Vacation Review: Luxury Egypt Family Tour

Review by traveler

Julia H.

5.6.2019

General Info

Traveler Review

Which Country (Countries) did you visit on this trip?

Egypt

Your overall comments on the trip and the travel company:

I did not feel that we received the level of expertise and help we expected with this tour company. I am specifically referring to the management team in Ciaro and the tour guide in Luxor. (The tour guide in Ciaro was lovely & sweet. The manager in Luxor was very nice.) During the Ciaro part of our trip the Agency/manager failed to secure a room with twin beds for my teens. This was throughly discussed prior to our arrival. It is unreasonable to expect a 14 y.o. boy & 15 y.o. girl to share a bed. On the day we departed Ciaro to Luxor we were left at the airport over 3 hours before our flight and instructed to eat in the business lounge. However, the business lounge in Ciaro for a local airlines is not like the business lounge for British Airlines or Delta - there was no "dinner" type food. We arrived to our hotel in Luxor past 11:30pm and had to wait for room service for dinner, well past midnight. This travel company expected us to start the tour the next morning at 8 AM. Since we were on a private tour - we requested to start the next day at 10 and the Manager said yes and arranged it but I got the feeling that the guide himself was not pleased. I spoke with length prior to the tour about the importance of having a guide who was young and was comfortable engaging "bored" teens- The Luxor guide was middle aged and not interested in including our teens. For lunch the guide took us to a local buffet - which my husband and I thought was fine. We were even OK with our kids not eating anything since they did not like the looks of it. The Guide noted that our kids were not eating.....But revealed that his plan had us eating at the same place the next day. This made me think that maybe the guide makes money on the lunch spend????
Both tour guides called themselves Egyptologist and they clearly knew all the dates. However, there is more to histories than dates: the people, the story, the impact. We got alot of dates and little story. I kept walking past other groups with guides & the guides were saying really interesting things - but our guides did not say much more than the dates.

What were the most enjoyable or memorable parts of your trip?

The tour guide in Ciaro connected us with one of the camel drivers at the Big Pyramids who cajoled us into silly photos. We felt silly at the time but they gave the entire family a big laugh afterwards.

If you could take your trip again, what would you do differently?

I would hire a different firm to guide us. I blame myself in trusting too much to a friends good experience with using Zicasso.

Travel Company Comments:

Dear Mrs. Julia,
First of all, I would like to that you for taking the time to submit your review about your trip with our company. Your feedback is greatly appreciated as it helps us improving our services and offer better service to our clients in the future.
Herewith, I am pleased to send you my reply to every point you have mentioned in your review:
1. The room's type is already sent to the hotel as one double room and one twin room but this all subjected to the hotel availability, When you arrived to the hotel they offered an extra bed, instead of the twin room according to their availability, I understand this did not meet your expectations of having a room with 2 beds for the children..
In Luxor The twin room was available and you contacted me next day through email stating that you do not like the hotel room in general while this hotel is number 1 in Luxor so I contacted the hotel's front desk manager who was waiting for you after the day tour to make sure you are satisfied with the hotel rooms.
2. Also for the time spent in the airport on the way to Luxor, it is common to show up at the airport enough time before the flight time, while in Cairo Airport there are many places to have meals, do shopping or have some rest before the next flight. So, the Business Lounge was the best choice to spend your time there, as they do offer good snacks. Other places are available for dinner too, so there is a variety of what travelers can do at the airport while waiting for their flights.
3. Luxor tour the next day was delayed upon your request, and I do apologize if the guide came across as not being pleased by this change. I can assure you that was not the case.
4. In regards to the guide, we have selected our best guides, who are very informative and friendly according to the clients' feedback, as we send an evaluation form to all our clients after departure. Ultimately, I felt this was one of our top guides who could you provide you with a quality experience. In the future, I will certainly work with my team to determine which guides may be better suited to work with children/teens versus groups without children/teens.
5. Regarding the restaurants, firstly I reassure you that none of our guides make any money from the clients' meals, our company is very strict in selecting and contracting with the places where we take our clients to, however our team changed the restaurant in the next day when you provided feedback that the food is not good, as we always do our best to satisfy our clients and being extremely flexible with their needs.

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