one Package 8 Nights Cairo Luxor Aswan Abu Simbel Nile Cruise

Shame on you, Etro tours.

Hi Viator, this is an introduction... The river Nile cruise was nice, there I met other tourist, and I asked them about how their tour operator handled their guidance; they said the same tour guide was with them during the whole trip, also with them were other tourist that they met within their tour and travel together and comparted the experience and companionship of traveling together. Something similar I was expecting to have in my tour. Etro tours, operator in Egypt. How was my experience.... Before arriving to Cairo, I had not sleep for more than 24 hours, but my itinerary for day-1 was to be driven to a hotel, where I was planning to sleep, and at 6:00 PM will be an orientation meeting with the other tourist. I arrived in Cairo around 8:30 AM, while I was picking up my luggage, I received a text on my cellular that the tour guide, Gamal, and the driver were waiting for me already at the gate 6. When I went to the gate 6, other drivers had signed with the name of the people they were picking up. After everybody left a policeman approached me and said something in Arabic. Then a taxi driver came and insisted to take my luggage, and I had to be strong and refused their help. Then came a new policeman and told me to go with the taxi driver, he will take you to your hotel. At their insistence I asked the driver if his name was Mohamed (fake name), he said in a broken English, yes, I was sent to pick you up. After a few minutes, suddenly a person who was running and sweating approach to me and said his name was Gamal and asked me if the driver was here. Then he started calling the driver and after several minutes he finally arrived. At this point I felt afraid and very insecure. To my surprise Gamal said that they will start the tour right away with a visit to the Pyramids. To me the tour was painful and didn't enjoy the visit. I was bored, tired, and hungry. Therefore, the tour was short, and Gamal took me to a restaurant to eat lunch, after a short conversation with the restaurant manager, Gamal left me on a table and said they will serve my food and will include chicken cook on my table, etc., and he left. After waiting 25 minutes and no food was served to me, I stood up and serve myself a plate of rice and beans. After eating my lunch, I went outside and saw the driver across the street I went inside the car and waited for Gamal. Then Gamal said that they will drive me to the train station and since it was still early, I will have to wait 3 hours for the train to Luxor and he left. I gave them a very good tip so they can take a better care of me the next days. Well, the wait was 5 hours, and not knowing any Arabic words I was panicked of losing the right train or climbing to the wrong train. In Luxor, a new tour guide, Hamed, and driver should be waiting for me. When I arrived in Luxor many taxi drivers were waiting, they were very aggressive in trying to pick-up my luggage. One of them told me the agency just replaced the tour guide for him and a policeman was backing up this individual. They almost convince me when Ahmed came running from the other side of the street. He gave me some excuses like is difficult to time at what time the train arrives. I don't want to talk more about how Etro tours operates, but in every tour was a new tour guide and the fact to be by myself was boring. I never signed up to be a solo person, the best part to be a tourist is meeting other fellow travelers. If Etro tours does this purposely because it is easy to manipulate one person at the time, Shame on You, Etro tours!! Unfortunately, this abuse didn't finish here. In my way back from the train from Luxor to Giza, a driver that was waiting for me in the train station said that Hamed sent him to pick me up and take me to a hotel. After the check-in the hotel manager wanted, I pay for the next two nights, I pre-paid for the whole trip I said. Then I called Hamed to explain to the hotel manager what the deal was, then I sat at the lobby, and I don't remember for how long. Then the manager said the Hamed that sent me here was the wrong Hamed. Then they assigned me an awful room in a hotel with a broken internet. Three days I was stack in the hotel uncommunicated waiting for the departure to my next trip.

via Viator