Terribly rushed tour, boring guide, late lunch, overall disappointing day
So first of all I understand that they are trying to pack a lot into a one day tour, but at the end of the day I was incredibly disappointed with this tour, and I would suggest you look for a different company depending on what you are looking for. If you just want to stand in front of these sites and take a quick picture, than this is your tour. But if you actually wanted to walk around and explore these sites and learn something, then this is not the tour for you.
Ok, so to start with the tour. Pick up went ok. They were a little late and had a hard time finding our Giza hotel, but that's fine there are lots of hotels in that little area. The car was nice, with good AC. We drove right to the pyramids and he bought our tickets, including Khufu's pyramid. Our guide gave us a very short and not that good lesson on the pyramids. Basically a 1 minute speil on Khufu and mastabas. Then he said ok you can go in now. So we crawled through and had a great time. Note: it is very hot and cramped inside, so it may not be for everyone. And yes there isn't a ton to see in there as opposed to other tombs in Egypt, but I mean it's the last ancient wonder of the world, so I'd say it'd worth going into. Anyways we get out and our guide tells us we need to get back in the car and do the camel ride. We literally had only seen one side of the pyramid. I was surprised and told him we kinda wanted to walk around a little and see the area. So he took us around the area and we were lucky enough to even get to see the second pyramid. I thought it was weird how hurried he was to get us in the car and onto the next activity. So we head over to the camel site and it was really fun and you do get a great view, so I would recommend it. The price isn't that bad and you could do it on your own for cheaper, but whatever. So Giza was pretty good, but it felt very rushed and if I hadn't asked to see the rest of the area we wouldn't have even seen the other sides of the pyramids (I get they all look the same, but 95% of the tourists are on one side, so if you just walk around to the other sides it's like a whole other site).
So so far things are going ok, nothing really that bad but then things took a weird turn. He asked if we wanted to see how papyrus was made and i was a little hesitant but we went. They call it a papyrus factory, but its a papyrus showroom. They give you a 1 minute demo of how they make it and then they walk you around the showroom and try to get you to buy overpriced "art." This felt like a waste, and obviously this was one of those kickback deals where the guide gets a cut for bringing in people. So that was a little annoying, but then he took us to a perfume shop and we sat through what is basically an essential oils sales pitch. Eventually we just had to interrupt the pitch and tell them we weren't interested and we left. At this point things started to get worse. I think I must've offended the guide by not buying the papyrus or the perfume, and I was offended that we had wasted all this time at these sales pitches instead of actually seeing the sites.
So then we drive down to Dashur. It's about a 30-40 minute drive, so not too bad. We get there and he buys the ticket and we drive to the Red pyramid and on the way we see the bent pyramid a couple miles down the road. I was excited to see it and asked if we were going there first. the guide was like o no we don't need to go there you can just see it from the car. I thought he was joking, but then I realized he wasn't kidding so I asked if we could do see it. he said it was about ten minutes away, was I sure I wanted to see it? I said yes, and of course it was like 2 minutes away not 10. So we got out here and walked around and got to see this one only cas I bugged the guide. IMO, the bent pyramid is one of the more impressive ones cas it's massive and you get a really good sense of how the casing stones mustve looked at Giza. anyways we get back in the car and then go on to the Red pyramid, which is also very impressive and there are basically no tourists here so you can appreciated the pyramid a little more. note: climbing in this one is included with the ticket, but daaang it is hot and a looooon cramped walk down and back up. It's probably worth it, especially if you skipped khufu's but it is a pretty intense hike, just fyi.
Ok so by this point its about 1:30 and we are getting hungry for some food, so we just assumed that lunch would be next, cas 1:30 is already a late lunch for most people. But no our guide said that we'd go to Memphis and then Saquarra and then we'd have lunch, which would be like 4:00 at that point. we were surprised, cas 4:00 isn't lunch and after all the hiking we were hungry. he said there are no restaurants in memphis but we could eat before saquarra. (again, I thought he was joking that memphis has no restaurants, but he meant it didn't have the big tourists restaurants). ok so whatever at this point our guide sucks and was obviously not expecting to actually have to give a tour today, so we asked him to just stop at a street mart so we could buy some snacks and pepsi. I feel like he shouldve suggested that to us. we can't be the first people to get hungry at 1:30 on a tour. Maybe we should've brought some of our own snacks but the website does say that the tour includes a snack box, so whatever.
We get to memphis and see the statues and then I asked him about a couple other sites that were clearly on the map and he just said there are no other sites. I said I saw them on the map and then he got mad and me and asked me to show him the map and show him these sites because he doesn't believe me. at this point i was just over the whole tour and starving so i just said can we please just get some lunch now. so at 2:30 he finally took us to the restaurant. it was what you would expect, and i didn't have any problem with the restaurant. the food was actually really good and the pepsis were like 20 or 30, so not too bad considering it was a tourist place. after lunch he took us to saqarra.
i wanted to go see the serrapeum there, but he said it was really far away and not at saquarra, even tho it is 100% there and I would think something a tour guide should know about. at this point i was tired of arguing with him, so i just said forget about it. we go to the complex and walk around. later a different guide asked if we saw the tomb at saquarra with the pyramid text, apparently its the only one in egypt you can see. but of course, no, our guide did not show us that there, so that was disappointing to hear. again, even here our guide was surprised that we'd want to walk around and just tried to get us to go back to the car about a minute after getting there. we got back to the hotel right about 5, so it was just as long as they said it would be even tough our guide kept acting like we were taking all this extra time everywhere.
honestly, I was really disappointed in the quality of our guide. his knowledge of the sites was very lacking, and he had no interest in explaining anything, he just wanted to get us to all the sites as fast as possible so he could finish up his day early. I did not appreciate that they took us to the papyrus and the perfume shops to try and get more money out of us. I would not recommend this tour to anyone that wants to do more than just drive by the sites and take quick pictures. if you want to actually experience these great sites (and wow dashur and saquarra are great sites and worth the drive) then I would book with another company.
This activity isn’t bookable for now.!
Cairo
Pickup offered
Mobile Ticket
Offered in: العربية
11 more
5 hours (approx.)
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