Banana Boat Ride in Sharm El Sheikh

I have always wanted to visit Luxor and on my recent trip to Sharm El Sheikh, I was fortunate enough to be treated to such trip by my daughter. Although I was not involved in the booking process, I heard nothing but positive things about Mohamed who my daughter booked the trip with. I am quite hard to impress, however Sham Excursions managed to impress me. I was pleased to see a clean car with a well turned out English speaking driver collect us from our accommodation and transfer us safely to Sharm El Sheikh Airport for our flight to Luxor. Once we arrived in Luxor, we were immediately met by our very friendly guide Mahmoud. Mahmoud spent the whole day with us sharing his vast knowledge on Egypt and its history as we visited the Valley of the Kings, Hatsheptsut's Temple, Karnak Temple and various other stops. One of our party loved to banter and Mahmoud managed to handle his banter well, and give it back when necessary too! The restaurant we went on Banana Island which was an optional extra was outstanding and I would highly recommend you take that option.

Excellent, customer service, excellent organisation, excellent experience - I highly recommend it to anyone!

I decided to take the private tour to visit Cairo and the pyramids. It was a great decision because I had a private guide and driver and we did not have to wait around during the day for a group and also the guide was able to keep the street hawkers away so the trip was not a hassle. Just FYI is was a bit cooler in Cairo than Sharm so in the winter months I suggest a coat!
The process does seem a little odd but it makes sense in the end. You pay a small amount online via Paypal and the balance in cash to someone who comes and issues you a receipt. So I was a little worried if it was legit but it all worked and there was someone to pick me up in the morning and the guide in Cairo and someone to pick me up at night when I returned. All without a hitch.
In Cairo you have to go out of the airport as the guides are not allowed inside (at least right now) but they will be waiting for you. I had Mahmoud as my guide and Michael as the driver. They were both great. More on them in a bit. Cairo was unexpected! It is very large and very crowded (over 20 million people) and there are a lot of cars (someone said 3 million but it seemed like more!). And they drive CRAZY! I have been in all the big cities in many countries and have never seen anything like it! If there are 4 lanes of roadway there are 6 lanes of cars!
The tour was as others have mentioned. Mahmoud asked me if there was anything else I wanted to do and explained the cost would be $25 more and I elected to see the step pyramid at Saqqara as well as the three pyramids in Giza.
Mahmoud was a great guide and his English was very good and he was able to get a few extra perks for me at the sites (like taking a photo in a tomb). Truthfully there is not a lot to see inside the pyramids or tombs except to be amazed at how the Egyptians carved them out of solid stone!
My advice is this though…offer your guide a nice tip at the start of the day…maybe $20 or so and ask to spend a bit more time at the museum or the pyramids and skip the papyrus “factory” and the perfume “factory” unless you just want a souvenir. There is no factory there and you will not see perfume or papyrus made but you will see a small demo at papyrus place. They are set up as a sales pitch no matter what you are told, and the guide does get a commission if they bring you so offer a tip in lieu of the commission. You paid for the private tour so you have options on what you do.
Those two things are tourist traps and you really want to see the relics not the other stuff. I also opted for the camel ride which is kind of required if you go (how can you go to Egypt and not ride a camel?) and the driver was a nice guy and it was cool.
I need to add a note on safety. For some reason it seems that tourism is down on fears of safety. There has been unrest in the past but right now there were no issues at all. With your guide they will not take you to areas you should stay out of. I think I was the only American I ran into all day (actually almost the whole trip) and a British couple said I was a “hero” for coming!? Safety is pretty much an illusion, but really I never had any trouble in Egypt. It is a long trip to get there but well worth it.