Caliterp07

We used Ramses for our Cairo overnight tour in early October. Our guide was absolutely fabulous. He was sweet and accommodating and absolutely wonderful (despite a few difficult people in our party...)

The same cannot be said for Ramses management. The company failed to take care of our wonderful guide--to the point where they did not even have a hotel room booked for him or our driver! We were in a ridiculous 5* hotel, while they were supposed to be in a lesser hotel nearby. We came to find out the next morning that they had not booked a place for him, and our guide ended up sleeping on a friend's couch overnight, as he had no where else to go.

That put a really bad taste in my mouth. Ramses seems to know that they have the guides in the palm of their hand. These people are desperate for income, so the company can treat them poorly and the guides have no choice but to continue working for them.

Needless to say, we all tipped our guide very generously to make up for it. (When you crunch the numbers and take into account the ticket fees, hotel costs, and food, there's not a whole lot of profit left over...and my guess is Ramses takes a good portion of it). I think many of these guides live on tips.

Bring a sweater! I always get SO cold watching the shows in the evenings. Half the time, even with a sweater I still steal DH's suit jacket to cover my goosebumps.

Around the ship I just wear jeans and a top. Sometimes during the day I pull out the sweater, because they tend to super air condition the dining areas.

I'm coming to HMC next month through HAL. I see several Carnival people saying they did a jet ski excursion, but that's not offered on HAL's website. (Just "aquatrax", but that's not the same thing, is it?)

Will we be able to rent jet skis from the beach? I've never done it before, but I think it looks fun!