Egypt tour companies

Message Submitted by TLCompton on Wed, 10/13/2010 - 04:23

<p>Looking for a moderately priced Egypt trip for February that can guarantee non-smoking accommodations. I first thought of Grand Circle which has a great price, but they only have shared-room openings left and cannot guarantee a non-smoking roommate. Gate 1 has good pricing also, but I've never booked with them before. My travel agent suggested Insight Vacations, but again I've no experience with that company. The river cruise companies such as Viking and Uniworld want a very high single supplement. </p> <p>I would like to hear from anyone who has done Egypt with Gate 1 or Insight, or from anyone with other suggestions. </p>

Reply Submitted by Nancy Hazle on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 07:30

I have just been looking into tours for Cairo myself. A travel agent recommended Ya'lla Tour company and they looked very good. The comments from the customers were all very positive--people felt taken care of. I especially liked the comments that talked about how their guide was able to work around some big tours that were coming in at the same place so that they didn't have to wait behind a big group of people and use a lot of time. Their website is www.yallatours.com
I actually am using a tour & guide from www.touregypt.net, as it is a little less expensive. I'm taking my family and cost is a factor. Tour Egypt uses hotels that are a 3+star rather than the 4 star of Ya'lla. Hope this helps!

Reply Submitted by Marian on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 08:19

We used Gate 1 for a tour to Israel. There were about 30 people on the tour. The guide was fine. The hotels were okay but not great. The price was very good. It included a flight from JFK to Tel Aviv on a charter airline and all hotels, guide, many meals, etc and was still less than what a friend paid for a flight on El Al.
We used Bestway (ITN advertiser) for our trip to Egypt. I felt it was good value What I particularly like about Bestway is that they guarantee departure with a minimum of two people. We used frequent flyer miles to book our flights and we arrived in Cairo two days before one of their scheduled trips. They did the trip for us for the same price as for groups. We added on a flight to Abu Simbel and we also arranged a post-trip to Alexandria with the agency that was doing the ground arrangements and providing guides. Very satisfied.

Reply Submitted by hildymignone on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 18:45

Nile Blue Tours (online) was excellent for our custom overnight trip from Alexandria to Cairo and back to the cruise ship. If you like what you see on their website, they will call you back. I can give you specific names of the fantastic English speaking guide. We had a driver and a guard and always felt safe, well cared for and considered. We had them customize our tour for three couples and the pricing was excellent; the accomodations very adequate and the restaurants they took us to, very satisfactory. We recommend them highly. The other two couples (whom we met onboard ship) each had known others who had used them. Overall a very excellent value. We would use them again in a heartbeat.

Reply Submitted by Wanda on Thu, 10/21/2010 - 08:18

We traveled with OAT, a subset of Grand Circle, and were very pleased. My guess is that you've already tried them too and found the same shared accommodation conditions? If not, try them and be very specific with the rep that you speak with about your requirement of a non-smoking roomie. Also, I've previously posted on this site a very detailed trip report from our experience with them several years ago. If you can't find it and are interested, just let me know. We hope you can make this trip happen. It still ranks among our favorites.

We traveled with OAT, a

Reply Submitted by Wanda on Thu, 10/21/2010 - 08:18