Anyone Recently Used Ramses Tours?

[Maverick!]

We just returned in November and did an overnight tour with Ramses. We saw both areas. Karim, our guide, was most accommodating...we have a very full day and literally went non-stop but managed to visit the Museum, Alabaster Mosque/Citidel, Coptic Cairo and the Khan El Khalili bazaar the first day and Memphis/Sakkara, the pyramids, a little shopping and a little shopping stop and a few photo stops once we returned back to Alexandria the second day. ;)

 

What was Sakkara like ? Was it worthwhile to see after having seen Giza ?

Is it worth missing in order to have time for other sites ?

[Turtles06]

What was Sakkara like ? Was it worthwhile to see after having seen Giza ?

Is it worth missing in order to have time for other sites ?

 

Not knowing what other sites you might see instead of Sakkara, it's hard to answer your last question. As to your first, I personally think it is incredible to see. We were in Egypt last month on the Jade and did an overnight private shore excursion in Cairo that included a stop in Sakkara as well as in Giza, of course. Seeing the Step Pyramid in Sakkara is having a chance to see the early pyramid "architecture," very different from the Giza Pyramids.

 

Also, because the Step Pyramid is starting to crumble, the Egyptians are in the process of restoring it via a process that pretty much seems to be rebuilding it from the outside (or at least putting another shell on the exterior). Right now, only one lower corner is done, and it looks very different from the original. I don't know how many years it will be, but at some point, at least according to our guide, you won't really be able to see the original exterior. If you can see it soon, I would not miss it.

 

Just my personal opinion, of course.

[cruisemom42]

What was Sakkara like ? Was it worthwhile to see after having seen Giza ?

Is it worth missing in order to have time for other sites ?

 

Another good thing about getting to Saqqara is having the chance to enter an actual decorated tomb. These are tombs of nobles but the wall paintings are fantastic. Since most cruisers don't get a chance to go to Luxor and see the Valley of the Kings, this is the next best thing.

[Maverick!]

That's good to know - thanks!

[sanbmet]

We're booked on a Ramses tour in October and I think that the Egyptian Museum is included. The info for the museum indicates that cameras are not allowed.

 

Did anyone encounter this? If so, what did you do with your camera while you toured the museum?

Thanks

[cruisemom42]

We're booked on a Ramses tour in October and I think that the Egyptian Museum is included. The info for the museum indicates that cameras are not allowed.

 

Did anyone encounter this? If so, what did you do with your camera while you toured the museum?

Thanks

 

Cameras are definitely not allowed in the museum. They are quite strict about it.

 

If you're on a private tour, I assume you'll have a driver who stays with your vehicle; ask if it is safe to leave your camera there. The other alternative is the museum's bag check; but I'd feel better leaving it elsewhere.

[lcumpire]

We're booked on a Ramses tour in October and I think that the Egyptian Museum is included. The info for the museum indicates that cameras are not allowed.

 

Did anyone encounter this? If so, what did you do with your camera while you toured the museum?

Thanks

 

I have read on other threads that the security guards will take your memory card if the see you taking pictures. That is all I had to read.

[lagniappe]

We used Ramses Tours for a one day from Alexandria to Cairo. Although we docked four hours late (due to fog) the guide and driver were waiting for the four of us and gave us a great but shortened tour. The young and knowledgeable guide zipped us to the Pyramids and Sphinx with much commentray and even took our pictures. Then onto the Egyptian Museum where we had a one hour hightlight tour, including the not to be missed KingTut room and related exhibits. It was a great day and we would definitely use Ramses again.

[Ally Seale]

Thanks a lot for these reviews. It helped me organize my tours in Egypt.

[ayd]

We just got back from a 12-night cruise (Royal) stopping in Alexandria for 2 days. We used Ramses for Cairo overnight. Most posters covered the logistics really well and the culture but a few commented that there's not a whole lot around cost and things to watch out for in that department. Here's a quick review in that aspect.

 

Base cost:

Cost of the daytrip Cairo tours through Royal: $150

Cost of the 2 day Cairo overnight through Royal: $500 w/ double occupancy, $600 with single occupancy

Cost of the 2 day Cairo overnight through Ramses: $210 + add-ons

 

Now this is where it gets tricky. Egyptian tourism is the #1 economy in Cairo and beyond the tipping and the bartering there's a few things you need to watch out for. Ramses seems to have a low intro rate that includes most entry fees but then the add-ons and the upsells are mostly up to your tour guide. Ours was Gouda, an interesting guy who spoke pretty good English and had good overall knowledge of the sites we've seen but was a bit of a compulsive liar; I'll explain shortly. We were on a bus of 20+ tourists and my main priority was to get back to the ship safely and not really expose the guy since our organizer already had these agreed upon prices. Let's talk about some of these add-ons.

 

Extras:

Going inside the pyramid: I swear that no one checks tickets for this and you can go in for free. Our ticket said 30 LE (egyptian pounds) which is about $5-$6 and the "group rate" we got was $10.

 

Mummy room: 100 LE on the ticket, $20 for the "group rate". In short, watch out for exchange rate scams because with the dollar up so much lately, 100 LE is $17 and the guides try to charge you in dollars. Buy it on your own if you can.

 

Camel rides: It's $1 to get on the camel and unlimited money to get off the camel! One guy apparently panicked on an official tour and paid $40 to get off the camel. The camel ride brokering is a professional scam. Every tour guide does this. They save you the trouble out of negotiating and they get you a "group rate". The official cruise tour had $10 as the going rate, our artist Gouda had us at $15. Our friends on another tour paid $5. In reality it's $1 to get on and $1 to get off if you can pull this off. This is the only extra cost I opted out of.

 

Nile river cruise: Perhaps the biggest scam of them all, most tourists ask for the Nile Maxim which is operated by Marriott Hotels and seems to be booked solid most of the time. Instead they get cheaper so-called upgrades for same price. A friend of ours asked for it 1 year in advance with another tour and didn't get it either. Our tour guide told us we got a "free upgrade" on the Pharaoh which was not bad but we weren't convinced. The Nile Maxim is 190 LE and the Pharaoh is 150 LE or basically under $30. We paid a "group rate" of $45. We were shocked at the compulsive lying; Gouda was saying the Nile Maxim only ran at 6pm and 10pm so we couldn't make either one while in reality the boat runs at 7:30 and 9:30.

 

Other merchandise:

 

Kartoushes seem to be a good deal, personalization costs a lot so I suggest you get one but if you pay for sterling make sure it's real.

 

Papyrus Institute is a scam, they don't make the artwork there but if you want overpriced paintings on the world's oldest paper and that's your thing, go for it.

 

The bazaar was neat. Barter and spend at will and get used to being solicitated for anything. This was the same place where a bomb went off in Feb '09 and in '05 and there's a lot of locals around so explore at your own risk! I personally enjoyed it and smoked some hooka and drank egyptian tea.

 

Other money matters:

 

First off, let me say that I had a great time and spent a lot of money so none of the scams above really detracted from the experience. What bothered me the most was the compulsive lying. Gouda would pretend he's busy when a lady tried to exchange him LE for $ 1:5 with him on the losing side (actual rate is about 1:5.6) while he was openly providing folks with egyptian change. He went as far as to say that egyptians trick you by giving you back change in egyptian so you must have egyptian on you for the little purchases. He was probably right but he pushed his scam a bit too much.

 

One woman came on the bus with a party of 5 and $1200 of travelers checks and we had to stop by the bank for her to cash it. The bank can only cash them in LE and the woman wanted to pay exactly what she brought in so Gouda got screwed big on that one. She also did not pay for any of the extras so he was red-faced when they got back from the bank.

 

In the end I had a great time and I found it all very interesting to see how the tour guides maximize their profit within the tourist bubble. In 2 days we ended up hitting Giza, the Sphinx, Sakkara, Memphis, the Egyptian Musem, the Alabaster Mosque and the Citadel. Personally I had a great time on the Nile river cruise and even got a $5 photo with the belly dancer!

Edited May 31, 2010 by ayd

[thmpsn]

Thanks, Ayd, for your review of your experience with Ramses. We have booked Ramses for our Nov. Brilliance cruise. While your comments may be helpful to some, almost everything you mentioned about optional costs can be found right here on these Cruise Critic boards and it really should not come as a surprise to informed Cruise Critic readers. Ramses gave us an itinerary that we liked and agreed upon with a list of the optional tours and their cost. Optional being the important word. Now if I book one of the optional tours such as the Nile Dinner Cruise for the stated amount and it turns out to be more than quoted by Ramses, then I would be aggravated. But at this point, I know that this tour (as stated by Ramses) is $45 and I can opt to do it or not. I plan on taking at least $50 or more one dollar bills for tips and small purchases. Even if I were to use a ship's tour, I would plan on spending more than just the cost of the ship's tour. I will have spent a lot of money to get to Egypt and I am not going to fret about spending a few bucks more when this will be my one and only chance of visiting Egypt. I am sorry that your guide was not as honest with you as one would hope. When we booked with Ramses we requested Karim as a guide because so many posters on Cruise Critic liked him and recommended him. I read not one dissatisfied comment about him only praise. Again it pays to do research on these boards to avoid any unpleasant surprises. Yours is the first post that I have read on these boards that was not a glowing report of a Ramses tour. I hope that you voiced you dissatisfaction with your guide to George at Ramses to be sure that the tour company knows what went on and what issues caused you to be less than satisfied with your experience. Since the day we booked this cruise over a year in advance, I have spent time researching so that I can get the most of our my short visit to Egypt and Cruise Critic has certainly given me a tremendous amount of information. But there will always be surprises that cannot be planned for. Thanks again for your review.

Karon

[ayd]

Thanks for the reply. Again, I had a great time, the main point was that there was some compulsive lying going on i.e. lying with a straight face about river cruises, exchange rates, etc. I understand that the prices are stated in advance and that there's a lot of research already on here. I went under the assumption that we pay museum tickets and such at face value. Some of the information I provided is also at a point-in-time so no matter how many hundreds of posts I could have read, the dollar ascent and the skewed exchange rate is a relatively recent event (since the Greek debacle). I will take your advice and write George about this. Just to clarify, I gave the guide full tip and it did not deter from the experience.

[petesweet]

Thanks for the warning. We'll keep our eyes open.

Do you mind sharing how much people seemed to be tipping?

Kathy

[BBQLover]

I was the organizer of the tour ayd was on, and I must say, for the most part that is a load of CRAP.

 

-The cost of items, they set the prices in advance to make it easy, $20 US for Mummy room, sure it could be actually $17 today, but tomorrow could be $22. This way it is very easy and we don't need to carry exact change. As well, we don't have to wait in line for 20 people to get tickets everywhere, that would have added significant time. If you want your $3 back you should have said something then, not wait to post on here, that's a bit lame. There were also armed guards at the pyramid entrance, I wouldn't be trying to sneak in.

 

-Papyrus institute to some of us who were actually planning on buying some while in Egypt was awesome, I feel we got a great deal, we bargained a lot and our guide helped get us even more savings. I Papyrus' isn't for you that's fine, but the prices were good, good quality and backed by the Gov. Not sure what he problem is there.

 

-The dinner cruise is also something else I don't agree with your comments, yes, the Nile Maxim is what we were supposed to get and we didn't, that did suck. But about the prices, even if the face value was $30, that is fine but how would you get from the Hotel to the boat? do you remember how far it was? A taxi would have cost a lot of money to get there so I don't think we got ripped off at all.

 

-The money exchange, I would like to see you go to the bank and try this, buy 10 Euro, say it costs you $12USD, then right away cash in your 10 Euro for USD, you will not get $12 that's the way it works. Different rates for buying and selling.

 

-The Travelers Cheques I agree with you, we were told that you could use them, but this was NOT Gouda our guide, this was George at Ramses who told us this. Gouda apologized, felt bad, and when they went to the bank he took the Egyptian Pounds that the folks got as exchange from the bank no problem and he said he would ensure that no one would be told they could use travelers cheques again.

 

All in all, I thought (as with most people) that our tour went great, it was very informative, Gouda was flexible especially when we mentioned we were supposed to go to the Bazaar and it wasn't on the schedule he made it work. George was my contact and he was very responsive, some of the items we wanted wasn't communicated to our guide but we worked it out no problem.

 

Perhaps if some folks would rather save a few $$$ they could do it on their own, or take the ships tour which was a lot more people, a lot more money and still extras to b e paid.

[Jade13]

 

One woman came on the bus with a party of 5 and $1200 of travelers checks and we had to stop by the bank for her to cash it. The bank can only cash them in LE and the woman wanted to pay exactly what she brought in so Gouda got screwed big on that one. She also did not pay for any of the extras so he was red-faced when they got back from the bank.

 

 

What exactly are you saying. She did not have enough money to purchase anything above the cost of the tour?

[Moongazer]

I was also on the Ramses overnight tour that ayd and BBQ Lover speak of. I thought that our guide, Gouda, did an amazing job. The prices for the optional excursions were very clearly communicated prior to the tour and BBQ Lover even created a spreadsheet for all of us on the tour itemizing each option and the associated prices, which he provided long before leaving on the cruise. The benefit that Gouda provided to us was that at each location he purchased the tickets for us and handed them out as we were entering the attractions. No one had to wait in the hot line-ups figuring out exchange rates, etc. He was extremely fast and efficient at getting us into every attraction.

 

At the pyramids, he spent a lot of time taking pics of each person with their cameras, doing the comical tourist shot of holding up the pyramid, leaning on it, etc. Our ship was charging $20 per picture to get these shots and Gouda was happy to spend as much time as we wanted having him be our photographer with our own cameras. He also negotiated the camel ride prices in advance and made it very clear what we should be paying and how to handle all the vendors around the pyramids. If there was a problem with local vendors, he was there to step in and look out for our interests and safety.

 

For those of us who ordered Cartouches, Gouda had samples of each style on the bus that we could select from, he took everyone's order and then had them available the next day. There was no pressure to purchase and I think almost everyone on the bus ordered them as they were a great keepsake of Egypt. I never did figure out when he was able to pick them up as we started at 7:30 am on Day 2 so he must have stopped to get them enroute to picking us up...another valuable service. I thought the Cartouches were beautiful...and again, a fraction of what the ship was charging for the same thing.

 

I thought Gouda and Ramses did a fabulous job. Cairo was my favourite tour and I felt very safe in the hands of Gouda. He was very attentive to everyone's needs and I never felt that I was being misled at any time during the tour. I would highly recommend Gouda's services.

[ayd]

Relax, I thought you did a great job as the organizer, despite this being your "first time outside North America".

 

$17 to $22 is about a 30% difference, currencies just don't move that much in a year let alone overnight. The dollar has been up about 10% this year and that's extreme. The problem I had is that he was refusing to give out dollars for egyptian pounds at the end so he was using the exchange rate to his own advantage.

 

I didn't say anything about it because I obviously didn't care about the $3, I'm just posting here so that folks can make an informed decision to use the tour "extras" or opt out and buy on their own while they're already at the museum etc.

 

Point taken on the transportation for the Nile cruise, still, did you really think you were getting an "upgrade" and that the Maxim was only sailing at 10pm?

 

I've yet to see a negative review so I was expecting a lot of heated feedback. I'm simply stating some facts that I see as someone who's been outside North America quite a bit.

 

 

 

I was the organizer of the tour ayd was on, and I must say, for the most part that is a load of CRAP.

 

-The cost of items, they set the prices in advance to make it easy, $20 US for Mummy room, sure it could be actually $17 today, but tomorrow could be $22. This way it is very easy and we don't need to carry exact change. As well, we don't have to wait in line for 20 people to get tickets everywhere, that would have added significant time. If you want your $3 back you should have said something then, not wait to post on here, that's a bit lame. There were also armed guards at the pyramid entrance, I wouldn't be trying to sneak in.

 

-Papyrus institute to some of us who were actually planning on buying some while in Egypt was awesome, I feel we got a great deal, we bargained a lot and our guide helped get us even more savings. I Papyrus' isn't for you that's fine, but the prices were good, good quality and backed by the Gov. Not sure what he problem is there.

 

-The dinner cruise is also something else I don't agree with your comments, yes, the Nile Maxim is what we were supposed to get and we didn't, that did suck. But about the prices, even if the face value was $30, that is fine but how would you get from the Hotel to the boat? do you remember how far it was? A taxi would have cost a lot of money to get there so I don't think we got ripped off at all.

 

-The money exchange, I would like to see you go to the bank and try this, buy 10 Euro, say it costs you $12USD, then right away cash in your 10 Euro for USD, you will not get $12 that's the way it works. Different rates for buying and selling.

 

-The Travelers Cheques I agree with you, we were told that you could use them, but this was NOT Gouda our guide, this was George at Ramses who told us this. Gouda apologized, felt bad, and when they went to the bank he took the Egyptian Pounds that the folks got as exchange from the bank no problem and he said he would ensure that no one would be told they could use travelers cheques again.

 

All in all, I thought (as with most people) that our tour went great, it was very informative, Gouda was flexible especially when we mentioned we were supposed to go to the Bazaar and it wasn't on the schedule he made it work. George was my contact and he was very responsive, some of the items we wanted wasn't communicated to our guide but we worked it out no problem.

 

Perhaps if some folks would rather save a few $$$ they could do it on their own, or take the ships tour which was a lot more people, a lot more money and still extras to b e paid.

[ayd]

What exactly are you saying. She did not have enough money to purchase anything above the cost of the tour?

 

She did have enough money, I'm saying she opted out of the extras so he couldn't make up any of the money he was losing on the bad exchange rate from the bank. The bank would not cash the checks in dollars so he had to take the hit. I suspect he tried to make them hit the ATM and have the lady take the exchange rate hit but she wouldn't budge. She simply wanted to give him the $210+extras in travelers checks. We had to wait around 30+ mins in Alexandria for them to sort it out.

[Alistair]

Exchange Rate

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

What is the current exchange rate of US dollars to Egyptian one? does it change highly from a day to another?

Roberta

 

 

1 Egyptian Pound = .1762 USD

[maryann ns]

Oh My oh My! What a lot of fuss about next to nothing.

 

When we went with Ramses, the price included all admission tickets, so I don't see how there was any funny play there. The price we were quoted is what we paid. The only extra anyone on our tour (14 people) had was the camel ride. They were very content to pay $15 had have the quide and driver there with them to make sure they got on and off the camels.

 

We were told in advance to have $US in cash and we did.

[cruisemom42]

Relax, I thought you did a great job as the organizer, despite this being your "first time outside North America".

 

$17 to $22 is about a 30% difference, currencies just don't move that much in a year let alone overnight. The dollar has been up about 10% this year and that's extreme. The problem I had is that he was refusing to give out dollars for egyptian pounds at the end so he was using the exchange rate to his own advantage.

 

I didn't say anything about it because I obviously didn't care about the $3, I'm just posting here so that folks can make an informed decision to use the tour "extras" or opt out and buy on their own while they're already at the museum etc.

 

Point taken on the transportation for the Nile cruise, still, did you really think you were getting an "upgrade" and that the Maxim was only sailing at 10pm?

 

I've yet to see a negative review so I was expecting a lot of heated feedback. I'm simply stating some facts that I see as someone who's been outside North America quite a bit.

 

I'm curious (as someone who has also traveled quite a bit) whether you have actually never encountered the middleman and his close cousin the markup before?

 

Why exactly do you think the ship's tours are so much more expensive than going directly to a local agent? (middleman and markup). Why do package tours usually charge you more for your airfare than you would if you research and pay for it on your own? (middleman and markup).

 

I learned many years ago that your tour guide is not an exchange bureau and he/she does not work for free. If you want him/her to obtain a ticket for you, there's likely going to be a premium attached to that. The smart traveler finds out what those premiums are before traveling (and it sounds like your organizer provided all those costs to you all) and then decides whether they can live with the markup or whether they want to try get the ticket/service/meal/hotel room on their own.

 

As was pointed out by another, time in Egypt is often at a premium when there is much to see and little time. Would you have rather every single person in your group had to stand in line and purchase their own tickets? How much time, cumulatively, would that have cost you at the end of the day? Probably at least one site you wouldn't have been able to see.

 

Although you have said this didn't really bother you, I find it odd that you'd bother to go into such detail about it in a review if that was the case.

[Flying Broomstick]

We recently went on a 12 night Meditaranean cruise, on Navigator of the Seas. We had a 2 day stop over in Alexandria, Egypt. We organised Ramses Tours months before but did not pay anything until the tour was complete. We were picked up from the ship in a lovely 8 seater van with air conditioning. We had a great driver and Islam Said for our guide. He is an Egyptologist and is very knowlegable. He made the history of Egypt very interesting. We drove to Cairo visiting the pyramids, sphinx and Museum. We had a camel ride. We stayed the night at Mena Oberon, which was a beautiful Hotel with views of the pyramid. We had dinner on a Nile cruise with belly dancers, which was just as well as the hotel was very expensive. We had 2 beers and 2 glasses of wine which cost US$52.

We had a Faruca ( like a little Yacht) ride on the Nile the next day which was great as it was very hot. Islam took us to a great place for lunch, where the food was safe to eat as you must not drink the water in Egypt, only bottled water. The 2 days was much less expensive than the cruise trips and had alot more activities in it. Highly recommended.

[Mzhelen]

We had Hosni (driver) and Mohamed Abaza as our guide and they were great. Hosni negotiated all the crazy Cairo traffic well, and was always there waiting for us. Mohamed was incredibly knowledgeable, took us where we wanted to go, was flexible and made sure we covered what we wanted to cover. He's an Egyptologist and actually spent time working for Dr. Hawass, the head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (he's the one you see on all the Discovery Channel shows). He also gave us lots of tips for getting around on our own, and any other information we wanted to know. We felt very taken care of.

[suzyluvs2cruise]

A bit off topic but I'm curious if any of you had Hep A and or Hep B shots prior to your cruise? We're doing the Ramses tour with the overnight in Cairo and wonder if the shots are necessary.

Edited June 24, 2010 by suzyluvs2cruise

[Mzhelen]

A bit off topic but I'm curious if any of you had Hep A and or Hep B shots prior to your cruise? We're doing the Ramses tour with the overnight in Cairo and wonder if the shots are necessary.

 

We did the shots, along with tetanus boosters, just as a precaution although it's certainly not required. The hep shots are a couple of rounds, so you should start 6 months before you go.

 

We also did H1N1 shots because Cairo has been experiencing some cases and we hadn't done them here in the U.S. 6 months ago when it was prevalent here.