TomMacEastSussex

My wife and I decided to spend 10 days in Cairo to celebrate our golden wedding anniversary. After some consideration we chose Memphis Tours to handle our day tours and to meet us at the airport. We booked on line direct with Memphis using the tours shown on their web site and all seemed to go smoothly. As, during my many business trips to Cairo in the 90s I found it best to be met in the airport before passport control, this is what I arranged with the Memphis booking agent at additional expense. On arrival we were only able to locate our tour manager after all formalities had been completed, outside the arrivals hall. (This notwithstanding, if your airline comes in at Terminal 3, as ours did, a meet inside is not necessary as this newish terminal is very efficient and we completed all formalities with no hitch and no delay. In fact much quicker than Heathrow!) Our tour manager was a charming young man called Ahmed who appeared not to have been told about meeting us inside. The next day we were introduced to our tour guide, Nazreen, who turned out to be a real treasure and accompanied us on all the tours. Nazreen speaks excellent English and is very knowledgeable about her subject. Better still, she made each tour fun. However, as the days went by, it somehow seemed that we were deviating from some of the elements of the tour schedule we booked. Several times we were asked to pay extra entrance fees and sometimes the question of lunch being included or not was disputed. Fortunately, I had printed out all the details of each tour and the cost, direct from the Memphis Tours web site at the time I booked, and once this was shown to Ahmed, we were repaid some of the extra entrance fees and lunch was not disputed again. It transpired that the schedule Ahmed was working from was not the same as that which we booked and that, the final confirmation email sent to us prior to our visit (which I must admit I failed to read carefully) was different in some aspects to what we had booked and paid for. I can think of several ways in which this mix up might have occurred, the most charitable of which is simply that their management control and QC systems are deficient. There is no doubt in our minds that the strong points about Memphis Tours is their flexibility. Several times we had to make changes (sometimes forced by the weather) and each time those changes were managed by Ahmed and Nazreen speedily and with no fuss. Would we book again with Memphis; yes, providing we could have Nazreen as our guide. Despite the small differences in opinion, as to what was include or not, there was never any unpleasantness or aggravation. However, I would caution anyone considering using Memphis Tours to be very, very specific about what you want at the time you book and to ascertain exactly what is included in the overall cost or not. For instance most tours shown on the web site state that, and I quote, "Entrance fees to all mentioned sites" are included in the overall cost. But, whereas the entrance fee to the Egyptian Museum is include, the entrance fee to the Mummy Room ($20 each) is not included. The same applies to the Giza pyramids. If you want to enter the large pyramid you have to pay an extra $20 each. Also, when you receive your final confirmation email from Memphis, if it is not exactly as you booked, do not pay up until they have made the necessary corrections. And lastly, print it all out and take it with you. If I had not done this, we might have been two lunches light!. We have not yet received the refund for the failure to met us inside the airport.