Tours Of Ancient Egypt Ie Pyramids, Abu Simnel, Valley Of The Kings - Who Is Best At It?

[dance2trance]

Which is the best tour company? For ancient monuments tours not swimming pools etc.. I wd like to go next February. Any experiences to relate? Grateful for advice. Thanks.

[Peter Pedant]

yeah !
when you find one tell me please
I am dyiiiiiiiing to go

Nile cruise is best and the first are Oct 2017 - probably later

Thompson - Swan Hellenic - I went Orbatal ( yes - - - not Orbital )
By and large you get what you pay for

here is your free download of a tourist guide
https://archive.org/stream/egyptsdnhand00karl#page/n25/mode/2up

the first and second editions are somewhere on the internet
and are better ( written by someone REALLY famous - Maspero or Lepsius or other )
and they are the ones that give the translation fo the hieroglyphs
( " go into the pronaos and on the left in the upper panel ..... prayer to Osiris etc " )

there is virtually no traffic
and after westminster bridge
a fren' said to me - "our grand return to Egypt is off for another year innit ?"

and if you get somewhere can you tell me please ?

you will have a totally wonderful time
butcha have to get there first

[Peter Pedant]

even sharm el shake is empty after "they" shot down the russian airliner - and the Egyptian authorities sort of shrugged and said " we dont know why it fell out of the air...Neeeext!"
but of course there was no next .....

[atalanta]

I went with "Explore". Not bad where the sites were concerned . Some of the hotels were very luxurious. I didn't actually want to go on the Nile trip, since I don't like cruising at all, but there was no alternative offered by any of the tour operators who were doing tours when I wanted to go, 2014.
The tourist trade was doing very badly even then, before the recent disasters/atrocities. The boats were anchored ten deep out from the banks of the river, meaning that, even then, ninety percent of the tourist fleet was in mothballs. We had to walk through nine empty, dusty boats to reach ours. The food on the boat wasn't great, and the meals took ages with the long, long queues for grub. The electricity supply is unreliable, especially on the "Valley of the Kings " side of the Nile, so expect power cuts in the hotels there. Take a paper fan - or several.
The scarcity of tourists means that you will not have to worry about crowds of tourists at major sites, but you will have to worry about very aggressive crowds of hucksters and merchants. The most aggressive I have ever met ( and I've been around ) - they even pulled at my clothes to get me into shops. And I was cheated on a couple of purchases, where the containers turned out to be empty.
Do go to the "Son et Lumiere" if you like that sort of thing.

[Peter Pedant]

ditto atalanta

my last journey was 2013
and what you say is true

In terms of food - you dont go to Egypt for gourmet doo-dah do you ?

I mean the sweets/puddings were white mush or red mush or yellow mush ( coo-tar) - haha and the wine would take the enamel off your teeth - for those of us that still had them

oh and the cook wouldnt serve me unless I addressed him formally in Arabic - I was mistaken for an ex colonial officer ( too young in fact) and if I spoke arabic to other people I could damn well speak it to him !

[campbellking]

I went with Discover Egypt a few years ago. I normally travel alone, and tacked on a couple of days in Cairo first before joining a cruise. What you want to do in Cairo was decided between yourself and the rep once you got there, and I was very surprised to find I had a tour guide and driver to myself. Enjoyed the pyramids and the museum , and the guide was very anxious to teach me as much as possible. If you get the chance to walk up inside the pyramid, do so, it's great. The cruise was fairly basic, but I'm not fussed about that kind of thing, it was clean and it got you where you needed to go. Again our guide was very keen to impart his knowledge, but we did also get allocated time to wander around and take photos after he's finished. Abu Simbel was an optional extra, but I found it worth it. The vendors can be pushy, but I was rarely targeted despite travelling as a single female (obviously don't look too well off!)

[zebo]

We did the Nile with Hayes and Jarvis mega years ago, more recently we've done trips there with Voyage Jules Verne. Not sure I'd go at the moment with the security situation although we went just after the Hatshepsut incident and there was a lot more visible security. The Nile cruise means you see temples early morning then have the rest of the day to do nothing although February may be different. The cruise ships have a small pool on deck for afternoon flops but it can get a bit boring. Your itinerary sounds a lot for one trip, the Nile cruise and Abu Simbel are usually 'done' together. Good luck and enjoy the trip, it certainly wont be crowded!

[atalanta]

By the way, this is how you deal with the aggressive pestiferous merchants who get right in your face or try to take hold of you to "persuade" you into their shops or booths. Just shout loudly "tourist police". These men really do fear the tourist police who may be able to put them out of business.

[Peter Pedant]

nothing wrong wizz:

la mish aaiz shukran

no - I dont want it - thank you

the only difficult word is aaiz which is " are-is " ( as in you are -he is) but with a very soft 'r' so it is more like "as" with the ay drawn out

it is an adjective - sort of like 'wanting'
and gurlz say something else - aaiza I think