MissGreen

I am going on a private tour of Egypt in Sept with Lady Egypt Tours and am considering tacking on a week at the end to see Jordan. I have gotten a sample itinerary with Wadi Rum on it. Can anyone please tell me if there are varying camp sites with various levels of comfort. I have been reading on Tripadvisor about some folks who say the bathrooms are terrible. Unfortunately I have a "pea bladder" and would hate the thought of having to go to the bathroom if it is unclean. Also, I read that one campsite had a suite with ensuite bathroom. Yes I know that isn't what the real bedouins do...

Does Lady Egypt favour one particular site?

Much appreciated.

Elizabeth_S

We saw one (I think it was Movenpick) - have you checked out Trip Advisor? Quite a few listings.......

http://www.tripadvisor.ca/Hotels-g30...um-Hotels.html

Liz

doctorjohn

I am booking my trip with Lady egypt as well and will be there in March.

As for luxury camps in Wadi Rum...from my research. There are none. The permanent camps are all of the tent accomodation with shared bath accomodation. You can also do a private jeep tour with private camping (with no bathroom).

If you want, you could do wadi rum in a day trip. It is not far from Petra hotels or Aqaba hotels (both are about an hour away).

I will be doing a private jeep tour in Wadi Rum and then a private camp. In a permanent camp, you could be stuck with 200 other tourists. I didn't want that.

justshootme

Miss Green I too have read alot of information about camps in Wadi Rum and can't find any that offer private washroom facilites except Bait Ali. However, reviews for this camp on TA are not good and this particular camp offers no transportation to/from the camp and you will need to have your own car and driver.

I agree with doctorjohn that you are better off taking a day trip to Wadi Rum from Petra or Aquaba.

dutyfree

Lady Egypt had us to do a day trip from Petra on the way up to the Dead Sea. We ate breakfast in Petra and then went over to Wadi Rum.We had a couple hour jeep ride through the desert followed by a bedouin lunch at a camp.It could still be quite warm to be in the desert in September?Personally, I would add a full day at the Dead Sea-amazing!
Miss Green-ask Amanda to have you have Yusef as your driver for Jordan. We thoroughly enjoyed him and he became part of our family by the time we left there. He is 35 and speaks perfect English,drives like a dream and is so flexible if you want to stop or whatever. The agency that LE uses in Jordan is called Desert Horizons and Yusef is one of their 20 drivers.I just recommended him to some friends who are over there now with LE and they just sent me an email about how great he was.If you use him,tell him the Westmans send their love!

MissGreen

Thanks all!!!

I saw Bait Ali and thought that a permanent toilet block, hopefully that is cleaned is passable! I figure the plan is to sleep in a tent and get the feel of being a bedouin (is it a bedouin??)

DoctorJohn, I saw one tour that says they carry a "chemical toilet" and set it up in some private area of the camp. Ah, that's not for me!!

Elizabeth - Amanda at Lady Egypt asked me what I thought of the possible itinerary. I told her that someone I know had mentioned a number of "must see" places.

Justshootme, I will have my own car and driver so there is no hassle with that.

You know what else I worry about... the 2 hour drive in to the desert... what if I have to pee! Might need to reconsider this, but I think with it being so hot, I might be a bit dehydrated and not need the bathroom so darn often. Dam this pea bladder - I am sure you all want to know about my "personal habits"

Dutyfree, I will mention Yusef! Thanks. I'll google Desert Horizons too!

Thanks again all!

MissGreen

I meant to say in my post above.... "aww, such familiar names!!!" I feel so at home!

Elizabeth_S

Another excellent driver in Jordan (from Desert Horizons) is Bashar....

thursdaysd

If you're in the desert wouldn't even a "permanent" toilet block contain chemical toilets of some kind? I doubt any of them are connected to a sewage system.

sandi

If toilets provided, most likely as those set up at construction sites, public street fairs, concerts, etc.

dutyfree

Miss Green-among some of the trash we saw in the desert at Wadi Rum(so sad) was a full toilet just sitting there amongst tires and trash. I wish that the driver/guide could have slowed down so I could have posted it-too funny!

doctorjohn

Miss green

The private tour I am doing is a all day jeep tour and then they set up a temporary camp...just like camping. I wanted to sleep under the stars and not with a bus tour of tourists around me. I don't even think they set up a toilet...just give you a shovel!...lol.

One recommendation I would make is to look for a camp that is actually in the Wadi Rum reserve. Some of them are located outside the reserve. I believe that Bait Ali is not in the reserve.

I did a lot of research on this....if you want to do a tour and an overnight in wadi rum, you basically choose a guide and a tour. Many of the guides have permanent camps set up. They have tents to sleep in, a common dining tent and rest room facilities with running water. Some of the camps are located outside of wadi rum in Dissi. Others are in the reserve itself. I cannot tell you which is the best. you have to figure it out for yourself.

I would go to tripadvisor forums and search wadi rum. There will be a whole slew of reviews and reports on various guides. The funny thing is that they all have similar names ie. abdhulla, abdul, abdhulhamed, so its hard to figure out which one is which. One note, be careful about some of the reviews...some of them are written by the guides themselves or their family members. I basically go on the ones written by North american or european travelers.

Rumguides.com
rumstars.com

are examples of a couple of the guides. There are pictures of the accomodation and washroom facilities as well.

I think I am going with rumguides. I can't remember.

Hope this helps!

MissGreen

Lady Egypt confirmed the camp, but I forget it.... it is Jabel or something. I'll check my emails and post it.

doctorjohn

Miss Green,

Its Jabal Rum Camp I Believe.

MissGreen

Correct Doc!! Now I've added Jabal Rum camp to my google frenzy!

wadirum

Hello,
Jabal Rum Camp its outside of wadi rum rotected area .

Napjunkie

I am also looking at the various camps, and came across photos of Jabel Rum, which has been suggested by Desert Horizons. It looks like one of the big operations mentioned above and would probably be quite comfortable (pee-wise) but not exactly a quiet time in the desert (see http://www.hotels-jordan-booking.com...rum_jordan.htm ). Miss Green, you are not the only one who has to consider these things -- us 65-year old males with slightly enlarge prostates do, too.

The funny thing is that I know Jebel Rum is used by a lot of tour companies, but there are no reviews on Trip Advisor.

We are planning a 19 day trip with Desert Horizon, and they have been great to work with so far.....

Axel2DP

Napjunkie,

How flexible is Desert Horizon? Do they work similar to Lady Egypt where you give them your itineary and then they'll try to accomdate that? Thanks.

Napjunkie

So far they are completely flexible. We started with their suggested Jordan/Syria itinerary and then modified it to suit our own interests, like adding a night in Aqaba and staying overnight in Wadi Rum, plus making sure we had two full days in Petra. They suggest hotels at different levels, but you can specify ones you want instead. The thing I have liked so far is that they have been very responsive to my questions and requests. I don't know how they compare on price to Lady Egypt, but I have a rough comparison with a couple of other independent travel companies (Travel in Style and On The Go) and they are very favorable. I got the recommendation from a post on Fodor's Forum :http://www.fodors.com/community/afri...rip-report.cfm