happybear01

My husband and I along with our daugher and son-in-law visited Egypt in October 2010 and booked our tour with Mohamed at Lady Egypt Tours, they were fabulous! I had asked to book the Nile Dream tour with a few changes to the itinerary, I received a response back the next day with all changes and a few suggestions as well. Since we had never been to Egypt I made sure we followed their suggestions and things couldn't have been better. We thought we were on a tour with others, but ended up with a private tour, it was great! We arrived in Cairo in the middle of the night and the Cairo rep and driver were waiting for us, we soon realized that we were about to be spoiled for the rest of our holiday. The reps in each city checked us into our hotels, made sure we had wake-up calls and went over the itinerary for the next day, Our tour guide Mohamed was excellent! He not only shared his knowledge of the sites we visited, he also gave us an insight to everyday Egyptian life, which is exactly what we wanted. Our trip consisted of 2 days in Cairo, the Pyramids one day and the Egyptian Museum and city tour the next day. We then caught the sleeper train to Aswan and had a tour of Aswan the next day, then it was off by plane to Abu Simbel. We were so pleased that we stayed overnight in Abu Simbel, we didn't feel rushed and had a very relaxing stay at the hotel there. It was then back to Aswan to check into our Nile cruise from Aswan to Luxor. One of the changes we made was to add 4 days in Sharm El Sheikh for scuba diving, they even made sure we had a rep pick us up at the airport and tell us different things to do here. When we got to Egypt we realized that we should have booked an extra night at the end of our trip, our plane didn't leave until 3AM and we wanted some place to rest and shower before leaving to the airport, everyone went out of their way to make sure a hotel room was booked and we got to the airport. Everyone from Lady Egypt that we dealt was extremely friendly and very professional. I would definitely recommend using Lady Egypt Tours and will be using them on our next trip to Egypt.

BillJ

This itinerary is quite similar to what is developing in my pre-planning stage for a trip to Egypt next summer. I am trying to decide about the night in Abu Simbel or daytrip. We too want to go to Sharm for snorkeling. We don't dive.
Would you mind adding a few details, like the hotel at Abu Simbel and Sharm.
Your opinion as to snorkeling opportunities at Sharm.
Did a guide accompany you on the Nile cruise?
How many days did you stay in Luxor?

Thanks for any other details you may think of.

TravellerB

I saw the same review at Lonely Planet ?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

happybear01

BillJ - We stayed at the Seti Abu Simbel hotel, I think it's the only one you would want to stay at there as Abu Simbel is a small town, if you are doing a daytrip to Abu Simbel I would recommend flying, we talked to people who did the drive and they said it was very long and nothing to see (I was told it was basically a 1 lane road through the dessert). We stayed at the Mexicana in Sharm, it was OK but quite far from the beach and snorkeling. Sharm is very spread out and if you want to stay closer to the action and snorkeling I would recommend staying at Naama Bay. My husband went diving but I went snorkeling, he said there were people snorkeling off the boat when he went out. We did everything through Sinai Divers, you could contact them and find out about the snorkeling opportunities. Our guide didn't stay on the boat with us on the Nile Cruise as there are only so many rooms for the guides, he was waiting for us at every stop though and did the tours. We were only in Luxor for 2 days but we did see everything that we wanted and still had time for the markets.

You did see the same review at Lonely Planet, I thought it would be just as easy to copy the same thing down for both postings.

chris45ny

happybear01-Did your husband bring his own scuba gear or rent? Husband is trying to decide if he should bring his gear as he feels safe/comfortable with his gear. When your husband went diving did you go by yourself or with a snorkeling tour? We will be in Sharm 5 nights and for 3 days husband will be diving from morning to evening. I was thinking about snorkeling but have always gone with husband before. If you went on a snorkeling tour who did you book?

BillJ-We are flying to Abu Simbel from Cairo and staying overnight at the Seti. When you stay overnight you can go to the Sound & Light show there. It's supposed to be one of the best in Egypt. You also have time to see more without lots of tourists as most do the day trip. We chose to return to Aswan the next morning by convoy. It leaves at 9 am and we are looking forward to whatever kind of scenery we will see as it will be daylight. For Sharm, we are staying at the Hilton Fayrouz which is in Na'ama Bay area. Husband will be diving and I may work up enough courage to do a snorkeling trip. Sun n Fun gets good reviews. The snorkeling/diving is supposed to be very good from what I've read. Our Nile cruise is on the Sonesta Moon Goddess and for this we will have a guide supplied by the cruise ship-been told maybe 10-15 people. Rest of our trip is private for the 2 of us. We will stay in Luxor 3 nights after the cruise at the Steigenberger.

sf7307

chris, my family dove in Sharm a couple of summers ago - they took their own masks and snorkels, but nothing else (they just figured using "common" snorkels was kind of gross, but truth be told, we've rented gear for snorkeling before in Hawaii and other places, so I'm not sure why this should be any different). They went through Divers International which was located at the Sofitel, where they ended up staying. All nice, not the Four Seasons, but nice.

Just FYI, we also stayed at the Steigenberger in Luxor and liked it a lot. We always prefer to stay in town so we can walk out and "be there" and that it was. Very nice pool area too - the link is to a photo of the pool. The food at the restaurant at the pool (they also serve poolside) is very good.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo...eat=directlink

happybear01

chris45ny - My husband rented his equipment from Sinai Divers and was very happy with service and how professional they were. I snorkeled with my daughter just on the house reef which is just off the beach, this would be OK for a couple of hours but not much longer. My husband said there were people snorkeling off the dive boat when he went, so I would think you should be able to arrange to go on the same boat with your husband and just snorkel from there instead of diving