Lady Egypt Tours, not responding
 

I have read many good things about Lady Egypt Tours on this forum, however, I have emailed them twice in the past week asking for prices and I haven't heard back from them. What kind of pre trip communication have fodorites had with Lady Egypt Tours.

I planned my entire Egypt trip with Mohamed Kamel at LadyEgypt tours. The entire thing was done by email -- the first time I talked to him on the phone was when we missed our connection in Frankfurt. I originally sent one "generic" email about our general plans -- dates, number of people, that kind of thing -- then we exchanged emails, probably 80-100 of them. I had done a lot of research first, so he would suggest a hotel, I would comment, etc. Anyway, he was very good and very responsive. The trip itself was handled flawlessly. We were met at the airport (two groups arriving separately, one at 2 in the morning), and at each hotel by a tour representative and driver. We had a guide who was with us throughout Cairo, Aswan and Luxor (Mahmoud - excellent). They handled all the luggage and all the tipping (for which we paid extra the first day - we just thought it would be easier and it definitely was). The only thing I thought wasn't perfect was one van was not well-airconditioned (from Aswan to Luxor), and we would have preferred to have stayed "in town" instead of in Giza near the pyramids, which was what they recommended - the hotel was nice, just too far from town. Anyway, send a note to Mohamed directly....his address is [email protected].

sf7307, thanks for the reply. I will email Mohamed at the email addres you provided. How did Lady Egypt's price compare to other companies you inquired with?

I didn't get prices from others (I'll give you the short story in a moment), but after I got Lady Egypt's all-in price, I asked some others on here and everyone seemed to think it was a very fair price. We were six people (2 50-somethings and 4 20-somethings) staying in two triples in Cairo, Luxor and Aswan, and then four people (1 50-something and 3 20-somethings) in two doubles in Sharm El Sheikh.

The reason we didn't get "into it" with anyone else is that the very day I wrote up and sent my email to various companies -- that very afternoon, my 21-year old daughter fell and broke her ankle and needed surgery, so we weren't at all sure we could even go. The accident happened on May 15th, the trip was planned for August 15th. So, once we decided to go for it, it was very late, and Mohamed was the only one who wrote back, and promptly, to "discuss" my trip. We planned the whole thing between July 4th and August 15th. If you email me at dmlove51 at hotmail, I can send you our itinerary, hotels, and prices.

Our tour was "personal", meaning it was just the six of us (us, our two kids, one girlfriend and one friend) in the van with a driver and guide.

I'm happy to help.

I also found their communication slow, and I was dealing directly with Mr. Kamel. We eventually chose GAT Tours, another big operator, for our overnight tour in Luxor (from a cruise ship docking at Sagafa) because:
1. They were quicker and more open in communications, and more willing to bend to our needs;
2. They were cheaper than Lady Egypt and some others;
3. They were willing to drop the price a littel if we found anopther couple of people to go with us. Lady Egypt was sticking to their price even if we found another couple or two on the cruise ship to share the van with;
4. And most importantly, they wanted 100% of the cost UP FRONT. I would never agree to that.

Obviously, my experience difference from LAleslie's, but I just wanted to comment on one thing -- it is very common to pay up front for the type of tour we did. What if we didn't show up after they had done all the work and made all the reservations (including tour guide, drivers, vans, hotels and intra-Egypt air)? We did decide to pay the extra 3% to put it on Visa in order to protect ourselves, again, quite common.

Thanks, sf7307 and LAleslie for the feedback.

sf7303, I will take you up on your kind offer and email you privately.

I tried contacting Lady Egypt when we were planning our trip to Egypt and never did hear back from them. We went with Gap Adventures (trip report in separate thread).

FWIW, I don't think this is a rare occurrence (for any of the operators) -- I never heard back from several outfits I contacted by email, including the highly regarding Ahmed Youssif (I'm not sure I have his name right) that everyone on here likes in Cairo.

I also planned a trip to Egypt with Lady Egypt and had no problems. Mr. Kamel responded very promptly to my inquiries. In fact, at one point during the early planning stages, I did not know if we would be able to go on the trip or not. I told Mr. Kamel that we may have to hold off on the trip. He was very understanding and responded very quickly when we decided we would be able to do the trip and I resumed communications with him. I thought the pricing was very reasonable, considering that it was a private tour and was less than the pricing I had seen for several group tours. The hotels we stayed in, especially in Cairo, were very nice, and our cruise ship was also nice. We were able to customize our trip and had personal guides at all the sites. We were very happy with the quality and service provided by Lady Egypt.

Thanks for all the feedback.

I contacted Lady Egypt three times earlier this month, twice through their website and once at the email address sf7303 provided. They never responded, obviously I won't be travelling with them.