8 Days Hurghada and Nile Cruise Vacation

Customer Reviews

• 

  Carmen

  · May 12th, 2025
  I cannot and would not, in good conscience, recommend “Beyond the Nile Tours” to family, friends or associates. The issues we experienced/complaints we have are as follows: 1) The utter lack of compassion in considering our request for cancellation and refund of deposit after a member of our traveling party received the devastating news of the recurrence of her cancer in late December 2024 (our original booking date was October 21, 2024) with the absolute lie that “bookings and charges for accommodations and excursions” were already made; 2) The refusal to provide itinerary details (names of hotels/cruise ship for accommodations; specific details of daily itineraries that aligned with tour inclusions outlined. The full daily tour schedule was only provided after our arrival, and even that was inaccurate and according to Harry “not the updated schedule” 3. BNT also unilaterally altered and/or eliminated individual tours specifically included in tour listing (IE. Aswan Dam and Edfu w/ carriage ride) and pushed “optional” tour items (IE. Luxor carriage ride) as a substitute…of course at an additional charge…..as well as pushed the Nubian Village tour. 4. Advised night before departure for Aswan that schedule/itinerary for next day was being dramatically altered with flight time and airline…BNT changed the airline noted in tour listing from Egypt Air to lower cost, no-name airline, Nesma Air…..presumably because air reservations were only secured within days of travel (and NOT in December 2024) 5. Entire itinerary/schedule was handled with a ‘maximum flexibility/subject to change’ philosophy- every time a guest asked for a specific departure or meeting time, no exact time was given…IE. response would be ‘after breakfast,’ or ‘after lunch’, or ‘after dinner’; not “We leave at 2pm” or “We meet back up at 6pm” 6. Tour guides ended up accommodating the constant lateness of a single guest at the expense of the remaining nine guests….nearly every tour had nine guests waiting in a cafe or somewhere shady for relief from the ‘record breaking heat’ for a single guest who refused to have consideration for the nine others in the group. 7. Hot Air Balloon Sunrise over Nile add-on excursion was *very poor*…..the maximum capacity balloon baskets that accommodated 32 passengers was unacceptable when the price for the tour ($125p/p) was so much higher than we would have paid had we made arrangements independently with an unaffiliated operator that doesn’t try to cram in the most number of people for the least possible cost. The balloon pilot did not rotate the basket during flight to give all passengers full photo opportunities- we had zero aerial pictures of the Valley of the Kings and Hatchepsut Temple because we faced the Nile exclusively during that part of flight time. Baskets should have a maximum capacity of half the number, 16, if not six. 8. Given BNT’s refusal to provide detailed tour/itinerary information to guests- specifically with regard to names of hotels, ships, etc., the accommodations for the Hurghada add-on were completely unacceptable. As U.S. citizens, we have *serious* issues with being booked at a so-called “all-inclusive” resort (which it most definitely is NOT) that is closely affiliated with Russian interests- from the majority of guests, to the significant contingent of Russian staff, to the extensive signage in Russian, to the 24-hour surveillance warnings. 9. The Pyramisa Sahel Hasheesh is not what it claims- unless WiFi availability limited to the lobby atrium (none in room); pool closing at 6pm; €2 for cotton candy or ‘specialty’ ice cream; €1 for a tiny box of popcorn; €50 per person for each meal (who pays €50 for breakfast??) for on-site restaurants other than the hotel buffet, is your definition of “all-inclusive”. 10. The meals/food available on both the cruise ship and Pyramisa resort were nothing to look forward to. The ‘breakfast boxes’ provided by the cruise ship were far from satisfactory, consisting primarily of no less than six bread options (three hoagie rolls, maybe a croissant, and a limp, thin square of cake (?)) from the previous days buffet trays, two bananas, a hard boiled egg and a guava juice box (yuck). Most guests gave the bulk of their bags to local kids. To be clear these issues/complaints lie squarely on Beyond the Nile Tours….NOT with tour guides. On the contrary, the tour guides were the one excellent aspect of our entire tour. They were knowledgeable, friendly, and (mostly) patient with the redundant questions from guests.
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  Trip date: May 2025