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Anyone Recently Used Ramses Tours?


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hi, can anyone tell me how the le meridien pyramids hotel is in terms of cleanliness, bed confort, food quality in the restaurants, and if they have a covered pool and/or sauna? we also booked with ramses for our dec 5th 2010 cruise, we will be doing an overnight tour with another 9 fellow cruisers, if anyone wants to join us there is still room on our tour.

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Just stayed at the Le Meridien Hotel last week and it was wonderful. The hotel was clean and the room was neat. Our guide handled the entire check-in process for us - just handed us the keys and off we went. We were so exhausted by the time we checked in that I cannot tell you about the bed comfort - we were asleep within minutes.

Also the night we stayed at Le Meridien there was a beautiful wedding in the lobby. It was so enjoyable to watch the Egyptian traditions. The music and the people were beautiful. The party lasted for about an hour in the lobby and then the bridal party went into a private ballroom to continue with the party.

There was a beautiful pool area - don't know about a sauna. The pool is not covered. You can look up the hotel on the internet and find out more about the facility.

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  • 4 weeks later...
Hi,

That was a great accounting you provided of your 2007 one day Ramses tour from the ship to Cairo and back. Was there a specific name for the tour??

Thanks in advance.

Ed d

 

I think this tour was called Best of Egypt!

The beauty with Ramses is that they can tailor the itinerary to what you want to do and see...

Hope your plans are coming along nicely!!

 

MC

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Hi,

My family of 5 just returned from a RCI cruise that stopped at Alexandria.

We had booked our tour with Ramses months prior to departure. George, the tour operator was always very quick to answer my many questions and always made me feel that we would be taken very well care of. I even called him prior to leaving to make sure everything was well organized for us. Our ship was in Alexandria from 7am to 10pm. Everything we organized was carried out very nicely. We always felt safe and we were very satisfied with our guide and driver. We met our guide at the scheduled time of 7:30am. He was waiting for us with our name on a board right outside the gangway. He made us feel safe from the first handshake! We immediately were escorted to his comfortable van with air condition. We were 5 plus the driver and our guide. Our guide was a young man, who was very knowledgeable in all of Egypts's history. He talked the whole 3 hours on our way to the pyramids, giving us so much info in a very easy to understand format. Our 3 teenagers were really interested in all he had to say! He always answered our questions and pointed things out along the way. The 3 hours just flew by. Our driver was also very good. His driving skills were amazing and we always felt very safe. He would also point things out to us. Both guide and driver spoke perfect english and very easy to understand. Once we got to Giza, Our guide brought us to the pyramids and would always be next to us ready to give more info, answer questions or be our photographer! We had organized a camel ride for the 5 of us and he also took care of that for us. At the pyramids we were not haggled at all by any of the people selling stuff or asking for a tip. Our guide was always close by to us and the locals would say a few words to him and then they would leave. We walked to the Sphinx were more info was given to us. We spent about 2 hours at Giza. At this time he offered to take us for lunch. We had brought some food from our ship, so we passed on the offer. So he suggested we leave for the museum. He called the driver, who promptly pulled up to take us there. At the museum, the guide took care of getting us entrance tickets. Inside he showed us all the amazing statues and gave us more stories about each artifact. It was so interesting and so much to see. He manuevered us throughout the musem and brough us to the Mummy Room. This too we had asked that we include in our excursion. This room was amazing. The kids were just amazed. He then brought us to see King Tuts treaseres. We were so inspired by the richness and all the stories behind each artifact. It was important to do this tour with a guide since he provided so much info and always answered our questions. Once we completed the tour of the museum, Our guide asked us if we wanted to visit the Papyrus store. We agreed for a quick stop of 1/2 hour. There we learnt how papyrus was made and we bought a small one as a souvenir. No pressure was felt at all on making a purchase. We left and then stopped at local shop and bought some canned soda. We were done our excursuin and we started heading back to Alexandria. It was about 3:45. We stopped to gas up the van and we purchased some more drinks and a couple of local treats (packaged) that our tour guide recommended. We talked alittle while during our drive back, but then we all fell asleep, absorbing everything we had seen and learnt.I had mentioned prior to booking that I wanted to be back at the ship for 7:00. It was 6:30, so our tour guide offered to take us to the Alexandria library and we also stopped at a Mosque were my husband and 3 boys entered the mosque. It was an interesting stop were the boys learnt more about our different cultures. Our driver would drop us off with the guide and be ready to pick us up when our guide called him.

We had an amazing time and we were so happy that we had booked with Ramses. They delivered everything we asked for and more. We always felt safe and extremey stisfied with all the information we were given. I highly recommend this tour company. Their price was very reasonable. We paid much less the ship tour but got so much more!

If you need any other info, do not hesitate to contact me. The 5 of us were extremely happy of our day in Egypt! Thanks to Ramese , it was very memorable!!!!

Our guide and driver dropped us right off at the port. We parted and said our goodbyes. As per our guides recommendations, the boys praciced there negatioating skill with the vendors at the port. They had an amazing time with the merchants and felt they made great deals! Our guide had given us some tips on how to negotiate with the locals! The boys shopped till it was boarding time!!! 9:15!!! They enjoyed this part of the excursion immensely too!

 

Montrealmaria,

 

Thank you for all the good info. Do you mind telling me how much you were charged, by the number of people or as a carload?

Thanks

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Just back last night. We were on the Brilliance Nov. 30th sailing. 6 of us used Ramses. We were very pleased. Our guide was Mohamed Aili Khalaf, and driver was Shaabam. Stayed the night a Le Merridian....not sure of the spelling. Paid at the end, did exactly what we wanted....very very pleased.

Ginny

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we were also on the november 30th brilliance sailing. my husband and I had a private tour with Karim. He was very personable. We were able to tailor the itinerary exactly the way we wanted. Karim kept us on a time table to eliminate the cairo traffic jam on a friday. The driver was amazing to get us through the chaos. We declined the papyrus institute and carpet school in order to have more time at the pyramids and this was no problem at all. We stayed at Le Meridien and were upgraded to a suite with a view of the pyramids. On the drive back to the ship, the manager of Ramses called us to make sure that everything was to our satisfaction. Very very good service. If we ever go back to egypt for a longer trip we would definitely use Ramses.

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Was in Egypt yesterday off the RCI Brilliance and a tour with Ramses. Don’t hesitate to book with them! They were responsive throughout the booking process as our group grew bigger. With 4 vans, we were more than comfortable and had just an amazing day! The guides went out of their way to accommodate us, and we were to the pyramids, Sphinx, Museum, and Bazaar with plenty of time to make it back to the ship (one of the ship’s tours pulled in with us). No problems, great service, terrific price!

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We will be doing the Brilliance 11/2010 and will probably book with Ramses. I have a question for you. Does your Ramses tour guide take care of you if you want to order cartouches to take home? I have read that the ship's tours takes orders and then picks them up on the way back to the ship. We want to do the two day tour with Ramses and I wonder if this is also the case with Ramses. Another question which I hope you can help me with is my daughter in law wants a white gold cartouche, did you see a totally white gold cartouche offered?

Thanks for any info you can give me.

Karon

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In two words: ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!!!

 

We did the two-day tour with Ramses with an overnight in Cairo. When George sent us the email confirmation, he promised us a tour of a lifetime and he certainly was true to his word.

 

We are veteran cruisers and travelers and have visited 60+ countries, and I have to say this was the BEST tour we have ever had!!

 

We were with fellow CC members "Dorijo". We were not sure if we would be able to get off the ship at 7AM because we thought we might have to wait until all of the ship's tours departed first. There were no announcements, so we just went to the gangway at 7AM and were the first ones off the ship. We walked past all of the tour buses that were lined up until we came to the lined up mini vans. We spotted a van with our name in the window, met the Ramses staff, was introduced to our guide, Karim and driver, Ahmed, and off we went. We had a late model air conditioned mini van that was very comfortable for the four of us and our guide and driver.

 

During the first day we visited the Mosque, Museum, Coptic Cairo, the modern area around the Hard Rock Cafe, and watched the feluccas sailing on the Nile. We opted out of doing the felucca ride we originally wanted to do because it was starting to get dark and a bit cool and windy. Karim was ready to take us as originally planned, but we enjoyed it just as much to watch the beautiful boats sailing as the sun was setting. We ate an early dinner and then went to the Khan El Khalili bazaar, shopped, and picked up cartouches that had previously been ordered before arriving at the LeMeredien Hotel for the night. The hotel was very nice and modern and our room was very large and comfortable. There are also nice shops in the hotel if you wanted to continue to shop that night!!

 

The next morning, after a nice included breakfast, we went to Memphis, Sakkara, and several shopping stops in Cairo (at our request) on our way to the pyramids at Giza. We spent time at the pyramids and sphinx and rode camels near the sphinx before having lunch and heading back to Alexandria.

 

Karim took us to several special areas on the way back to Alexandria, so that we could see more of the local life and even made sure we drove by the lighthouse and library in Alexandria before returning to the ship. If we even mentioned wanting to see a specific landmark or location in Alexandria or Cairo, Karim made sure that we saw it. Ahmed's driving in the wild and crazy traffic was incredible!!

 

Karim took us to where we wanted to go and went the extra mile to make sure we saw and did everything we wanted to do. He asked us if we wanted to go to the papyrus factory and the rug factory and once we told him we did not want to go to either one, the subject never came up again. Once we mentioned we wanted to shop for something specific, he made sure he took us to a place where we could find what we were looking for. He also went the extra mile to help us order a cartouche ring during our last hours there and made sure it was ready in time for us to pick up before we returned to the ship. He was so enthusiastic the entire two days, and really wanted to make our tour a special one- and he certainly succeeded!!

 

We wished we had more time in Egypt. We found the people to be warm and friendly and never felt threatened or intimidated at any time. We met several other families/groups on our cruise who also did tours with Ramses, and everyone had the same favorable comments when we returned back to the ship and started comparing notes.

 

I highly recommend contacting Ramses and they will customize your tour to make it YOUR tour for what you want to do. We look forward to returning to Egypt again one day and when we do, we will be touring once again with Ramses.

 

If anyone has any specific questions or needs specific information, please give me your email address and I will email you directly with the info.:p

 

You will love Egypt!!

Leslie

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I'm going to book with Ramses Tours when we go on our cruise. I did get and e-mail right away about the trip and price. For those who all ready did the tours when you pay do you have to pay cash or is credit card OK. if it is cash what form of money US dollars,Euros. Sorry for the odd questions but I'm the type of person that likes to be prepared.

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A cartouche is a pendant that has your name in heirogrifics (the old Egyptain language). It can be in silver or gold. It is a elongated rectangle with the lettering running from top to bottom rather than across. It is a favorite purchase for tourists in Egypt.

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We found them in 18KT yellow gold, sterling silver and sterling silver with yellow gold lettering.....I believe some places may have white gold also, but we did not see any....yellow gold is more prevalent in that part of the world. We had the option to have them single sided or double sided.....with a choice of names in hieroglyphics, English or Arabic.....most got single sided in hieroglyphics....a few got double sided with hieroglyphics and English and I got double sided in hieroglyphics and Arabic.....a wonderful souvenir of Egypt and a nice conversation piece. You can also do an on-line search for "Egyptian cartouche" for additional information and see the hieroglyphic alphabet. Also a bit hit for a special gift for someone.:p

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Used Ramses Tours for an overnight tour to Cairo for two persons. Picked us up directly from the Alexandria Port from the NCL Jade (Dec. 15). When you e-mail Ramses they will reply with a standard overnight tour with extra cost add-ons. While some of the add-ons would be standard on some ship tours the overall cost is cheaper using Ramses and you get to decide what you want to add on. Paid $780 for two persons with pyramids, Sphinx, Citadel and Mosque, Eygptian museum on the first day and then on the second day Memphis with shopping. All meals were included except for dinner. We paid for upgrade to stay at the Oberoi Mena House next to the pyramids ($50 per person) and visit the solar boat ($20pp by pyramids) and mummy rooms ($20pp in Egyptian Museum) which is the actual cost of admission. I recommend stay at the Oberoi Mena House even though when we went we only saw the pyramids from the hotel in the morning (sunset was 5 pm). The location made it easier to get to the pyramids and Memphis without being caught in Cairo traffic.

Our guide was Marawan Mohamed who has intimate knowledge of Egypt - so read up on ancient Egypt and ask questions, you'll get an education.

Overall it was an excellent tour, considering that the boat left Alexandria at 6 pm and to allow for uncertainities he had us back at the boat by 4 pm (It's 3 hours to Cairo from Alexandria).

Some pointers:

While initial e-mails were acknowledged reasonably, within a day or two, confirmation of add-ons and tour wishes was slow or didn't occur until after repeated e-mails.

Payment is in cash - so take a money belt. I took cash from home left it in the room safe in the ship.

While we saw everything that was promised the order may change due to weather or where you stay.

Highly recommended.

 

Welcome to Cruise Critic. I appreciate your report.

Can you give us your opinion about the value of the solar boat and the mummy room? We're setting up our itinerary with Ramses.

Many thanks. Kathy

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The Solar Boat next to Cheops Pyramid is a definite go see and worth the admission. The Mummy Rooms in the Egyptian Museum was OK, but if you've seen a mummy before spend more time in King Tuts room. It just mummies with short descriptions (though if the museum is hot it is the only air conditioned rooms.)

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Considering doing over night with Ramses. Could anyone give me an idea of the time that the sight and sound show is presented and then what time is the Nile dinner cruise? I am assuming that one will follow the other if I opt to do both of these optional tours. Any advice or comments on doing both?

Thanks for any info

Karon

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Karon - The light and sound show is at several different times and in several different languages. We did not do either, but Ramses can tell you the times on both. I think the English version of the light/sound show may have been at both 7:30PM and 9:30PM but not sure. I think they have different times on the dinner cruise also. If those are the times, you will probably need to do the dinner cruise first and then the 9:30 light and sound show, so you will have to have it timed with the rest of your sightseeing earlier in the day. If some in your group want to do this and some do not, they can take some to the hotel first and then take the others to the dinner and or light/sound show.....you will just need to tell Ramses what you want and they will coordinate the times to make sure you get to do it all.....they will also give you the prices for both so that everyone can decide if they want to do this option or not.

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Google the light and sound show. there are different times depending on the time of the year. we went last month and the english show was at 6:30. we went with ramses and the implication was that there was not time to do both. we have friends that were on the same trip and they did do the nile river cruise. they were not as impressed because it was dark and they couldn't really tell that they were on the nile. the light and sound show is a little cheesy, but the view of the pyramids is great. if you have one, bring a tripod. we got great pictures setting the shutter on 8 seconds. it was well worth the extra $4 US charge

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We have booked a one day trip with Ramses.

 

Can I ask other who have done one day trip with Ramses what lunch arrangements did you have?

 

When I asked I was told " guide will suggest a few places to have lunch for you to choose" Thats ok , everyone can pay for their own lunch.

 

I was just wondering what others have done and how much is lunch likely to be.

 

Thanks

 

Doreen

Edited by doemichael
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On our one-day tour to Cairo from Alexandria, we had lunch at the Hard Rock Café in the Hyatt on the Nile. I had inquired ahead of time where and when we would have lunch and was given the same answer as you.

 

I had also asked if we could get something a bit more 'local', but once there, I understood that a precise time and place might be difficult to commit to. Traffic is horrendous and depending on where you are in the city, it might be wiser to change plans.

 

Hard Rock Café has an 'Egyptian Food' all-you-can-eat buffet and that's what was included in the price of our tour. We had to pay for beverages. For a cola and a beer it was close to 20$. Food was OK at best. Our guide didn't eat that, he ordered a hamburger!! And that's what I would do next time. But by the time we got there (past 2h30) I was so hungry, that I would have eaten anything!!

But the location was great - we had a great view of the Nile and after lunch, we walked for 5 minutes to the Feluccas for our ride on the Nile, which was absolutely fantastic!!

 

MC

Edited by Marie-Claude
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