for, to wake up and come downstairs because the tour guide is waiting. As you may recall, we were told 4:45 AM. This doesn’t hugely matter to me as I didn’t go to sleep, but my partner did.

Tuesday 4:30 AM – Go downstairs and wait because that wasn’t our tour guide. He wasn’t there. Pickup our breakfast box, which is a water, a juice, a sandwich, a croissant, a pastry and an orange. I am so tired I cannot even think of eating it without feeling nauseous.

Tuesday 4:45 AM – Get picked up, loaded into a van. Go pick up some other people from different hotels. Drive to the field.

Tuesday approx. 5:45 AM – Wait in the dark by the balloons.

Tuesday 6:00 AM – Stand next to van in the dark. People are taken over to various balloons. The four of us are not.

Tuesday 6:21 AM – Watch the sunrise. No one is in a balloon.

Tuesday 6:30 AM – Hot air balloons are cancelled due to weather. This is no one’s fault. Hot air balloons are a temperamental thing and cancellations in August are common cause it’s too hot. I message Ereen about a refund or rescheduling.

Tuesday 6:40 AM – Learn they have split up my partner and me from my brother and sister-in-law for the next leg of the trip and panic because are we also being sent to different cruise ships for the next two days? We can get no clear answers and are split up before we have any. They don’t have their cellular data working so we cannot contact them.

Tuesday 7:00 AM – We are taken to a little café to wait. The morning tour guide for the balloon will not be the next tour guide.

Tuesday approx. 7:15 AM – We meet Gabriel. He will be our tour guide for the next three days. We tell him we haven’t slept. He tells us he only slept two hours last night. And he is able to tell me the name of our cruise ship, so I am hopeful we will bump into my brother and sister-in-law at our first stop. This has me very stressed and between that and the sleep deprivation, I do not concentrate well on what Gabriel is telling us. But he’s kind of incredible and super, super knowledgeable about Egyptian history. We spend the day in Luxor seeing the sights in an air conditioned car, which is very nice. But we are so exhausted.

Tuesday approx. 8:00 AM – Valley of the Kings. We immediately run into my brother and sister-in-law and confirm we are all going to wind up at the same cruise ship, so I am a little less panicked. This stop is honestly really cool. We pay the entrance fee and decide to pay the extra fee to see King Tut’s tomb. The main entrance fee includes three other tombs. The whole thing is really incredible and Gabriel does a great job telling us all about the different pharaoh’s and the history of the area.

Tuesday approx. 9:30 AM – We leave the Valley of the Kings and go to the Temple of Hatshepsut. Gabriel shares his knowledge about the area the whole way to the next point, but my partner and I were really struggling to stay awake. I felt terrible because it felt so rude to him. We arrive at the temple. It is boiling hot. The sun is relentless and there is no shade here. Again, Gabriel shares more of the history of the place.

Tuesday approx. 10:30 AM – We leave the Temple of Hatshepsut and drive to Karnak Temple. On the way there, Gabriel asks if we would just prefer the highlights and to move quickly through the temple because he can see we are struggling. We absolutely agree we want that. We go to the temple and the tour still feels pretty thorough.

**Note that the itinerary for the day also included a stop at Colossi of Memnon and the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III, which just didn’t happen.** 

Tuesday approx. 12:00 PM – Arrive at our cruise ship, the Ti Yi. Gabriel walks us on, as he is traveling with us to tour guide at the stops, but makes it very clear he is otherwise a passenger like us. We are sticky and disgusting. We check into our room and wander the ship a bit, because lunch is scheduled for 1:00 PM. We settle into the lounge area to wait and I keep thinking I hear my brother. I find out later this is because his tour guide just dropped them off and pointed to the ship. We had to walk through one ship to get to our ship, the second ship. This was not made clear to them, so they had a very panicked 20 minutes trying to check into the wrong ship and being told there were no reservations under his name and that I was not there either.

Tuesday 12:26 PM – Get a message from Ereen with Special Egypt that we have been upgraded to a deluxe category room. Our room was fine but I honestly cannot image what a standard category room is. I really struggle to believe there are two different categories of room on this ship.

Tuesday 1:00 PM – Eat lunch.

Tuesday 1:15 PM – My brother and sister-in-law appear and we learn of their check in debacle.

Tuesday 1:45 PM – Shower and pass out for a few hours.

Tuesday 5:00 PM – Look for tea time, but cannot find tea time (turns out it is upstairs by the pool, not in either of the places where we can usually find food).

 Tuesday 5:06 PM – Receive WhatsApp message from Ereen with flight tickets for the Thursday flight from Answan (where the cruise ends) back to Cairo. The flight is for 21:45 PM and lands at 23:19. I am now a little panicked that we are going to be told to be ready for a 4 AM pickup on Friday and there will be no sleep again, which makes me feel sick and dizzy.

Tuesday 7 PM –  Watched a really lovely sunset from onboard the boat.

Tuesday 8 PM – Dinner onboard.

Tuesday 8:05 PM – Received WhatsApp message from Ereen with the details for the following day. We will be picked up at 8 AM to go to Edfu Temple and then the cruise sails on and in the evening we will go to another temple at 5 or 6 PM. We are told to go to the reception area to meet the guide.

Wednesday 7 AM – Breakfast onboard.

Wednesday approx. 8 AM – Met Gabriel to go on the tour. We were piled into carriages that were pulled by horses to go to the temple, which is about a 10 minute ride.

Wednesday 8:20 AM – Edfu Temple. Again, Gabriel did an incredible job with the information he knows. I genuinely cannot fathom how he keeps track of all those names. It’s like being in an advanced Egypt History class in university.

Wednesday 9:30 AM – Carriages back to the ship. Barefoot children chase us miming that they are starving and beg for money while grabbing at the carriages. At the ship, we learned that there were issues with the motors, so we might be late getting into Kom Ambo.

Wednesday 10 AM – We changed into bathing suits and watched the sail away about 20 minutes later from the pool.

Wednesday 1 PM – Lunch. We learned we would be late getting into Kom Ambo or we might not get there at all. It was a bit confusing. Our group decided to all go shower and then we met in the lounge where we could see the reception area and played some board games we brought with us and tracked our progress down the Nile on Google maps. When it seemed like we were getting close, we all went and got ready and waited down in the lounge.

Wednesday 7:30 PM – We dock in Kom Ambo and everyone gets ready to go to the temple.

Wednesday 7:59 PM – WhatsApp message from Ereen that the pickup to go to Abu Simble the next day is at 4 AM. And that we must pack up and check out of our rooms on the ship before leaving.

Wednesday approx. 8 PM – Kom Ambo Temple. The message from Ereen really puts a damper on the whole experience. I don’t know why this company thinks we don’t need to sleep. However, at the temple Gabriel is super knowledgeable. Also, going to a temple in the evening was really cool and different from the other temples we’d been to and much nice in the Egyptian heat. I am left wondering why this isn’t just the usual plan. The ticket includes entrance to the crocodile museum, which is really tiny, but as we only had one hour for both the temple and crocodile museum, it would’ve been helpful to know that since it was 8:45 PM and we were still listening to history stories in the temple and both my partner and I were thinking… we want to see the crocodiles.

Wednesday 8:50 PM – Crocodile Museum for about 10 minutes. This was plenty of time, but the mummified crocodile is really cool. As we head back to the boat, Gabriel tells us all to make sure we review the tour and give him five stars because it’s really important for his job to get the good reviews. There is a lot of stress on this fact.

Wednesday approx. 9:15 PM – Arrive back at the boat and eat dinner. Gabriel informs us because of the engine issues, we may not arrive in Aswan in time. Discuss our options for the following day because all eight people in our group are livid that a 20 hour day from 4 AM till settling in Cairo at midnight seemed like an acceptable thing for anyone to schedule. My partner and I decide we’re just not doing it. I go speak to the guest services desk and ask if we can stay onboard till the normal checkout time, whatever that is and if they will hold our luggage too till 7 PM. I am told we can stay in our rooms till 9:30 AM and then we are welcome to spend the day on the ship. So we are set. We are absolutely not going to this 4 AM pickup. My brother and sister-in-law decide they are going to do it.

Wednesday 10:02 PM – I message Ereen that we are not going but will rejoin the group at the airport pickup from the ship at 7 PM. I tell her we have already told Gabriel.

Wednesday 10:11 PM – I receive a message from Gabriel telling me to message the tour operator that we are not going tomorrow and suggests that instead of Abu Simbel, we ask to visit the High Dam and the Philae Temples instead, which would leave after breakfast.

Wednesday 10:12 PM – My brother informs me he has also gotten this message. We have a group pow-wow about these options.

Wednesday 10:41 PM – I WhatsApp Ereen and say the four of us would much rather do the High Dam and Philae Temples tour instead, if possible. We just wanted to confirm there is no additional fee.

Wednesday 10:52 PM – Ereen confirms via WhatsApp that we will visit the High Dam and the Philae Temples, leaving at 8 AM the next day and that we will go to the airport at 7 AM.

Wednesday 10:53 PM – I confirm that that sounds good.

Thursday 12:11 AM – I am dead asleep. Ereen messages me, ‘The team informed me that we can do Abu Simbel tomorrow at 8 AM, is it ok for you?”

Thursday 12:21 AM – I miss a phone call from Ereen, but I feel the phone vibrating and it wakes me up. I message back saying we do not want to do that, we want to stick with the plan to go to the High Dam and Philae Temple – mostly because I am half asleep and cannot cope with this right now. I mean… what the heck.

Thursday 12:40 AM – My brother knocks on my door and wakes me up and says Ereen is trying to get ahold of us because if we want to go to the Philae Temples, there is now an extra fee and are we happy to pay it. I have slept through three phone calls from her. He tells me that he and his wife are going to do the 8 AM Abu Simbel trip.

Thursday 12:42 AM – I message Ereen and say that we do not want to go anywhere and we will pay no extra fees. We want the airport transfer, as planned at 7 PM from the ship, and that’s it. She says no problem.

Thursday 8:15 AM – We eat breakfast on the ship and settle our bill. They store our luggage for us by keeping it in the very open hallway behind a desk.  We explore Aswan on our own in the morning. It costs us roughly $20 each in taxi fees and entrance fees to take a ferry to Elephantine Island and see the temple ruins and the Answan Museum there. We also go to the Nubian Museum which is gloriously air conditioned and the local Temple of Isis, which is incredibly hot but gives a cool view of how deep archeologists had to dig to unearth the temples. We then come back to the ship and eat lunch and hang out in the lounge. We grab our backpacks from the luggage pile no one is watching. Very restful and really lovely to do things at our own speed for a bit instead of being rushed.

Thursday 11:52 AM – I confirm again with Ereen that there will be a pickup for us at the ship at 7 PM anyway.

Thursday 2:00 PM – She confirms. I also ask her what time we will be back from the tours the next day since the hotel we are checking in to for our final night in Egypt after this tour ends is asking.

Thursday approx. 3:00 PM – My brother messages me that he and my sister-in-law will be at the airport at 5 PM. My partner and I are flummoxed. Why were they ever going to make us get up at 4 AM, if 8 AM is a possible time to still easily make the flight? WHY DO THEY THINK NO ONE NEEDS TO SLEEP IN EGYPT!??!? I just cannot with this company.

Thursday 4:40 PM – Ereen replies with the approximate time back from Alexandria as 6 PM.

Thursday 6:45 PM – We close out our afternoon bill from lunch and some drinks in the lounge and wait in the lobby for our scheduled airport pickup at 7:00 PM. We see the Spanish speaking lady from one of our earlier tours and she says she is waiting for the airport transfer too.

Thursday 7:00 PM – No one arrives for our transfer. No communication on the matter.

Thursday 7:15 PM  – The transfer person arrives. We leave the ship and head to the airport, where my brother and sister-in-law and the four other people who have been on this tour with us have already been waiting for several hours.

Thursday 7:19 PM – Received WhatsApp message with information for the tours the following day. We had a pickup at 8 AM to go to Alexandria.

Thursday approx. 7:45 PM – We arrive at the airport, check-in flight.

Thursday approx. 9:00 PM – We get dinner at the pizza/sandwich place near the gates. We see our flight is delayed till 10:20 PM. Again, we totally accept delayed flights are outside anyone’s control.

Thursday 10:20 PM – Flight is loaded and we head back to Cairo.

Thursday approx. 11:50 PM – Arrive in Cairo and wait for baggage.

Friday approx. 12:15 AM – We meet up with the driver, a different Mohammad, and the Youssef appears again. The Spanish speaking lady from the cruise ship is also out there with us and appears to be having a bit of a disagreement with Youssef. It turns out that she was not on the list for a drop-off that evening. After some confusion she is loaded into the van with us. A car breaks down, blocking the exit to the airport. Mohammad figures out a different way to get us out of the airport and we are off.

Friday 12:43 AM – Ereen WhatsApp messages me asking ‘where are you now?’ I reply ‘on some street in Cairo going towards the hotel’ and wonder why she is asking me this rather than the tour guide. Youssef is also apparently a different person at night. He is very loud and keeps telling us not to fall asleep, which feels completely insane. He is incredibly rude to the Spanish speaking lady and we all get the vibe that he is mocking her in Arabic with the driver after every interaction he has with her. The driver is a terrifying menace on the road, which is saying something consider all of the other concerning drivers we have encountered this week. He nearly gets in a fight with the driver of a red car after he cuts the car off when he makes a right turn from the left lane on a highway and both cars stop to yell at each other.

Friday approx. 1:00 AM – We drop off the Spanish speaking lady near her hotel but not at it. She asks Youssef to walk her to the actual hotel. He will not. Then he gets back in the car and asks us if she made all of us feel unsafe. We all replied that she was lovely on every tour we’d been on with her for the last several days. Youssef doesn’t seem to like this reply.

Friday approx. 1:50 AM – We are dropped off at our hotel for the night. Youssef tells us he and Mohammed will be our guide and driver again in the morning and we will be joined by a second driver. He tells us the pickup will be 8:30 AM instead in of 8 AM.

Friday approx. 2:00 AM – We are checked into the hotel but the steward had taken my luggage and not delivered it. I go back to the lobby to get it and he argues with me for taking it but I cannot care because I am so tired and know I must be awake in less than 6 hours. My body is completely shutting down despite the ‘easier’ day by skipping the planned tours. I also still have to shower because it’s hot and we always have to shower at the end of the day here.

Friday 7:45 AM – We get up, get ready and repack to be downstairs for the 8:30 AM pickup. My partner and I get down there and there is no one there. About 5 minutes later the other group of four people that we’ve been with since the pyramids turn up and mention there was a breakfast, which we had not been told about at check in. But it’s too late now. 5 minutes after that my brother and sister-in-law turn up. They had managed to snack takeaway boxes for breakfast and were going to share with us. There are no tour guides anywhere.

Friday 8:45 AM – I message Ereen no one is there to pick us up.

Friday 8:59 AM – Youssef WhatsApp messages us a WhatsApp message saying he’ll be there in 15 minutes.

Friday approx. 9:15 AM – A random black car shows up and someone starts loading our luggage into it. It is not Youssef or Mohammad, so we are all a bit like… what’s happening? It turns out to be the second car mentioned the day before. A minute later Youssef and Mohammad pull up. We are delighted to purely coincidentally get this car instead.

Friday approx. 9:20 AM – One of the guys from the other group of four that we have been travelling with accidentally walks into the side of the hotel glass door and like splits his forehead open. Chaos. Just chaos for the next 30 minutes getting him sorted. Fortunately it wasn’t a super severe situation and my sister-in-law is a Physician’s Assistant who had a first aid kit with her. She got him kind of patched up. We go to a pharmacy looking for steri-strips. We go to a second pharmacy. Youssef tries to convince the group to just go to Alexandria anyway. They decide they would rather just go to their hotel.

Friday approx. 10 AM – Our car follows them to their hotel where first met them on Monday, which seems a lifetime ago, and we leave them there. Youssef sends us off with just our driver, Wadhi, and tells us a guide will meet us in Alexandria.

Friday 10:00 AM – I receive a WhatsApp message from Gabriel, our Luxor to Aswan tour guide asking for a five star review and for me to send him a screenshot of it after it’s done, again. If the review was just for Gabriel, I’d be all about it, but it’s just for this tour and I am deeply conflicted about what to write.

Friday approximately 11 AM – We hit a bit of traffic because people are giving out random free sample in the road and we receive some different flavored crisps/chips and a bag of cheese. Wadhi is brilliant the entire time. I cannot stress this enough, especially if some who he works for see this, he was a superb driver – our favorite of the week – kind, friendly, considerate and while driving in Egypt is driving in Egypt, he was not a frightening driver and got us there in a timely manner, which including two rest stops. Five stars for Wadhi. Ten stars for Wadhi.

Friday approximately 12 PM – We arrive in Alexandria. Machmude meets us at the catacombs. It’s very hot, but, again, Machmude was a solid tour guide. He was knowledgeable and friendly. His tour of the catacombs was particularly interesting. Machmude suggests we skip the Library of Alexandria because it’s not really interesting, but we insist we want to go because it was something my brother had really wanted to see.

Friday approximately 12:45 PM – We move on to the Roman Theatre site. It is worth noting that we had a full car on the way to Alexandria, and when Machmude joined us, there was no seat for him, so my sister-in-law spent the rest of the drives sitting on my brother’s lap and we are all squeezed in the back so we could fit Machmude. We were fortunate this was even an option for us because my sister-in-law is so tiny. And, of course, there are some concerning safety issues there. The Roman Theatre site was interesting and included 20 minutes to wander freely. At the Roman Theatre site, Machmude suggests adding a boat ride to the tour for an additional $10. We weren’t very interested at first, but Machmude kept suggesting it and, honestly, with the heat, a boat ride seemed like it could be nice. So we agreed to it.

Friday approximately 1:30 PM – We asked if there was anywhere to do a little shopping, especially for some spices, and Machmude found us a place that was really great. It was a little quieter and there was no hard selling. Some spices were bought.

Friday approximately 2 PM – We stop at the site of the Library of Alexandria. Machmude is right. We are disappointed that we can’t go in, because tours usually can go in but the library is closed on Friday and Saturdays, which wasn’t really shared with us anywhere when booking. However, it satiates everyone’s curiousity of where the Library of Alexandria was and it’s kind of funny how much not like an ancient library it looks like now. The stop is, understandably, very quick.

Friday approximately 2:05 PM – We are on our way to lunch, which is included in the tour. It is at a place called fish market. The included options are a fish lunch or a vegetarian lunch. We are told if you want chicken it will be an additional 100 EGP. We all go for the included options. The fish looks terrifying but is actually really delicious.

Friday approximately 2:45 PM – We go to the fortress. Machmude suggests we just check it out from the outside since the inside is not that exciting. It is still pretty hot so we take his word for it. The pier is kind of great though and someone has this excellent puppy named Simba running off and creating chaos and being ridiculously cute.

Friday approx. 3:15 PM –  We go on the boat ride, which is about 30-40 minutes and is a ride out to the breakers and back, driven by a maybe 13 year old. But it’s fine. I’m not sure what I expected from the boat ride, but it was a little grimier that I thought it would be. Maybe it’s usually a fishing vessel? Unclear.

Friday approximately 4:00 PM – We say good-bye to Machmude and meet back up with Wadhi for the journey back to Cairo. Wadhi is still brilliant. We still love Wadhi. He drops us off at the hotel we booked for ourselves for the evening and even helps sort out an issue because I accidentally confirmed the wrong hotel address the previous day for my partner and I, though my brother sent over the correct hotel address. This confusion was all my fault, but he navigated it like a pro and got us all to the correct place and was very kind about it all.

Friday approx. 7:00 PM – We are dropped off at our hotel and the tour ends.

Saturday 1:41 PM – Ereen sends a WhatsApp message asking for feedback on how the trip was.

So how much did this experience cost us?

Tour Base Cost – $715

Costs Related to the Tour Outside the Base Cost – 

Pyramids in Cairo Entrance Fee – 700 EGP ($14.50) Cost to go in Pyramids (we went in one of the smaller ones, which is cheaper) – 280 EGP ($5.80) Waiting fee for company so we can go in the pyramids – $5 National Museum of Egyptian Civilization – 500 EGP ($10.36) Tip for Driver – 200 EGP each ($4.14) Tip for Tour Guide – 200 EGP each ($4.14) Tip for Driver at Airport Pickup – 200 EGP each ($4.14) Tip for Driver for Balloon Ride that Didn’t Happen – 200 EGP each ($4.14) Valley of the Kings Entrance Fee & Electric Train – 770 EGP ($15.95) King Tut’s Tomb Entrance Fee – 700 EGP ($14.50) Temple of Hatshepsut & Electric Train – 460 EGP ($9.53) Karnak Temple – 600 EGP ($12.43) Tip for Driver – 200 EGP each ($4.14) Tips for the Guys Carrying the Bags on the Ship – 100 EGP each ($2.07) Edfu Temple – 550 EGP ($11.40) Tip for Carriage Driver – 200 EGP each ($4.14) Kom Ombo Temple – 450 EGP ($9.32) Tip for Two Days with Same Tour Guide – 400 EGP each ($8.28) Abu Simbel (but we skipped the organised tour this day) – 750 EGP ($15.54) Tip for Driver – 200 EGP each ($4.14) Tip for Tour Guide for the Day – 200 EGP each ($4.14) Tips for the Cruise Ship Workers – 200 EGP per person each day ($4.14) Tips for the Guys Carrying Bags Off Ship – 100 EGP each ($2.08) Tip for Driver at Airport Pickup – 200 EGP ($4.14) Catacombs Entrance Fee – 200 EGP ($4.14) Roman Amphitheatre Entrance Fee – 150 EGP ($3.11) Tip for Driver – 200 EGP ($4.14) Tip for Tour Guide – 200 EGP ($4.14) Boat Ride on the Mediterranean – $10 each

Additional Fees: $203.69 

Total: Approximately $919.00

Also not included were all soft drinks/coffees/waters at any lunch or dinner provided by the tour and on the cruise. Though I will say most hotels had a free water or two in the rooms.

Note that small tips are pretty much constant. I noted down the ones directly related to what we did that were unavoidable above, but pretty much any time someone picks up your bags or transports you somewhere, it will cost between 100 EGP and 200 EGP and things can get quite tense if you try to do something yourself.

I have submitted a refund request for the balloon ride and, ideally, Abu Simbel, so I will update this post when I have information about if and when they may pay that back.

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