Nubian Adventure

Traveler Reviews

• 

  Jon

  November 1st, 2023
  2.0
  This is a difficult review to write. The star rating asks for “overall rating” and the reality is that there are two...
  This is a difficult review to write. The star rating asks for “overall rating” and the reality is that there are two parts to any tour; the sites and the experience. The tour definitely covered all the sites; Giza, Aswan, Luxor, Cairo. The tour guide was an “Egyptologist”; he went to college and studied mummification. But, the experience was very poor and the descriptions of what we we’re supposed to see/do we’re inaccurate or misleading. The Guide: completely unable to relate to people. Zero interaction other than doing what his script told him he was supposed to cover. Pyramids, check, temples, check, Nubian village, check (even though nobody was there), mango tree, check (it’s a tree with nothing on it!), tea in a house, check (while he sat on his phone texting!), meals, check (while again sitting at another table on his phone!). He would take off like he was going to give a walking tour, completely oblivious to the fact that our group was not even behind him. At one point one of our group members fell because it was getting dark and the tour guide was so far ahead that he had no idea. So, the sites, we saw them but the experience, horrible. The Inaccurate Descriptions: “Drift down the Nile River on a faluccia boat and sleep on the open deck under the stars…” Reality: They take you around the waters in the Aswan city shoreline, past the diesel fumes of the cruise ships, park on the shoreline across the river and you sleep under a tarped shade roof while other boats play loud music with party crowds on them all night. Statement: “Watch the sunrise over the dessert as you take a hot air balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings…” Reality: You may or may not make it in the air to watch the sun rise and you definitely will not see the Valley of the Kings; it’s on the other side of the mountains where they don’t go! You see the tomb area where the artists and workers who worked in the Valley of the Kings tombs are buried. Um, not the same thing, just sayin’ But don’t worry, you’ll get to see that again too… Artists and workers tombs, check. So, I'm not a grumbler although it sounds like it on this review. We travel a lot. After the trip I wrote Encounter Tours directly to say hey, this wasn’t a good tour. Would you be willing to at least refund us for the hot air balloon tickets since that was an extra… Nope, nothing. They completely blew me off until I had our travel company who we booked through write them with my concerns and complaints. Encounter Tours final response, Sorry you had that experience, we will put that guide in with groups more appropriate for his style and hot air balloon rides are outside our control. There was more but you get the idea. Very poor ownership and Customer centric decision making. I hope this is helpful; at the very least, it is honest.Show more
  Traveled in October 2023
  

  Reply from: Encounters Travel

  Dear Jon, Thank you for your review. I would like to repeat our apologies from our previous emails to you about the poor experience you had on the tour with your guide. We also apologised for the delay in getting back to you which was caused by us being flat out dealing with all the cancellation and rebooking repercussions from the ongoing conflict in Israel and Gaza. We have acknowledged some of the issues on your trip, but also highlighted that we got some good feedback about your guide as well from others in the group. The issue we agreed with you on was the consistency of service to everyone in the group which is why we have moved him to doing more private and tailor-made trips. Where we moor during the overnight felucca trips is not always entirely under our control, and sometimes the tourist police, or the weather conditions, do not let us sail out of Aswan as far as we would like. I'm sorry this was not the best location for your departure. The hot air balloon refund you requested we did not offer to re-pay because it was all arranged and provided. There are a lot of balloons taking off from Luxor in the early mornings, and we booked and paid for one of the first set of flights, due to take off at sunrise. However, because there are so many balloons, exactly when each one is allowed to take off is controlled very strictly for safety reasons by Luxor air traffic control. We have no influence over which balloons go up first, or last. You were unlucky that your balloon was one of the later ones in the first set of balloons to take off which did result in some waiting around and not getting sunrise from on board the balloon. What you then see from the balloon is subject to the weather conditions and the direction the winds are blowing that day. We will look to re-phrase how we describe this, but in fact, as all the tombs are underground, there is less to see of the Valley of the Kings from above than other sites like Deir el Medina or the Ramesseum etc. Thank you again for your feedback, and I'm sorry that your experience on this date, and some of our service on the trip was not as good as we would both have liked it to be.

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• 

  Cristian

  January 28th, 2020
  3.0
  A tip for all Americans. PLEASE STOP BEING SO NAIVE ! For me it's incredible how easily my fellow travel mates were...
  A tip for all Americans. PLEASE STOP BEING SO NAIVE ! For me it's incredible how easily my fellow travel mates were fooled into going to "local" places with prices at least 5 times bigger than the rest, even ten times once. Please pay more attention to local prices and stop paying ridiculous ammounts for everything, just because the guide says it's a good place. Every place the guide takes you he gets a comission. Absolutely nothing is done for free in Egypt. Instead of spending time at the alabaster shops or perfume shops, papyrus shops ( the guide says it's "educational" ) we could have spent more time at the Pyramids, Egyptian Museum or other extremely interesting sites. Also the tip the guide asks for is ridiculousy high ( he said 15 20 dollars per day, per person ). Even on the website the recommended sum is between 10 and 15 dollars. At the end of the tour he gave us envelopes in which we should write our name and put his tip money in it. The tip should be an entirely voluntary gesture for excellent service, we should not be pressed with envelopes and writing our names on the envelope so he knows how much we gave. The total ammount of tips he would have recieved would have been at least 1500 dollars for a week. For Egypt this is ridiculous. Please instruct your guides to stop giving envelopes or suggesting how much money we should give to him and actually mentioning that the tip is entirely voluntary and personal. For me this was a disgusting gesture from the guide. For the positive side of the review, the trip was extremely well organised. Everything was very punctual and efficient. Also the sites visited are magnificient. I meet some extremely nice people on the tour with which i hope to remain friends. Also we had enough free time to relax or visit other sites individually. I had some really nice experiences and can recommend this tour for this. Just be ready to be considered a walking credit card.Show more
  Traveled in January 2020
  

  Reply from: Encounters Travel

  Dear Cristian, Thank you for taking the time to provide us with a review of your recent experience on our Nubian Adventure Tour. Firstly, I'm pleased to hear that you were happy with the local tour arrangements and found that the tour was well-organised by ourselves and our local team. It's also great to hear that you feel you can recommend this tour to others, that's exactly the type of feedback we strive to receive. Unfortunately, the culture in Egypt is still centred very much around tips, and everyone from toilet attendants, train guards, hotel staff, etc. do expect tips, even for the smallest of services. We do try to combat the stress related to this by implementing a tipping kitty on our Egyptian group tours– this means that the tour guide handles tips for most people you'll encounter on the tour, instead of you needing to do it yourselves. We don't include our tour guides in the tipping kitty, as we feel it's important that our customers be able to recognise the service provided by their guide themselves, and ultimately decide on how much they would like to tip. We do include suggestions within our trip notes to help travellers budget for this, though I'm sorry if you felt that the information given locally by the tour guide was inaccurate or too high. We'll certainly be following up with our team in Egypt regarding this. Envelopes are provided to try to remove any pressure or visibility of what you may like to tip, or not tip, and to keep it private. Everyone in the group can combine together in one, or use separate, as they prefer. On our Egypt tours (and others around the world), we do include some shopping stops, though when we include these, we do always try to make them a little more interesting. So for example, when visiting a Papyrus shop, a demonstration will normally be given on the process of creating it. Whilst we know that some of our travellers don't like these stops and would prefer to shop during their own free time, we do equally have plenty of travellers who do appreciate them and like to shop in an environment which they feel is more secure. We do include less of these stops than some of our competitors, but we wouldn't want to remove them completely. Overall, I'm pleased to hear that you did enjoy your time in Egypt and will recommend this tour to others. Thank you also for providing your feedback on the points mentioned above.

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  Alex Santiago

  December 30th, 2019
  5.0
  The heat was unbearable but great tour nonetheless!
  Traveled in June 2019

  Review collected by Encounters Travel
  

  Reply from: Encounters Travel

  Thanks for taking the time to get back to us with your feedback. We are happy you enjoyed your Egypt holiday (despite the melting sun) and we hope that you'll join us again in the future!

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  Ashley Santiago

  December 30th, 2019
  4.0
  Great experience with the hot air balloon ride being the best part of the trip
  Traveled in June 2019

  Review collected by Encounters Travel
  

  Reply from: Encounters Travel

  Thanks for taking the time to get back to us with your tour feedback. We are happy you enjoyed your Egypt holiday with Mahmoud. The hot air balloon in Luxor is definitely one for the books! We hope that you'll join us again in the future!

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  Arman Chowdhury

  December 30th, 2019
  4.0
  Mahmoud was a great tour guide that is very friendly and knowledgable. He made the trip more enjoyable.
  Traveled in June 2019

  Review collected by Encounters Travel
  

  Reply from: Encounters Travel

  Thanks for taking the time to get back to us with your tour feedback. We are happy you enjoyed your Egypt holiday with Mahmoud. We hope that you'll join us again in the future!

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  Angela Santiago

  December 30th, 2019
  5.0
  Mahmoud, our tour guide, was extremely helpful and knowledgable and made the tour fun and enjoyable.
  Traveled in June 2019

  Review collected by Encounters Travel
  

  Reply from: Encounters Travel

  Thanks for taking the time to get back to us with your tour feedback. We are happy you enjoyed your Egypt holiday with Mahmoud. We hope that you'll join us again in the future!

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  Augel Santiago

  December 30th, 2019
  4.0
  Mahmoud is an excellent tour guide and person with great attention to detail. My experience with Encounters Travel...
  Mahmoud is an excellent tour guide and person with great attention to detail. My experience with Encounters Travel was beyond excellent.Show more
  Traveled in June 2019

  Review collected by Encounters Travel
  

  Reply from: Encounters Travel

  Thanks for taking the time to get back to us with your tour feedback. We are happy you enjoyed your Egypt holiday with Mahmoud. We hope that you'll join us again in the future!

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  Caroline Daly

  December 30th, 2019
  4.0
  There was too much free time and no suggestions of what we could do during the that time.
  Traveled in June 2019

  Review collected by Encounters Travel
  

  Reply from: Encounters Travel

  Thanks for taking the time to get back to us with your tour feedback about your Nubian Adventure holiday. We hope that you'll join us again in the future!

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  Jory Spadea

  December 30th, 2019
  4.0
  Really enjoyed the pyramids and the Valley of the Kings.
  Traveled in June 2019

  Review collected by Encounters Travel
  

  Reply from: Encounters Travel

  Thanks for taking the time to get back to us with your tour feedback. We are happy you enjoyed your Egypt holiday and we hope that you'll join us again in the future!

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  Aleena Pudick

  December 30th, 2019
  5.0
  This trip was amazing. Best ever.
  Traveled in June 2019

  Review collected by Encounters Travel
  

  Reply from: Encounters Travel

  Thanks for taking the time to get back to us with your tour feedback. We are happy you enjoyed your Egypt holiday and we hope that you'll join us again in the future!

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