Your rating of this hotel:
8.0
from 10
Hotel ratings by criteria:
Rooms:
9.0
Service:
8.0
Cleanliness:
9.0
Food:
10.0
Amenities:
9.0
They settled us immediately, despite the fact that we arrived well before 12. Hibiscus was served. The room is huge, though at the very end of a long corridor. The room was given with two beds, and although we asked to be replaced with a room with one double bed, the guide seemed to nod, but the room was not changed. Well, okay.
The telephone in the room (155) did not work, and for all the time, after many requests, it was never repaired - I assume that the cable itself was damaged there, this cable went straight into the wall without an outlet. The room was overlooking the construction site, and although it didn’t matter to us, it even brought some desert romance, for some reason, but the railings and chairs on the balcony were with a decent layer of sand. I waited a couple of days - maybe they will remove it, and in the end I somehow removed it myself. I really wanted to smoke in the evening sitting in an armchair, and not standing up. The sounds of the construction did not bother us, maybe it was carried out only during the day, or maybe it was not carried out at all.
There was no hot water for several days - what I was able to achieve by draining the water for half an hour could be called slightly summer water. On other days the hot water was hot. Our second couple was given room 154, it was overlooking the road and the golden 5 complex, the phone worked and the balcony was clean. Although at first they were frightened when smoke poured into the room - they poisoned mosquitoes on the territory. It is necessary to poison mosquitoes there, as well as it is necessary to take fumigators with you.
The minibar was filled as expected, a bottle of water 0.5 per person per day and some other fanta-cola, which we do not use in principle. And the water was very useful for us for excursions, more on that later.
The food is excellent, varied and tasty. The staff of the restaurants and bars is friendly and unobtrusive, you can take out food - we took out buns and bananas in a backpack before the tour in addition to the breakfasts. They were very useful to us, you will understand this from the next story)) The only thing is that several times at breakfast, when we poured tea not from a teapot, but from large samovars on the table, it turned out to be something highly chlorinated! Carefully! It looks like these samovars are sometimes filled with not just tap water, but also bleach is added - this swill stank so strongly. Although the tea from the teapots, like the rest of the food, was excellent.
True, there were problems with beer - it often runs out and you have to wait until they bring you more. This problem is especially characteristic of the water park bar. My sister loves red wine - by the way, it is very tasty, but it also runs out periodically and only rosé is left, which is so-so, but you can drink it.
The slides in the water park are super, though they close early - at 4 o'clock. You can only find free sunbeds in the water park when many people leave for lunch. Therefore, in the morning we were at the sea, and in the afternoon we came to the water park, looked for free sunbeds and pulled them into a pile. There are always enough sunbeds on the sea, there are an incredible number of them, except that there are not enough protective structures from the wind in windy weather, but oddly enough, we always got them, although we are not particularly early birds.
From sapphire to the sea to go really far! Despite the fact that we basically love to walk. The problem was further complicated by the fact that we were not given towels near the sea! Therefore, they had to be taken in Topaz and to the sea and from the sea to carry with them. And they are very huge, more than I have seen before in other hotels in Turkey and Egypt. Therefore, in the morning after breakfast, we stuffed ourselves into a bus to the beach, which went honestly once every half an hour, and when there were more tourists, even more often, it seemed that he traveled back and forth during peak hours continuously. But! It turns out that the bus driver has a solid lunch break, which starts at 12, so it was impossible to take the bus for lunch. That's why we didn't have lunch. We ate lunch snacks at the beach or water park bar, and it was a pity to waste time traveling back and forth and waiting for buses. We did not try to dine in the restaurants of other hotels: firstly, our guide said that this was not allowed, and secondly, we still need to find them and walk to them through these vast territories, dragging towels with us. The previous review says that they ate everywhere - I don’t know, maybe it’s because they were in winter, when there are not many tourists in principle. Or maybe they would have let us in, but we were too lazy to go. By the way, I do not recommend leaving towels on the trestle beds; when you return, you may not find them on the spot. This happened in this hotel with one couple, it happened in other hotels where I have been, for example, in Forest in Turkey. The poor girl asked me what to do - and what can be done, judge for yourself, except to pay $ 20 for a card or take a couple of towels of a suitable color from some neighboring sunbeds... That is why some people occupy sunbeds not with towels, but with some scarves, which, of course, is not very reliable in terms of filling the trestle bed)) But not $ 40 for towels from a pair. In general, these territories and walking are tired, so next time we will choose a more compact hotel. The territory is huge, but the complex is not very cozy, it seems that none of its “parts” can be called cozy. In the water park you feel like at the station. Although if the presence of slides is very important to you, then the choice in Hurghada is small. The slides are good.
From the beach back to the hotel we managed to leave by bus.
The singing fountain show is an impressive sight for the evening - we went a couple of times. The rest of the animation and discos were not interested.
WiFi. He was at the reception of Sapphire, quite good and free of charge, the first two evenings. Then he disappeared, and disappeared throughout the complex, because my husband went to both Topaz and Paradise, and he was nowhere to be found. From the comedians at the reception, including the system administrator on the phone, nothing could be achieved - the Arabs. Wi-fi never came back until the end of our stay. Once my husband went to a paid Internet cafe, but the Internet there was buggy, much worse than Wi-Fi, and at the same time expensive.
The beach is huge, there are gaps with a sandy entrance, so shoes are not required, although it is desirable - my husband still managed to hurt his foot while looking at the fish above the corals. There are fish, although there were more in Sharm, but here I was lucky to see an absolutely incredible fish with a body length without a tail as much as an elbow, a bright green color, a kind of square hulk. I have not seen such even in the "underwater world".
Weather. March 31, the day of our arrival, it was very windy, so we were cold and we did not even undress. In the following days it was both windy and calm, maybe we got used to it, maybe it got warmer, but we swam and sunbathed quite comfortably. The only thing is that the slides are very high, and while you are climbing the stairs, you are blown by a very invigorating breeze. But in principle, it’s normal) In addition, I am very thermophilic.
The safe in the room was spacious and free of charge, although the tour operator on the site says that it is paid.
The lagoon on the Emerald side is full of sea urchins.
Now about our glorious adventures on excursions from a street agency.
Several times in Turkey I bought excursions exclusively from street agencies, and everything was at the highest level. The previous time in Egypt, we bought tours from a guide, and it was quite expensive, but we had to, because the hotel was on the outskirts and there were simply no street agencies. This time we found one street agency in the district - it is located to the right of Sapphire, almost near the entrance to Lillyland, it was called some kind of safari. We were offered diving for $30 as opposed to $45 for guides, and Luxor for $50 as opposed to $85 for guides. There are four of us - and the savings are significant.
Diving. The transfer was not late, but some very shabby little bus arrived. The ship was large, the same as the hotel ones, but besides the four of us and a couple of Italians, there was a whole crowd of Egyptians on it. We lost our mood a little, you understand. It turns out there was some kind of their spring festival, and they came from Cairo to the sea. But as a result, it turned out that the Egyptians behaved very decently - the capital's people, complete families, did not poke their fingers and did not stare, and, best of all, they were not going to dive. Therefore, this excursion turned out to be very successful, because the instructor had only three people to dive - an Italian and two of ours. You understand, we dived fully twice, and not like the last time at the hotel-guide - one dive and then hastily and two per instructor, because the ship is full and everyone wants to dive. And here every time for almost half an hour, and that's because it's cold at a depth, we just froze. By the way, make sure you take a long-sleeved wetsuit - there are also short-sleeved ones, and they are colder. The instructor was quite professional, although he spoke Russian poorly. All in all, we were very satisfied here. In addition, we saw how the Egyptians bathe in their clothes, how they do not know how to swim, and how fervently their youth plays. Exotic.
Luxor.
It's a whole story. They picked us up in a decent bus and for about half an hour we stood at night on the highway until a large comfortable bus arrived, into which our group of 12 people moved. places, had to wake up from shaking. For about an hour we drove through the desert, but somewhere they lost their way, and the bus got stuck in the sand. Photos are attached.
It happened at 6 o'clock in the morning. At first, we did not mind visiting the pristine desert, but not very intelligent Egyptians buried the bus to the very belly. In general, they committed a lot of unreasonable actions, dug the bus out of one hole and immediately put it into the next one, moving forward for some reason, and not back - to a solid road, besides, it was also downhill forward, and back would be downhill. They absolutely did not want to listen to the advice of our men - they themselves, they say, with a mustache. And with them they did not have not only boards, not only shovels - but not even a single bottle of water! We went to the desert is called. This is where our hotel supply of water from the minibar came in handy, and our banana buns from dinner. We took a decent supply of water and donated 3 bottles to these "workers", although in vain, then we had to buy more ourselves. But then it was still a pity for these unfortunates who furiously dug the bus out of the sand with their bare hands.
Despite our situation, we were in a cheerful mood - and what else was there to do? We made fun of the Egyptians, explored the desert around. With us was a positive-minded couple from Kyiv, and all the other people were lying and sleeping in the bus, since it was not hot yet, they only occasionally went out to look at the desert. This went on until 11 o'clock, when we were already getting bored with it (5 hours passed by the way), and we ourselves called the senior guide "on the ground", despite the expensive roaming. Of course, we turned to the accompanying guide, and he said that everything was being decided, but it turned out that that guide, the base, so to speak, was sleeping at all! - we woke him up! , and it was from us that he learned about our situation. It turns out that the accompanying guide (Ahmet) just lied to us - the Egyptians generally like to lie, this is their usual state.
Half an hour later, the basic guide rushed in with a cargo jeep (see photo), apologized, and loaded us into the back of a jeep! Thank God there was enough space in the cockpit for two elderly women who were in our group - my mother and an Englishwoman. In the back of a jeep, we made a kind of jeep safari through the desert, bouncing on bumps, blown by a sandy breeze. About an hour later, in a roadside cafe, I cleaned my back of sand as best I could, we were treated to free tea and a free bottle of water to choose from (and thanks for that). We spent the next hour waiting for cars, which they promised to take us further to Luxor. During this hour, we found out that we were still on the coast of the sea, although we believed that we were already not far from Luxor - but there is no sea there. Ahmet assured us that we would do everything in time, we would see everything, except that we would return later at night, and not by 10 pm, as promised. OK.
An hour later, three passenger cars arrived, and oh horror, it dawns on Akhmet that we can’t fit in them! Half an hour waiting for another car. Then Akhmet couldn’t seat us in cars for a very long time, he transferred us to one or the other, as a result, I almost lost my things, having already forgotten which car they were in the trunk of. We drive off a couple of meters, stop at a gas station and wait again - the Egyptians are vigorously discussing something and even swearing. It turns out that we are still in front of the police checkpoint! And they have trouble getting through. Why and how it happened is still unclear to us, because the bus got stuck in the desert a kilometer from the highway and far beyond the checkpoint. (We had a jeep and at home we looked at our route on the map) Why they didn’t take us there, but drove us far back across the desert in jeeps is a mystery to us. In the end, in 15-20 minutes we would have gone there even on foot. The only explanation is that some Egyptians are not very smart.
In the end, we are trying to pass this checkpoint, of course there are problems, we fill out the forms of who we are and from which hotels, they still let us in, cheers, we are going to Luxor. The English (two) just do not go, they demanded to take them back, and we were persistently convinced that we still had time to do everything. But in Luxor, in the cafe where we were supposed to have lunch, we ended up only at 16 o'clock. We were met by a guide who spoke Russian very well, was very polite, asked to stay overnight in Luxor at the hotel at their expense with dinner at their expense. In addition, all museums are already closed at 16-30. We had no choice but to agree, since the thought of immediately going back and spending another 4 hours on the road seemed unbearable. The guide also promised us that tomorrow she will be with us, will conduct only historical excursions, no shops, and immediately after lunch we will go back and be at the hotel no later than 17-00.
We were brought to the First-class hotel, not far from the waterfront, 3 stars, you can sleep. They immediately apologized for the promised free dinner - it will not be, you are charged five dollars for dinner. However, we did not want to have dinner, we just had a late lunch) and we went for an evening walk around Luxor, each on his own naturally. We got unforgettable impressions from a walk in a carriage with a horse - I don’t know what it’s called. But it was very nice, the Egyptian grandfather took us around their slums and in the center of Luxor, we all looked from the safe comfort of the tent (I didn’t take pants with me, and my dress, which is not at all short by our standards, aroused the keen interest of their slum kids, I managed to make sure of this, walking from the hotel along the street to the embankment). This kind Egyptian grandfather spoke excellent Russian, constantly told something, one might say he gave a good tour, but in the end, hmm... he deceived, which is what all Egyptians strive for. We bargained for $4, and at the end he looked offended and said that he meant $4 for half an hour, but he rode us for an hour and a half, so we owe him much more. It must be said that on the way this cunning woman took her brother, who was also very talkative and good-natured, to her "driver's seat", but in the end he also turned out to be very offended. In general, we did not dare to argue. It happens that you can do it. But our second Kyiv couple turned out to be very competent tourists - they rode strictly stipulated half an hour, but for 4 pounds! We learned about this at a meager breakfast at this First-class hotel, the breakfast of which cannot be called breakfast.
After this “breakfast” with a decent bus, we were met by a completely different Egyptian guide, and not the one who was yesterday, she promised and spoke Russian well. This one hardly spoke Russian. She spoke in such a way that it was impossible to listen, and even more so to understand something. As a result, we looked at Luxor, but there were simply no excursions as such.
This Egyptian woman was surprised and again "offended" that we didn't want any shops. (After all, they receive a commission from this). On this occasion, we had an almost hour-long argument in the bus, during which she even used the words “this is not my problem. ” Along the way, we learned that she was not going to send us back for lunch, so that we would be at the hotel at 17:00, but she was going to only send us from Luxor at 17:00. This is the usual time of departure from Luxor for all tourists, and it is understandable that they wanted to save money - put us on some bus, and before that, drag us around the shops as expected, and also take us to some island, collecting an additional $ 10 per person. But we violently opposed this with the whole world and insisted on our own. She was very offended and dissatisfied.
The telephone in the room (155) did not work, and for all the time, after many requests, it was never repaired - I assume that the cable itself was damaged there, this cable went straight into the wall without an outlet. The room was overlooking the construction site, and although it didn’t matter to us, it even brought some desert romance, for some reason, but the railings and chairs on the balcony were with a decent layer of sand. I waited a couple of days - maybe they will remove it, and in the end I somehow removed it myself. I really wanted to smoke in the evening sitting in an armchair, and not standing up. The sounds of the construction did not bother us, maybe it was carried out only during the day, or maybe it was not carried out at all.
There was no hot water for several days - what I was able to achieve by draining the water for half an hour could be called slightly summer water. On other days the hot water was hot. Our second couple was given room 154, it was overlooking the road and the golden 5 complex, the phone worked and the balcony was clean. Although at first they were frightened when smoke poured into the room - they poisoned mosquitoes on the territory. It is necessary to poison mosquitoes there, as well as it is necessary to take fumigators with you.
The minibar was filled as expected, a bottle of water 0.5 per person per day and some other fanta-cola, which we do not use in principle. And the water was very useful for us for excursions, more on that later.
The food is excellent, varied and tasty. The staff of the restaurants and bars is friendly and unobtrusive, you can take out food - we took out buns and bananas in a backpack before the tour in addition to the breakfasts. They were very useful to us, you will understand this from the next story)) The only thing is that several times at breakfast, when we poured tea not from a teapot, but from large samovars on the table, it turned out to be something highly chlorinated! Carefully! It looks like these samovars are sometimes filled with not just tap water, but also bleach is added - this swill stank so strongly. Although the tea from the teapots, like the rest of the food, was excellent.
True, there were problems with beer - it often runs out and you have to wait until they bring you more. This problem is especially characteristic of the water park bar. My sister loves red wine - by the way, it is very tasty, but it also runs out periodically and only rosé is left, which is so-so, but you can drink it.
The slides in the water park are super, though they close early - at 4 o'clock. You can only find free sunbeds in the water park when many people leave for lunch. Therefore, in the morning we were at the sea, and in the afternoon we came to the water park, looked for free sunbeds and pulled them into a pile. There are always enough sunbeds on the sea, there are an incredible number of them, except that there are not enough protective structures from the wind in windy weather, but oddly enough, we always got them, although we are not particularly early birds.
From sapphire to the sea to go really far! Despite the fact that we basically love to walk. The problem was further complicated by the fact that we were not given towels near the sea! Therefore, they had to be taken in Topaz and to the sea and from the sea to carry with them. And they are very huge, more than I have seen before in other hotels in Turkey and Egypt. Therefore, in the morning after breakfast, we stuffed ourselves into a bus to the beach, which went honestly once every half an hour, and when there were more tourists, even more often, it seemed that he traveled back and forth during peak hours continuously. But! It turns out that the bus driver has a solid lunch break, which starts at 12, so it was impossible to take the bus for lunch. That's why we didn't have lunch. We ate lunch snacks at the beach or water park bar, and it was a pity to waste time traveling back and forth and waiting for buses. We did not try to dine in the restaurants of other hotels: firstly, our guide said that this was not allowed, and secondly, we still need to find them and walk to them through these vast territories, dragging towels with us. The previous review says that they ate everywhere - I don’t know, maybe it’s because they were in winter, when there are not many tourists in principle. Or maybe they would have let us in, but we were too lazy to go. By the way, I do not recommend leaving towels on the trestle beds; when you return, you may not find them on the spot. This happened in this hotel with one couple, it happened in other hotels where I have been, for example, in Forest in Turkey. The poor girl asked me what to do - and what can be done, judge for yourself, except to pay $ 20 for a card or take a couple of towels of a suitable color from some neighboring sunbeds... That is why some people occupy sunbeds not with towels, but with some scarves, which, of course, is not very reliable in terms of filling the trestle bed)) But not $ 40 for towels from a pair. In general, these territories and walking are tired, so next time we will choose a more compact hotel. The territory is huge, but the complex is not very cozy, it seems that none of its “parts” can be called cozy. In the water park you feel like at the station. Although if the presence of slides is very important to you, then the choice in Hurghada is small. The slides are good.
From the beach back to the hotel we managed to leave by bus.
The singing fountain show is an impressive sight for the evening - we went a couple of times. The rest of the animation and discos were not interested.
WiFi. He was at the reception of Sapphire, quite good and free of charge, the first two evenings. Then he disappeared, and disappeared throughout the complex, because my husband went to both Topaz and Paradise, and he was nowhere to be found. From the comedians at the reception, including the system administrator on the phone, nothing could be achieved - the Arabs. Wi-fi never came back until the end of our stay. Once my husband went to a paid Internet cafe, but the Internet there was buggy, much worse than Wi-Fi, and at the same time expensive.
The beach is huge, there are gaps with a sandy entrance, so shoes are not required, although it is desirable - my husband still managed to hurt his foot while looking at the fish above the corals. There are fish, although there were more in Sharm, but here I was lucky to see an absolutely incredible fish with a body length without a tail as much as an elbow, a bright green color, a kind of square hulk. I have not seen such even in the "underwater world".
Weather. March 31, the day of our arrival, it was very windy, so we were cold and we did not even undress. In the following days it was both windy and calm, maybe we got used to it, maybe it got warmer, but we swam and sunbathed quite comfortably. The only thing is that the slides are very high, and while you are climbing the stairs, you are blown by a very invigorating breeze. But in principle, it’s normal) In addition, I am very thermophilic.
The safe in the room was spacious and free of charge, although the tour operator on the site says that it is paid.
The lagoon on the Emerald side is full of sea urchins.
Now about our glorious adventures on excursions from a street agency.
Several times in Turkey I bought excursions exclusively from street agencies, and everything was at the highest level. The previous time in Egypt, we bought tours from a guide, and it was quite expensive, but we had to, because the hotel was on the outskirts and there were simply no street agencies. This time we found one street agency in the district - it is located to the right of Sapphire, almost near the entrance to Lillyland, it was called some kind of safari. We were offered diving for $30 as opposed to $45 for guides, and Luxor for $50 as opposed to $85 for guides. There are four of us - and the savings are significant.
Diving. The transfer was not late, but some very shabby little bus arrived. The ship was large, the same as the hotel ones, but besides the four of us and a couple of Italians, there was a whole crowd of Egyptians on it. We lost our mood a little, you understand. It turns out there was some kind of their spring festival, and they came from Cairo to the sea. But as a result, it turned out that the Egyptians behaved very decently - the capital's people, complete families, did not poke their fingers and did not stare, and, best of all, they were not going to dive. Therefore, this excursion turned out to be very successful, because the instructor had only three people to dive - an Italian and two of ours. You understand, we dived fully twice, and not like the last time at the hotel-guide - one dive and then hastily and two per instructor, because the ship is full and everyone wants to dive. And here every time for almost half an hour, and that's because it's cold at a depth, we just froze. By the way, make sure you take a long-sleeved wetsuit - there are also short-sleeved ones, and they are colder. The instructor was quite professional, although he spoke Russian poorly. All in all, we were very satisfied here. In addition, we saw how the Egyptians bathe in their clothes, how they do not know how to swim, and how fervently their youth plays. Exotic.
Luxor.
It's a whole story. They picked us up in a decent bus and for about half an hour we stood at night on the highway until a large comfortable bus arrived, into which our group of 12 people moved. places, had to wake up from shaking. For about an hour we drove through the desert, but somewhere they lost their way, and the bus got stuck in the sand. Photos are attached.
It happened at 6 o'clock in the morning. At first, we did not mind visiting the pristine desert, but not very intelligent Egyptians buried the bus to the very belly. In general, they committed a lot of unreasonable actions, dug the bus out of one hole and immediately put it into the next one, moving forward for some reason, and not back - to a solid road, besides, it was also downhill forward, and back would be downhill. They absolutely did not want to listen to the advice of our men - they themselves, they say, with a mustache. And with them they did not have not only boards, not only shovels - but not even a single bottle of water! We went to the desert is called. This is where our hotel supply of water from the minibar came in handy, and our banana buns from dinner. We took a decent supply of water and donated 3 bottles to these "workers", although in vain, then we had to buy more ourselves. But then it was still a pity for these unfortunates who furiously dug the bus out of the sand with their bare hands.
Despite our situation, we were in a cheerful mood - and what else was there to do? We made fun of the Egyptians, explored the desert around. With us was a positive-minded couple from Kyiv, and all the other people were lying and sleeping in the bus, since it was not hot yet, they only occasionally went out to look at the desert. This went on until 11 o'clock, when we were already getting bored with it (5 hours passed by the way), and we ourselves called the senior guide "on the ground", despite the expensive roaming. Of course, we turned to the accompanying guide, and he said that everything was being decided, but it turned out that that guide, the base, so to speak, was sleeping at all! - we woke him up! , and it was from us that he learned about our situation. It turns out that the accompanying guide (Ahmet) just lied to us - the Egyptians generally like to lie, this is their usual state.
Half an hour later, the basic guide rushed in with a cargo jeep (see photo), apologized, and loaded us into the back of a jeep! Thank God there was enough space in the cockpit for two elderly women who were in our group - my mother and an Englishwoman. In the back of a jeep, we made a kind of jeep safari through the desert, bouncing on bumps, blown by a sandy breeze. About an hour later, in a roadside cafe, I cleaned my back of sand as best I could, we were treated to free tea and a free bottle of water to choose from (and thanks for that). We spent the next hour waiting for cars, which they promised to take us further to Luxor. During this hour, we found out that we were still on the coast of the sea, although we believed that we were already not far from Luxor - but there is no sea there. Ahmet assured us that we would do everything in time, we would see everything, except that we would return later at night, and not by 10 pm, as promised. OK.
An hour later, three passenger cars arrived, and oh horror, it dawns on Akhmet that we can’t fit in them! Half an hour waiting for another car. Then Akhmet couldn’t seat us in cars for a very long time, he transferred us to one or the other, as a result, I almost lost my things, having already forgotten which car they were in the trunk of. We drive off a couple of meters, stop at a gas station and wait again - the Egyptians are vigorously discussing something and even swearing. It turns out that we are still in front of the police checkpoint! And they have trouble getting through. Why and how it happened is still unclear to us, because the bus got stuck in the desert a kilometer from the highway and far beyond the checkpoint. (We had a jeep and at home we looked at our route on the map) Why they didn’t take us there, but drove us far back across the desert in jeeps is a mystery to us. In the end, in 15-20 minutes we would have gone there even on foot. The only explanation is that some Egyptians are not very smart.
In the end, we are trying to pass this checkpoint, of course there are problems, we fill out the forms of who we are and from which hotels, they still let us in, cheers, we are going to Luxor. The English (two) just do not go, they demanded to take them back, and we were persistently convinced that we still had time to do everything. But in Luxor, in the cafe where we were supposed to have lunch, we ended up only at 16 o'clock. We were met by a guide who spoke Russian very well, was very polite, asked to stay overnight in Luxor at the hotel at their expense with dinner at their expense. In addition, all museums are already closed at 16-30. We had no choice but to agree, since the thought of immediately going back and spending another 4 hours on the road seemed unbearable. The guide also promised us that tomorrow she will be with us, will conduct only historical excursions, no shops, and immediately after lunch we will go back and be at the hotel no later than 17-00.
We were brought to the First-class hotel, not far from the waterfront, 3 stars, you can sleep. They immediately apologized for the promised free dinner - it will not be, you are charged five dollars for dinner. However, we did not want to have dinner, we just had a late lunch) and we went for an evening walk around Luxor, each on his own naturally. We got unforgettable impressions from a walk in a carriage with a horse - I don’t know what it’s called. But it was very nice, the Egyptian grandfather took us around their slums and in the center of Luxor, we all looked from the safe comfort of the tent (I didn’t take pants with me, and my dress, which is not at all short by our standards, aroused the keen interest of their slum kids, I managed to make sure of this, walking from the hotel along the street to the embankment). This kind Egyptian grandfather spoke excellent Russian, constantly told something, one might say he gave a good tour, but in the end, hmm... he deceived, which is what all Egyptians strive for. We bargained for $4, and at the end he looked offended and said that he meant $4 for half an hour, but he rode us for an hour and a half, so we owe him much more. It must be said that on the way this cunning woman took her brother, who was also very talkative and good-natured, to her "driver's seat", but in the end he also turned out to be very offended. In general, we did not dare to argue. It happens that you can do it. But our second Kyiv couple turned out to be very competent tourists - they rode strictly stipulated half an hour, but for 4 pounds! We learned about this at a meager breakfast at this First-class hotel, the breakfast of which cannot be called breakfast.
After this “breakfast” with a decent bus, we were met by a completely different Egyptian guide, and not the one who was yesterday, she promised and spoke Russian well. This one hardly spoke Russian. She spoke in such a way that it was impossible to listen, and even more so to understand something. As a result, we looked at Luxor, but there were simply no excursions as such.
This Egyptian woman was surprised and again "offended" that we didn't want any shops. (After all, they receive a commission from this). On this occasion, we had an almost hour-long argument in the bus, during which she even used the words “this is not my problem. ” Along the way, we learned that she was not going to send us back for lunch, so that we would be at the hotel at 17:00, but she was going to only send us from Luxor at 17:00. This is the usual time of departure from Luxor for all tourists, and it is understandable that they wanted to save money - put us on some bus, and before that, drag us around the shops as expected, and also take us to some island, collecting an additional $ 10 per person. But we violently opposed this with the whole world and insisted on our own. She was very offended and dissatisfied.
Translated automatically from Russian. View original
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