The Difference One Day Can Make
Hello to everyone from Luxor. We are SOOOOOOO thrilled to be out of Hurghada. It was basically just not our scene at all.
For our final time in Alexandria we had a great day doing a walking tour and spent quite some time in a cafe talking with a British man who is studying for one year in Egypt. He gave us some good advice for lunch, our walk, etc. We must have walked 7 miles that day and covered all of downtown and were absolutely beat that night. We ended up just going around the corner from our hotel to get a pizza and some snacks for the travel day the next day. The guys at the restaurant were great, just a little sidewalk hole in the wall and we got salad and 2 individual pizzas for about $9 and we had a good time talking to them.
Our travel day to Hurghada was long but went well. It was a 3hr train ride back to Cairo where we ended up with a 3 hour wait in the bus station. They’re redoing it and none of the shops or snack bars are open yet but it’s going to be really nice when they’re done with it. With people watching the time went quickly. In the course of this trip Jim and I have figured out we are masters at wasting time!
From there we took a 6hr bus trip to Hurghada. The Superjet buses are 1st class and the trip went smoothly. It was a full bus and we enjoyed talking to a family that are Egyptian but live in Texas now. The scenery looks like Mars. Truly, the desert in Egypt is nothing like anything in the states that I’ve seen. There is not a shrub, cactus, piece of grass, just nothing but sand and dunes for hundreds of miles.
We arrived in Hurghada at around 8:30pm and then the fun (not) started. We were using a week of Jim’s parents timeshare through RCI. We’ve used the Worldmark properties many times, including for Fiji and twice in Australia on this trip and they’ve always been just amazing, great resorts, great service, full kitchens, the whole bit. RCI is affiliated with Worldmark but a whole different world. Jim first got flak from the security when he just went in to make sure we were at the right resort (they have 3 in Hurghada). He finally got to reception and HE had to find our name on the list because they couldn’t find it. Then, he came out to get me and the cab to go in and we couldn’t get the security to even open the gate and let us in without a big thing. Then, of course, the taxi driver felt he needed twice the agreed upon fare because he’d had to wait 10minutes (but then, you already know what we think of Egyptian cabbies). We finally got to reception together and they were not going to let us check in, even with our name on the list, the confirmation # , AND passports showing our names because we didn’t have the voucher. The problem was, we had booked the resort on the phone and they mailed (not emailed) the voucher to Jim’s parents. Since we were in India in the time we couldn’t get the real thing and the scanned copy never printed well but, we’ve never been denied a hotel room because of no voucher before! We finally had to get the manager involved and advised him it wasn’t easily readable but we’d email him what we had gotten the next day.
The next shock was the room. Instead of a 1bdrm condo, what we thought we had paid for, we got a nice hotel room with a tiny shower and balcony with great view over the pool and a queen bed as well as a connecting room with 2 twin beds, a fridge and a sink. No microwave, no dishes, no cutlery, nothing. So much for the “partial kitchen in all rooms” The really silly part was that the 2nd room had no bathroom but actually had it’s own room # and door!!! As if they could rent it on it’s own with no bathroom available anywhere??!! So odd. On top of that the minifridge and tv didn’t work. So, 5 phone calls and FOUR hours later it finally got resolved.
Anyway, Hurghada, turns out, is sort of like Cancun on acid. Very touristy and upscale looking but with few internet cafes and NO bookstores with books or magazines, a first so far on this trip. There are no Americans here(in fact, the locals whom we’d spoken to would yell “hey americans” when Jim and I would walk past), almost no independent travelers at all, and about 97% of all travelers here are Russians and the occasional European on charter flights with all-inclusive packages so just getting a drink at the Sindbad resorts was a challenge because we didn’t have an all-inclusive band and they never had change, etc.
The pool was lovely, but so cold we never really got in it. We did spend most of the days at the beach resort Sindbad across the street. Now, keep in mind we are REALLY spoiled with beaches on this trip, so, when I say this beach wasn’t great it doesn’t mean it was bad..but it certainly was not Australia or Vietnam or Thailand or India or even Bali! It was very small and jampacked with people. The good news of that was the fantastic people watching. The Russians have a very interesting fashion statement going on…basically they look like we did in the USA in the late 80’s / early 90’s with big hair, too tight, short clothes, handbags in metallic colors, etc. Really a good time watching everyone.
We are more laid back beach shack type of travelers and so Hurghada was basically just much too built up to be a favorite of ours. The water, however, in the Red Sea is really gorgeous turquoise. It was a bit chilly but other than that had very good visibility. We did take a one day snorkeling trip but it was really windy so made snorkeling mostly impossible. There had been sandstorms throughout Egypt the day before and it still hadn’t fully died down. What we did see underwater was great though:)
Getting a bus ticket to Luxor was yet another hassle. We asked the taxi driver to bring us to the Superjet office(and we knew where it was because we came in there) and , of course, he took us somewhere else where his buddy worked. When we said we wanted Superjet he said they didn’t go to Luxor, only Cairo. We said we still wanted to go check it out and imagine that, Superjet DOES go to Luxor and we got tickets with no problem.
Our final experience of no fun with the hotel was when we asked if they could print off one page of an email of ours if we sent it to them. We had booked our hotel in Luxor for today on asiarooms.com and needed to print the voucher. One internet cafe didn’t have printers, the next had a printer we couldn’t get to work, etc. So, we asked at the hotel. 4 different employees told it was impossible for them to print anything. We asked for the manager and were told he wasn’t available.So, we wait for the client services rep. who assures us they can do it but we need to email it to the hotel and then she can print it. So, we email it and she tells us to speak to one guy, he says he can’t do it and to talk to her, then they say they didn’t receive it even though it didn’t come back to us and we verified the email address. Around and around we went until finally Jim got really pissed and demanded to speak to the manager and right now. He was able to print it off for us but again, that simple 1 page printing process took us 4 hours of hassling. In all of the hotels in 33 countries we’ve traveled to we have never had such horrific customer service.
So, glad we were to leave Hurghada today to take a 3 1/2hr bus ride to Luxor. In an odd twist it was the exact same driver that took us from Cairo to Hurghada who drove us to to Luxor today. There were only 3 of us on the bus and Jim spent some time speaking to the other passenger, George, who is from Luxor but actually works at the Sindbad in Hurghada. Ha ha, he told him about our problems there (George works in the kitchen) and he agreed the front desk/ reception employees are a disaster.
Upon arrival in Luxor we got a quick cab to the St Joseph Hotel. It got rave reviews on traveladvisor.com and in Lonely Planet and we can see why. It is a basic 3 star hotel.We got a room with a balcony with a Nile view and the staff spoke great English and were extremely helpful with info on what was available on site. Breakfast is included so for $41/night we’re happy campers! The minifridge works and we were immediately much happier than we’d been for the entire last week!
It’s hot today in Luxor, around 100 or so although it’s cooled off nicely this afternoon. After we checked in we headed right to the Thomas Cook office to get our sleeping train booked to Cairo. They were also very helpful there and we are all set for the train so it’s official- we have no more reservations to make!!! We’re really, really excited about that. Over the course of this trip we’ve made hundreds and hundreds of hotel and transportation arrangements and we are tired!!! So, we have everything reserved until we meet the safari group in Nairobi on 19April and they’ll take care of us from there. Our hotels in Cape Town and Frankfurt, where we’re overnighting on the way home, are all confirmed and all of our flights are done. WHEW, we’re not going to know what to do with ourselves without all the planning!
Anyway, Luxor is beautiful and we have some sightseeing planned that we didn’t get to do with the Grand European tour and our hotel has a lovely little pool and restaurant on the roof overlooking the Nile so we’re just going to get happy with Egypt again for our last week! Hard to believe it’s only 1 more days before we are on safari, the one thing we most wanted to do on this trip.
We hope you are all happy & healthy and look forward to seeing everyone in only 2 1/2 months! Lots of love, Jim & Rhonda
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