13 independent reviews for Egypt 10 day tour with Nile cruise

Thank you for your feedback about your trip with us. I'm delighted you had an amazing time and in particular found all our local guides and representatives so helpful. As you've noted, there isn't anywhere on the res travel tour page to show inclusions and exclusions, but we do explain all these clearly on our website which we refer people to as soon as they enquire. We now ask for 2 payments at the start of the trip - these are to cover all the entrance fees to the sites visited, and for a tipping kitty. These are all explained on the site, and in the tour briefing at the start of the trip. You then only need to pay the Egyptologist tour guide at the end, and if numbers are low on a date, that would be one guide in Cairo, and then a different one for the Aswan to Luxor section of the trip on the cruise. The idea of the tipping kitty is so that we can pay tips on your behalf to a wide range of people you will come across during the trip. It covers the various drivers taking you around in each location, train guards, hotel porters, hotel housekeeping staff, guards at the sites, felucca / cruise crews, our local representatives in each city who help with all the transfers, hotel check-ins etc.. We do try hard with this kitty system to reduce the impact of constantly being asked for tips as you go along. Other payments during the trip that would come to us would then only be for any extra optional tours you may choose to take (eg. hot air balloon flights, extra museum or sightseeing visits not included in the set itinerary). While the version of our Nile Valley and Red Sea tour that you chose does include a flight to Aswan and a Nile cruise (rather than the less impactful sleeper train and felucca sailboat trip that some of our other trips use), we do try in other areas to reduce the holiday's emissions and to support the local economy. We have removed the flight from Hurghada to Cairo that we have used in the past, and do that journey by road now instead. And whenever we can, we do combine our travellers on this tour and another for the journeys from Luxor to Hurghada, and Hurghada to Cairo, to avoid duplicating vehicles and emissions there. All guides and representatives are Egyptian locals, and our own business is partly Egyptian owned too. The number of water bottles used is obviously a concern and we are always working on better provisions for water to avoid plastic waste. We now recommend people bring filter bottles with them and have arranged discounts for our clients. These filter bottles can always be filled up in your hotel room, and we are trying to find restaurants and places during the trip that will let you fill them without charging you the same as they would for a water bottle. We've tried several approaches for enabling refills from water we provide in our vehicles, but have had various issues with these (eg. keeping large water containers cold), We are determined to keep trying and find a solution that works and will get used by as many people as possible. Thank you for your itinerary suggestion. However, we do feel that there is so much to see in Luxor, that we don't want to rush people's time there. We are however happy to customise the itinerary even on group departures and add extra days by the Red Sea in Hurghada before you return to Cairo to finish the trip and fly home. Or, people can fly straight home from Hurghada and avoid the Hurghada/Cairo drive.