Just completed the 11 day trip to Egypt, it was actually 8 days with a tour guide, 2 days were flying there and first night in hotel and 1 day is the return flight day. The pickup and trip back to airport were impressive (tho expensive $80). Except on pickup my guide made me feel really guilty for not have any US dollars for the Egypt visa. No mention if this was made in the itinerary notes. It did mention having single dollar bills “to make tipping easier”and small denominations of local currency, again for tipping. So I chose to bring the local currency as I had spent three weeks in Greece prior to this and I had no dollars left. My Guide seemed flummoxed that I didnt have the $24. Finally I said I have a credit card Surely they take credit cards. He seemed unsure.And sure enough they did. Since returning home, I re- read the travel documentation and nowhere could I find a mention of bringing US dollars specifically for the Egypt visa.So this should be included right in the itinerary. The horrifying part of the trip for me was having to get up at 2:45am one day and 4:15am 3 other days. Only one of these was mentioned as an “early morning start”. The 2:45am morning was listed as “After breakfast”. Another was “leave for airport for flight to Cairo. I’m 78 and really value my sleep and part of vacation for me is sleeping til at least 7 or 8 in the morning. To me “early morning” means 7-8 rather than 10! If the itinerary had mentioned the real times I would not even have considered this tour! With these kinds of times, i feel I have a right to know them ahead of time. During the last 2 days of the tour I developed my first cold in years and I’m sure the lack of sleep contributed to lowering my immune system. I checked Air Egypt flights and they were later ones. They also had late afternoon ones, and in both cases of the early morning we had no sight seeing on the evenings before, do we could have flown the evening before! When I told the guide that such early Mornings are not OK with me, he just shrugged as if it was out of his hands that someone else is making those decisions.He didn’t say who to give feedback to.Now to the guide, he was very well informed, very patient, sometimes a little arrogant, eg when i asked him a followup question about which 6 countries had helped fund and carry out moving blocks of abu simbel stones. He said you were not listening and told me again the names of the 2 guys that had done something else. When he realized i was asking about his earlier statement, where he d only told us 2 of the 6 countries that had contributed he did not apologize for his earlier statement. He often smoked around us, tho usually outdoors, and would constantly cough into the “whisper”microphone. Really, he should at least switch off his microphone when he does his smokers cough. Otherwise he was fine and his indepth knowledge really added to the trip.
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