Egypt & (India)

[bcf]

This is for persons traveling on the ROYAL PRINCESS, SEPT. 16.04 from ROME/BANGKOK. We have confirmed a couple of independent tours with a highly recommended tour company, De Castro Tours out of Cairo and are looking for others to join us while in our ports in Egypt. So far there are 6 of us going on these tours. The following is the information on the tours. If you have any questions please post them. We did tons of research and feel these will be much better tours than anything the ship has to offer, plus they are a much better price. The tour is for 3 days and 1 night and is costing us 270.00 each. These are De Castro Tours emails to us.

 

First part Friday 24 September 2004:

 

Arrival at Alexandria Port meet & assist and transfer to Cairo by the road around 220 KM , arrive Cairo by 10 .00 am , and start the tour by visiting the great Pyramids and the Sphinx and Lunch and visit Memphis return to the hotel for rest .

 

In the evening attend the sound & light Show

Overnight at the hotel

 

Saturday 25 September 2004

 

Breakfast at the hotel, and start the tour by visit the Egyptian Museum, and Mohamed Aly Citadel and then Old Cairo and transfer to Port Said to reach your ship.

 

Second Part Monday 27 September 2004

Meet & assist at Safaga port transfer to Luxor by the road, once reach Luxor start by visit the West Bank Valley of the Kings and the queen and Hatchpsut temple and then the Luxor temple and then transfer to Safaga to your boat.

 

Now I have few points for you

 

1) The first part I choose you to stay a night to take as much as you can from your trip as the time permit

2) The second part I think you can return to your boat you can also stay the night but you will leave at 9 AM to reach the ship in the right time as the ship move early

 

Of course this is not my first time organizing this trip but this experience goes for years I just give you this site to read some of my client's feedback

http://messages.cruisecritic.com/2/OpenTopic?a=tpc&s=927093444&f=1620962652&m=4823072467

 

Hope this will meet your requirement and hope to hear from you very soon, till this please accept my very best regards

 

Moustafa Mourad

Cairo Branch Manager

De Castro tours

 

Have a nice day from De Castro tours

 

Thank you for your e mail received yesterday, I appreciate your comments and questions and let me give the prices with all the including and this will answer most of your question and at the end I will give you answers for outstanding questions.

 

 

First part program

 

Group price 160 USD per person in double

 

This price will include the following :

 

1) One night in 5 stars hotel on Bed & Breakfast basis

2) The service of meet & assist at Alexandria port and transfer to Cairo and transfer from Cairo to Port Said all in private A/C van

3) 2 full day tours in Cairo including entrance fees and private A/C van and professional English speaking guide and lunch ( drinks are extra )

4) A camel ride at the Pyramids tour, and get inside the second Pyramids.

5) Admission ticket to the Sound & light show and transportation

 

 

Second part Program

 

Group price 110 USD per person

 

This price will include the following :

 

1) Meet & assist at Safaga port and transfer to Luxor, and transfer back to Safaga in Private A/C van.

2) Full day tour including entrance fees and private A/C van and professional English speaking guide

3) Lunch during the tour ( Drinks are extra )

 

Now separate answers....

 

1) For the rest in the first tour of the pyramids I am fully aware about your limited time in our country but I have my reasons for this as follow

 

a) At that day you will be getting up very early and spend 3 hours in the travel and then make a tour in the open Air Pyramids and Memphis where the sun is a factor ...... so my point at this stage you will definitely need a shower to be ready for the evening

 

b) I wanted you to stay in Giza area where is the Pyramids and Memphis and the sound and light and then you don't waist time in traffic

 

c) You can do the visit of Khan El Khallili on the second day where you will be in Cairo any way

 

2) For the return from the Luxor you will leave at 6 PM as this is the time for secured tourist convoy

 

 

3) Yes we do accept credit cards with 3 % extra charge but in your case this will be very difficult due to the limited time as you have to come to our office so bringing cash will be the best solution

 

4) Each couple can pay separately no problem

 

I hope I covered all the points and I will be more then happy to have more comments from your side as my role to reach the best tour in our country.

 

Till this please accept my very best regards

Moustafa Mourad

Cairo Branch Manager

De Castro tours

[Stampede]

Hi Shanon:

[Stampede]

Hi Shanon:

This is Stampede from Calgary. Anyway, my wife and I are very interest in joining your independent tour for Egypt and elsewhere. If you don't mind, can you give me more info, my email is szemanyip@yahoo.com

p.s Does the tour in Eygpt have military escort? Do we book it directly with De Castro

B. Regards,

[slgjhg]

i All,

 

I have forwarded daytrips for Mumbai and Cochin to Deb, Pat, Barbara, and Stampede/Simon, is anyone else interested? I have asked that they,lepassagetoindia, expand Mumbai to take full advantage of our time there. Will let anyone who is interested know their response. I believe Barbara is also working some aspects of these ports.

 

With respect to Egypt, we will make a decision this week. We have worked with four tour operators who have been very patient and informative with us. If anyone is interested in their names, please email me. They have all worked very hard to accomodate all of our needs( Jay has specific mobility issues as a result of his stroke) and desires. I feel bad that I can't hire them all.

 

For first time tourers of Egypt, be sure to check out what Barbara as negotiated with DeCastroTours. It sounds almost perfect to me. See it at our RollCall or Ports of Call "Africa" or Ports of Call "India".

 

Am waiting to hear from ScalaReale with regard to the Port of Naples. In particular touring Pompeii. We have heard from the Vatican and are scheculed to do Scavi on September 16th at 10:45AM. This should be perfect as our transfer is scheduled for 2:00PM for ship transfer.

 

In Istanbul, apparently six of us may be touring together. I have emailed Lavant for prices and complications of transportation. He will work on tour guides for Ephesus upon his return from current tour. He is unavailable in Kusadasi due to prior commitment with Brits.

 

Hope everyone's planning is going well.

 

Best Regards,

 

Shannon

[slgjhg]

Hi All,

 

We have finally made our decision with respect to Egypt. We worked with A&K, oneworldtours, (Ash, Shades of Egypt), A-Z Tours (Avril, Tours and Travel, Egypt) and Moustafa of DeCastro Tours. We ended up going with De Castro, mainly for the personal attention he gave us and the prompt replies. All the other agencies did a great job as well.

 

When we were in Egypt before we used A&K (arranged through the ship) and couldn't have been more pleased. Avril is a partner/owner of this firm and he had a great sense of humor and tremendous wit, I would get one word emails from him like "Right" or "That makes more sense", I really enjoyed interacting with him, I also liked knowing where he was in the organization. Perhaps the kindest and most thoughtful of them all was Ash at Shades of Egypt/oneworldtours. He had such understanding and was so careful in all his recommendations. What I am saying here is that I would recommend all of these firms to anyone who is putting together tours on your own. They are excellent and performed very well for me. I wish I could have hired them all. Even after I emailed them our decision I got emails wishing us a wonderful trip in Egypt.

 

The trip we are doing is quite different from the one the others on our ship are doing. That is simply because we have been before, so we are focusing on Abu Simble and Aswan. We will be away from the ship for four nights, we will miss the Suez but we will basically do the tour the Ship offers (concentrating on Alexandria rather than Ciaro) and will pay half the price. If anyone cruising with us has been before you might be interested, simply email me. If you have not been, scroll up and contact Barbara.

 

Best Regards,

 

Shannon Gardner

[jackieN]

my parents are on your cruise and i am trying to organise their tours for them is there still space available what hotel are you using in cairo. have i got this right you are going to be picked up in alexandria and returned to port said.will there be time for shopping in cairo

[slgjhg]

If you go to rollcall your will find lots of information about this trip. Here we really tried to focus on India and Egypt, thanks to the posts Barbara started. Have your parents been to Egypt before? If not, I imagine they would want to do something like the tour Barbara has negotiatied. If you scroll further up on the site you will get many details. Included are who was chosen to conduct the tour and the cost, as well as the various sites to be visited. .

 

If your parents have been to Egypt before, they may be interested in doing the itineraries we have put together. If you go port by port (in the area called Roll Call) you will be able to see what we are doing together, independently or are not decided about.

 

For instance, it appears that in Cochin, everyone who has posted on this board (almost) will be taking the lepassagetoindia half day tour for $17.00.

 

No one has posted an interest in doing an overnight to the Taj or Jaipur (similar to what the ship offers) even though what was proposed was 1/2 the price of what the ship offered.

 

In Naples, at least eight people have hired a very special driver to take them to Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast. This was put together by Deb. The original starter of our RollCall. Although Barbara and Randy and Jay and I may meet them at Pompeii, after that tour we (the two couples) plan to do our own thing. In Istanbul, I have hired a private guide for 4 to 6 people. Three of the four of us who are currently doing this tour have been to Istanbul and adore it. If your parents might be interested, I believe we have great flexibility. Because we seem to be a fairly independent group you may have lots of questions and believe they would be welcomed.

 

At present, we are working on the end of the trip. Many of us have been to these ports and several of us are staying over because we love Bangkok, how about your parents?

 

I will email Barbara and I'm confident she will be in touch as well as Deb about their availability and any details you are interested in learning more about.

 

I hope this has been helpful, tell us about your parents and their interests.

 

Regards,

 

Shannon

[bcf]

Hi JackieN

 

Have you had a chance to look at the tours we have arranged for Egypt? Just scrool up from your original posting and you can read all about them. There are 8 of us going on these so far, but the tour co. has indicated they could take more. You would have to let me know ASAP if you want to book your parents, so I can contact De Castro Tours. We did lot's of research and these really were the best value for the tours we are gettings. The company is very well known and has been in business over 50 years. You can check our their website at Decastrotours.com.

 

In answer to your questions, yes we are picked up in Alexandria and returned to Port Said. That is the only way to do the tour to allow us an overnight in Cairo. Yes, we will definitely have time to shop, we are going to the famous Khan Khalil Bazaar.

 

Cheers,

Barbara

[jackieN]

thanks for all the info.my parents arent:cool: sure wether they want to stay overnight but we will let you know asap many thanks

[slgjhg]

Jackie, I think in the beginning we were all hesitant about the overnights off the ship. But after corresponding with many groups, tour companies in Egypt, it became obvious that the overhead, driving three and 1/2 hours to Cairo, one way, and then back to the ship didn't allow the time to see most of the important sights in Cairo. It is also true for Luxor. In the Adventures Ashore your parents received from Princess, they also make referrence to these long driving times. Just wanted to let your know that all of us have been down that road. Of course for your parents that may be the trade-off they want to make.

 

Let us know if there is anything else you have questions about. I saw yesterday that you and I had posted on the same thread in Europe.

 

Regards,

 

Shannon

[fredp]

princess cruise rome to bangkok

 

Hi Barbara this is Pauline and Fred Jackies parents we would very much like to join your group on your Eygpt trips with Decastro Tours 1st part 24th

September Alexandria / Cario 2nd part Monday 27th Safaga / Luxor

I hope ive done this right ( first time i have been on )

our email is wfpheysey@aol.com

 

Many thanks for all the work you have put into finding out about these tours

please let us know if there is anything else we need to do to join your group

Regards Pauline

[jackieN]

has anybody used a limo service or taxi company from the port to the city in bangkok

[slgjhg]

Hi Jackie,

 

I assume this is for your parents. We used a company called Surapon Tour, to book our transportation from the port to Bangkok and five days later our transportation from the Peninsula to the airport. The cost was $58.00.

We have had our vouchers for weeks.

 

Here is their information: Toll Free 1-866-THAI-TRIP, info@surapontour.com. http://www.thailandtour.org

 

If this gets zapped, email me, it's in my profile.

 

Good Luck,

 

Shannon

[jackieN]

thanks sooooo much yeah it is for my mum and dad:)

[ClaudiaF]

Have read these posts with regards to your private tours and hope that some of you who took the tours ( and poted) would come back and respond as to how they were.

TY

[slgjhg]

Hi Claudia F.,

Indeed, I thought I had posted how successful our experiences were in both countries. I started new threads regarding independent tours for both ports. Additionally, I tried to post an informative thread about our trip. The companies we used in both these countries were actually sourced from the archives of these boards, and both were huge successes. Egypt, Decastro Tours and India, LePassagetoIndia.

They did a GREAT job for us all. If you have specific questions, please post, otherwise, I can try to provide threads for your reference.

I hope this helps. Also, have threads on Istanbul and Kusidasia.

Regards,

Shannon

[Host Caroline]

Just a reminder that tour operators are not allowed to advertise here on the Cruise Critic message boards or post messages with links to their website, email etc.

Your cooperation is appreciated!

[Gillian2]

We used ICAN TRAVEL (Cairo based) for our 10 day trip to Egypt in March. They were great and have a web site. They got us much cheaper rates at hotels we specified than we could get ourselves. They put together whatever you request and we had no complaints. We had a car, driver and guide for just the two of us. They do day and partial day tours too.
I had no luck with LePassagetoIndia..emailed twice. We will be on the Pacific in India in August. I will try the other site mentioned way above in this thread. I use Fodors site a lot, but even it is weak on India. :D

[slgjhg]

There seems to be several new threads about Egypt so I'm bumping this up because it contains much information and experience.

Happy Reading !

Regards,

Shannon

[slgjhg]

Hi All,

How was the Pacitic last August. How was India, whom did you end up using?

Regards,

Shannon

[Kristencooktvl@knology.ne]

Hey guys-
Just wanted to say thanks to all the info people have put up here. :) I am a travel agent and am trying to find a private excursion for clients of mine that are going in May. They don't want to do the cruise lines excursion.

Hope everyone has a great day!!

Kristen :)

[EMAIL="Kristencooktvl@knology.net"]Kristencooktvl@knology.net[/EMAIL]