Review, 11-Day Luxury Egypt & Jordan Trip, Sharm El Sheikh, Cairo, Luxor, Aswan, Valley of Kings & Queens, Historical Sites

- Lunch: it doesn't really seem like lunch is built into the program at all. This definitely needs to be added, not just from a timing perspective (i.e. see a temple or two in the morning, then head over to lunch before the afternoon activities), but people need to be informed of which days include a planned stop for lunch (even if its not covered in the cost of the trip) and which ones do not. Additionally, guides should either have restaurants in mind either near the current historical site on or along the way to the next place that is visited. We didn't eat lunch the first two days of our trip and when we asked our guide about when lunch was, he almost seemed surprised that we were hungry and asked where we wanted to go. We were a little confused, first because of how early we had started, how could we not be hungry, and secondly because since we did not know Cairo, we didn't really have an idea of where would be a good place to eat.

- Additional activities should be carefully listed out. As an example, there are other tombs that can be visited in the Valley of the Kings and Queens which were some of the most spectacular tombs to see. If there are any people that want to visit Egypt with cash already in hand, it would be helpful to know what's additional ahead of time (and again, carefully listed out). We never would have known about these additional tombs had we not asked, and it just makes us wonder what else was additional that we could have asked about but didn't know was an option. Other add-ons were: the Nubian village, going INSIDE the Giza pyramid, and other tombs in Valley of the Kings and Queens

- The carriage ride through Luxor. Don't even offer it as an option. It's incredibly awkward.
 

- The hotel in Cairo is NOT a 5 star hotel. And if they tell you it is, they're lying. It was hard going from the hotel in Aswan accommodations to this hotel for an entire week. It was so incredibly dated, the WiFi was awful, and our room had a terrible musty smell. Hindsight being 20/20 we should have asked to switch rooms but i'm not sure it would have been much difference.

- The hotel in Sharm - also not a great hotel. If someone says they're interested in visiting Sharm, allow them to find their own place to stay. This place only had food at certain times (which is just weird), it was damn near impossible to get towels and again, the WiFi was terrible. Especially if the travelers plan to do scuba dive day trips it would make sense to stay closer to the marina areas since most of the hotels pools/drink options will not be utilized.

- The St. Catherine Monastery visit was hands down, the worst day of the trip. It was 6 hours of driving to spend like, an hour at this monastery. If people forgo the portion of the trip to Mt. Sinai where there is hiking it would be best to remind them that the Monastery is very small and that a standard time spent (if the extra museum is toured) will by only 1-2 hours maximum. Also, it pains me, but our guide was terrible. He seemed very nice but his English was not good. He really didn't understand any of our questions and I can honestly say we learned nothing from him. Many times he used a piece of paper to draw out maps of The Monastery which were confusing to follow. It would be best if he had his own personal maps purchased ahead of time so that the pictures and detail would be better. It made us sad, because all our other guides were AMAZING! Then when we left, instead of taking us to lunch, he brought us to a place to purchase oils even though I had expressed how hungry I was AND that we had visited an oils place in Luxor with Osama. 

- Not sure what the rules are in terms of how long the guides have to spend with us, but we definitely would have compressed some of our time in Luxor to cut a day out of that and added to either Jordan or Sharm. For example the Karnak temple/Luxor Temple day was especially short compared to the other days. Although it would make for some long days, if possible, it just seems like it would make more sense to do longer days as opposed to the few half days we had.- Apparently there are ferries that go from Sharm to Wadi Rum. Have this as an option next time, to avoid the full day of travel.

- Get rid of the guide (in Cairo). We do not understand what his role is. He repeated himself so much and generally seemed to serve no purpose greeting us each morning. Ashraf could do his job and be less annoying about it.