Egypt Trip- General Overview, Logistics and Tips

I’ll use this first post to give an overview of our nine (9) night trip to Egypt (including a one night stop over in Istanbul, Turkey) and some general tips. I will then follow up with a series of posts breaking down what we did in each region that we visited (or at least that’s the plan).

The main regions/cities we visited were:

• Istanbul, Turkey (1 night)
• Cairo/Giza (2 nights)
• Aswan (2 nights)
• Luxor (3 nights)
• Cairo (1 night)

Getting to Egypt from Jamaica

We took the route:

• Kingston-NYC
• NYC-Istanbul
• Istanbul-Cairo
• Cairo-NYC (via Istanbul)- Kingston.

We booked Kingston to NYC as one return ticket (with JetBlue), then NYC to Cairo and back (via Turkish Airlines) as a separate ticket. For Jamaican passport holders Turkey requires an e-visa which has a simple application process and costs USD $20. Egypt requires that nearly every nationality get a visa. Some, including Jamaican passport holders (with US Visas) are eligible for USD$25 visa on arrival.

Getting around in Egypt

• As usual, we booked transfers to and from the airports in advance. Fortunately most of our tranfers were included in our tour package.
• We booked the transfers to and from Cairo airport on our last night (not included in our package) with Easy Tranfer 24/7.
• We took two internal flights with Egypt Air, for which we booked the tickets in advance.:
  • Cairo to Aswan
  • Luxor to Cairo
• Our package covered all other ground (and boat) transportation.

Where we stayed

This trip being a group trip, we decided to go the route of strictly hotels rather than the hotel/apartment hybrid option that we’ve taken on other trips. Having hotel amenities such as 24 hour reception and concierge services is always a plus.

Usually we’d book some of these options with  Booking.com so that we could take advantage of the free cancellation feature. However, since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic several hotels started, and now continue to, offer free cancellation policies even when booking with them directly. This worked out to our advantage during this trip, since we were able to secure some of the hotels super early and at the best rates. On this trip we were able to cancel the original hotel we had booked for our last night in Cairo, and book into a nicer hotel for a lower price!

Istanbul

I decided to take advantage of the Turkish Airlines stopover programme. The programme offers passengers transiting through Istanbul the opportunity to spend some time in the city on the way to their final destination.  Economy Class passengers may be booked for one night stay in a 4-star hotel, Business Class passengers may stay two nights in a 5-star hotel free of charge. Flights originating in the USA have the benefit of up to two or three nights as economy/business class passengers. We were booked into the Armada Hotel Istanbul. I speak more about this in this post.

Cairo

In Cairo we stayed at the Mariott Mena House Hotel. The Mariott Mena is quite possibly the best situated hotel in Giza. The grounds are stunning and there is an unbeatable view of the Great Pyramids, which appear to be a stone’s throw away from the property.

We didn’t stay in Cairo itself, but rather in the Giza plateau, on the western side of the Nile. Given our itinerary, this is what worked best for us since we did not plan to do much in central Cairo. This also meant that we were able to avoid a lot of traffic going to and from the sights.

Aswan

In Awan, we stayed at the Sofitel Legend Old Cataract Hotel. The Old Cataract Hotel certainly oozes character and old world charm. The location and amenities are also top tier which made this selection a big win for us. This iconic hotel is where Agatha Christie penned her famous novel “Death on the Nile”, and has frequented by many other persons of note including Winston Churchill and royalty from across the Middle East and Europe.

I will admit that when I first saw the room rates, my eyes watered a little, but ultimately it was worth it. I can say without reservation that it’s hands down the best hotel I’ve stayed in thus far. Booking super early here, and by that I mean like 9-10 months in advance, definitely worked to our advantage. We were able to take advanted of a special rate offer the hotel was running at the time, and then also beat the price hike that came later down in the year. If time (and budget) had allowed, I could have easily chosen to spend another night or two here.

Luxor

In Luxor we stayed at the Hilton Luxor Resort and Spa. Like Aswan, our hotel here was located right on the banks of the Nile. I had orinally booked a regular room, but I got upgraded at check-in to a room with a view. That said, the rooms here were the least spacious across the hotels we stayed at.

Cairo

For the last night, we stayed at the Hyatt Regency Cairo West, also located in Giza. This turned out to be a great choice as one of the best rated restaurants in Cairo, Barranco, is located on site, and so we had dinner there. We had originally booked in at the Le Meridian airport hotel, which is RIGHT beside the airport- there is literally a covered bridge connecting the hotel and the airport. However the Hyatt Regency was brand new, with better rates and amenties, so we couldn’t resist trying it out.

What we did in Istanbul

I wrote more on our stop in Istanbul in my previous post, so I won’t delve into it here.

What we did in Egypt

Our major activities/tours included, among other things:

• Day 1-Main sights of Cairo- Citadel, Coptic and Islamic Cairo, Khan el Khalil market, Central Cairo
• Day 2-Main sights of Giza- The Great Pyramids, The Sphinx
• Day 3-Aswan- Philae Temple, Nubian Village (by boat)
• Day 4- Day trip to Abu Simbel
• Day 5 -Road trip from Aswan to Luxor including stop at the Edfu temple complex
• Day 6- Luxor- Hot air balloon ride, Karnak temple, Luxor temple
• Day 7- Main sights of Luxor-Valley of the Kings, Hatshepsut’s Temple,
• Day 8- Hotel day

I will do more posts further breaking down the details of our activities.

Tour Guide

We are usually are the type of travellers that build and coordinate our itinerary from scratch. That is to say my friend Gina and I usually do the planning and execution of behalf of the group. However there are several reasons we decided to go in another direction for this trip and hire a guide– Mina Samir. Egypt is the sort of destination that lends itself to it, especially with the complexity of our itinerary.

We curated the stops and researched and booked our own hotels, while our guide coordinated the logistics on the ground (transportation, entrance tickets etc). Also there were more “formal” tours than we usually do during this trip. We typically do a lot of self-guided wandering around, with a few excursions sprinkled in. This trip was activity-heavy, which involved a lot more transportation coordination, entrance tickets to several site in a day etc. By having our guide deal with this, we were able to cover a lot of ground efficiently.

I cannot recommend our tour guide enough. Mina is very responsive and accomodating, and the team he works with are top notch. On our first day in Cairo we toured with Dooa who took us around the sights of Islamic and Coptic Cairo. Our day at the Giza sights (pyramids etc) was spent with Mina, who also doubled as our photographer. Then our time in Aswan and Luxor was spent with our Egyptologist Sam, who we LOVED. While this is not a must, really enhances the experience of the site visits, and I would highly recommend engaging one. Also included in our package were the professional photos that Mina’s team took of us at the Pyramids.

What we didn’t do

I would have never imagined that I would visit Egypt and not go to the (still not fully opened) Grand Egyptian Museum or the The Museum of Antiquities in Cairo, having been on my must-do list for such a long time. However there simply wasn’t enough time. To be honest though, I honestly didn’t leave feeling unfulfilled at all. The sights I saw; the monuments, the tombs, the temples, history still existing in its original place, more than made up for that somehow.

The only other thing I wish that I could have done, was a snorkel/dive in the Red Sea. The Red Sea is said to have some of the best reef diving left in the world. Again, this would have added at least two more days to the itinerary, which wasn’t possible. I can’t think of anything from the rest of the trip that I would have traded in order to do that, so I honestly have no regrets.

Photography/Videography

So for those of you who had been following along with our social media accounts, you would have noticed the awesome photos we had while in Upper Egypt (Aswan and Luxor), as well as that video. We actually had an Egyptian cinematographer and filmaker Abdrahman Aldakiki (Abdra) along with with us for a few days. You can check out his work here Abdrafilms/Dakiki Productions. Among other things, Abdra works on travel film-making and content creation.
So we hadn’t initially intended to do a whole production. What we had actually been trying to find was photographers at Abu Simbel and the Luxor temples to help us capture photos with the scale and grandeur of the monuments, as opposed to just phone photos. We had stumbled across Abdra quite by accident. However after engaging in conversation with him and dividing his quoted fees among the eight of us, it was pretty reasonable so we decided to go for it!

This is the result:

As you can imagine, we were more than pleased, and we’d recommend Abdra and team to anyone. They are based in Cairo, but will travel around the country as needed.

What to pack /packing tips

• Always remember your sunscreen!
• I always have a hat.
• Try as much as possible to have outfits that keep keep shoulders covered when you’re going to be out in the direct sun a lot. Or at least have something to throw over them if need be.
• Be sure to have at least one universal adapter.
• I’ll always put in a plug for Packing cubes!
• You will need a power bank for those long days away from your charger.

General Tips

• Regarding clothes- Sleeveless, shorts etc are fine in the more touristy areas including Giza. In Cairo itself, dress modestly as there are restrictions at some of the religious sites, and also to avoid unwanted attention.
• Join each hotel group’s membership program (World of Hyatt, Mariott Bonvoy etc). In most cases it means automatic discount on rates when booking. This is also how you will see what the best rates are.
• Keep smaller local bills on hand for tipping- there will be a lot of tipping. You will also need to pay (very marginal fee) for access to the bathrooms at many of the sites.
• Carry crisp notes for exchange- the banks don’t accept crumpled/damaged/any worn or torn notes, so the locals don’t want them either.
• Exchange currency coveniently at the bank branch located just before immigration in the Cairo airport.
• Give yourself enough time at the airports, there are a couple more layers of security to go through.

Stay tuned for the next post detailing our time in Cairo and the Giza Plateau!