heymo

I am looking into a dinner cruise in Cairo. The three I have found so far are the Nile Maxim, The Pharaoh's and the S/S Peking. Has anyone been to any of them, and if so, was it worth the price? Are there others you would recommend?

Grcxx3

Never did a dinner cruise, but I think my husband's office used to do things on the Peking at times. Sorry - that's all I know!

heymo

Thanks for acknowledging the question...sometimes that gets very frustrating. I have now been told the Peking is under renovation, so I'm down to just two choices. Just looking in general for some options for dinner...

Grcxx3

I can't recall your itinerary off-hand - so how many dinners are you talking about? DO you have any "set" dinner arrangements already?

heymo

Not in Cairo...we have three nights in Cairo when we first get there that our dinners are on our own, and our last night when we come back from Alexandria we need to come up with something to do before our flight home at 3 a.m. (UGH!)

Grcxx3

okay - forgive me for not keeping track of things....where are you staying for those 3 nights? And where are you that last night before you head out?

heymo

No, I really apprciate your help and attention to details...it's exactly the way I operate as well. The first three nights we are staying at the Pyramisa. Then we're in Aswan for a day and doing the whole Nile cruise thing for three days. Then head to Hurghada for three days, then back to Cairo. (also staying at the Pyramisa that night) Then we check out and head to Alexandria for our last day, but arrive back in Cairo around 5 or so, and we had the choice of checking into a hotel for a few hours until we would leave at 12:30 for the airport or doing something in Cairo that evening. We chose the latter. Now we're not sure what to do. I guess technically we need to find dinner plans for Thurs. Fri. Sat. and the following Sunday and Monday evening.

Grcxx3

WOW! That's a lot of meals to figure out! I wish I could be of more help with restaurants downtown, but usually when we went out to dinner - we stayed in our little Cairo suburb. When we did go downtown - we usually stuck with places we knew and liked - Moghul Room at the Mena House, the Thai Restaurant at the old FS, or one of the restaurants at the new FS.

Have you checked out the recommended restaurants on the Fodors destination guide? They have several listed there - including 2 of our favorites....Bua Khao (Thai) and the Fish Market (both in Maadi - about a 20-30 minute taxi ride, depending on traffic).

Of course, if you don't mind hitting Western chain places (and there comes a point on every trip when I'm ready for that!) there is a Hard Rock Cafe somewhere (my kids have been there - not me), and there is a TGIFridays on on the banks of the Nile in Maadi. I think there is a TGIF somewhere downtown too but we loved going to the one near us and sitting outside watching all the felucca on the river.

I am a little worried about your last day. What are you doing with your luggage during all this time? Will the hotel keep it for you until it's time to go to the airport? It really might be worth having that hotel room - even if you're going to be in Alex most of the day. Besides a place to rest, you might want a place to clean up/shower/change after your day trip. Just a thought.......

sunshine007

Heymo, a couple questions.

Is your hotel in Giza by the Pyramids? The good thing about the Moghul Room in Mena House is that it's right by the Pyramids.

I guess the basic question is what type of restaurant do you want. Fancy one night? An American fast food/chain every night? Help me, girl!

heymo

It didn't occur to me until I was writing to you just how many meals I needed to plan for, now I'm a little overwhelmed. I usually hate seeing western restaurants when we travel overseas, but must say I caved in when we were in Paris in February and went to Starbucks for a coffee. So I'd prefer to save that as a last resort.

As far as our luggage on the last day, I was concerned about that as well. But I believe since we are on a private tour, they will keep our luggage until we leave for the airport. I am writing to them this morning to ask that very question. The shower issue, may be good thought to consider. We have a LONG flight home.

To answer your questions, sunshine, we are not by the pyramids. We are staying at the Pyramisa, which is across the street from the Mahmoud Khalil Museum, if that helps. I was looking into one of the floating restaurants one night, and our tour operator mentioned the Cairo Tower for dinner, but I can't find much information about it. Since it is Ramadan, I guess one night it would be interesting to go somewhere locals may go for dinner to celebrate the breaking of the fast. We like most kind of food, and would like at least one nicer meal.We will be celebrating both my birthday and our 15th anniversary while we're there. The rest of the time we're game for almost anything. Neither one of us are very big Middle Eastern food fans, but as I conceded to someone on another post, maybe we just haven't had GOOD Middle Eastern food. So if you have any thoughts they would be greatly appreciated.

Egypt06

We have the same situation w/ Heymo too - our flight departs at 3+am and we skip the hotel for that night. We will be storing our luggages at the hotel concierge at Sheraton Cairo. Wonder if that is not a good option?

We are also looking for interesting place to "kill time" and I found that a lot of restaurants close after midnight: e.g. The Revolving Restaurant at Grand Hyatt, Maxim/ Pharaoh both have late night dinner cruise, The Fish Markets on the Americana Boat, and the Sapparo restarant at Sheraton Cairo.

In addition, the casinos opens till the next morning.

Heymo,
Since I haven't been to these places I can't tell you much. But from the reviews I saw that Maxim is the highest rated dinner cruise - worth a splurge for your anniversary and bday!

heymo

Thanks for the info, Egypt06. I would have thought with Ramadan almost all of the restaurants would stay open as long as possible...

Part of what made me hesitate about the Maxim cruise is my tour operator saying it was very expensive. Is that Egypt expensive, or American expensive? I thought I remembered seeing something about the Pharaohs cruise being 150LE each. That's what, $27??? If the Maxim is priced anything like that, then no problem. But if we are at the end of our two week trip and it's $150 American, I may think twice!

When are you leaving, Egypt06? We leave next Tuesday!

Egypt06

Hi Heymo,

We will be leaving in mid November. Looking forward to your trip report

I got an email back from Marriott -
the dinner cruise is ala Carte, ranged from 170LE to 250LE/pp.

I am also checking the prices for Hyatt dinner cruise - I heard they have the newest dinner cruise?

Do you have any price info for the Revolving Restaurant?

Actually, we are also going to Alexandria as a day trip on our last day, the trip is 7am-7pm. I see that you will be back in Cairo by 5pm. What time will your trip start? FYI - It's a 3 hours drive each way.

heymo

Thanks for the info, Egypt06 about the price of the Maxim cruise. That's not bad, and it does include the entertainment!

As far as I know, the meals for the revolving restaurant at the Hyatt run between $20-30pp U.S. based on this web site http://www.cityguide.travel-guides.c...mp;NAV_City=25
Someone posted on this board to me that they thought the food was only mediocre, the view was the best part! I don't know anything about the Hyatt cruise, the ones I had read about were the Maxim, the Pharaohs and the Peking, which is under renovation.According to the Grand Hyatt website, they have a dinner cruise called Baccarat, but it doesn't list prices. It runs from 8-10p.m. It also says they have a late night open air cafe called Moonlight on a yacht named Marquis, but it's only open seasonally. Hope that helps.

As to the times for our day in Alexandria, I don't have the specific times we'll be leaving and coming back, only an approx. return time. It may very well be that we don't get back until 7...which means we'll only need to kill about 5 1/2 hours before we leave for the airport.
if you don't mind me asking...where are you flying to once you leave Cairo? Just curious...

Egypt06

Heymo,

Thanks for the info on Hyatt dinner/cruise.

We'll be connecting in Frankfurt.

sunshine007

Remember I said that I thought Jasher was being too harsh on the Hyatt Revolving Restaurant.

heymo

I do remember that, now that you mention it. What is your opinion between the Revolving Restaurant and the Cairo Tower? Which would you chose?

Egypt06

Heymo,

Please see the information on Tripadvisor.com forum comparing dinner cruise and the revolving restaurant:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic...iro-Cairo.html

sunshine007

I don't know anything about the Cairo Tower personally or even by reputation. I'm a foodie so I try to keep up on the good restaurants here, so maybe the fact that I don't know is telling.

sunshine007

I ran "cairo tower", cairo, , review in the web & found a review from Al Ahram, the government owned, English language weekly newspaper and found a pretty dismal review of the Cairo Tower. Doesn't sound like the special place you are looking for on a special occasion.