Rob Steele

Feb 26, 2025

Cairo, Alexandra and a Nile Cruise" – 11 nights with Titan / Saga. 13-02-25

My actual rating would be 7 out of 10. Overall the trip went very well, good journey from home with a car picking me up & transporting me from Cumbria to Heathrow & an adequate flight to Cairo with Egypt-Air. Met by our Tour Manager, Mr Ayman on arrival & transferred to our hotel. Hotel Swiss Inn Pyramids Resort was good Included Tours of The Pyramids & Alexandria were adequate Internal Transfer to Luxor was OK if necessartating a 02.15 wake up. Our ship, The Nile Plaza was wonderful & the cruise fantastic with wonderful food, decent cabins & excellent staff. The included trips were well organised The flight home was OK with nice car & driver to take me back home. Pro’s Professional Tour Manager & knowledgeable Egyptologist for the duration of the trip. Decent hotel Excellent Nile Cruise ship serving fantastic food and excellent facilities including massage provided by very provisional masseur / masseuse Con’s Cairo hotel poorly located in October 5th City Scheduled trips often rearranged, possibly to generate time for optional extra money ones? Optional trips sold at very high prices. 3 unscheduled time consuming trips, an Alabaster outlet (This causing a lack of time at The ValleyoftheKing's), an essential oils outlet & a Papyrus outlet – Prices in all 3 were exorbitantly high. Tour Manager & Egyptologist Tip expectation level of $60 / $80 each per person from a group of 35 high (But the same as reccomend in the blurb) – Even at the lower figure the tip alone (Without commission from the outlets & optional tours etc) works out at almost the ANNUAL salary of a Civil Engineer in cash for 10 days work – Source timedoctor.com/ Overall summery Overall the trip offers excellent value for money, especially the pick-up & return home by car (Only one diversion to collect a couple en-route, total journey 8 hours Cumbria to Heathrow including stops) The trips included in the package were excellent as were the Hotel & Nile Cruiser. The group size of 35 was somewhat high but I’ll probably use Titan / Saga again &, with certain caveats as mentioned above, recommend them. Edit - Although I appreciate Titan's response to my review, I notice they haven't addressed my comments on tipping. I personally think they should look at tipping recommendations and differentiate their reccomendations according to country and group size. Increasing tipping expectations of locally insisted tour managers and guides will only lead to more problems and dissatisfaction...