Guest Book

Evaluation, Trip to Egypt

We had the grand pleasure to visit Egypt despite the war in the Middle East. Our trip was organized by Mara.

As a general comment, I would like to note that we are couple 85 and 78 years old. My husband uses a wheelchair for anything over 100 meters. We brought our own special wheelchair with mountain bike like tires.

This trip could not have been done without the very special care and arrangements that Mara made. We chose to do a trip with a private driver and guide. We could go at our own pace, choose what we wanted to see, and didn’t slow anybody else down. 

The arrangements made with Mara were fantastic. We received an enormous amount of help with preparations for visas, tickets, local information, tips on handling currency and tipping, how to deal with the environment, what to visit, hotels, cruise ship, everything planned to the finest detail. Never have I had a trip so well organized.

Once we began a trip, every detail worked like clockwork, even though our plane arrived late in Cairo and we missed our connection to Luxor, Mara had sent a photo of the man who would meet us. We were whisked through immigration and customs and onto the next plane. At every point in our trip our contacts and guides were punctual and enormously helpful.

We stayed in Mara House in Luxor for our first two nights, a welcome highlight to our trip. We were greeted warmly and served tea by the young man of the house who took great care to see that my husband was carefully looked after on steps and every time he stood up. The breakfast was copious and delicious, as was the meal we had on our second night. The best Egyptian meal we had in Egypt. Amr of Mara House is an excellent cook. 

At one point during our flights, EgyptAir damaged our wheelchair. Although they were unwilling to undertake anything at the airport, Mara contacted all the necessary people to see that we had an attestation, which was a result of the failure on the part of EgyptAir.  The planning, service, and attention to detail with Mara was extraordinary and we thank them very much.

Our guides
Our first guide was Mo, better known as Pharoah’s Son. He was very experienced and knowledgeable and came with an excellent driver. He accompanied us for visits from and around Luxor, followed us along our Nile cruise on the Concerto Plus for off board excursions, and then guided us to sites in and around Aswan including Abu Simel. His first concern was for our safety and wellbeing. Our driver usually took charge of pushing the wheelchair and when a driver was not with us, Mo took over the wheelchair duty, freeing me to concentrate on our visit. His knowledge was extensive and never tired of repeating the things we forgot from one site to another.

At the beginning of our trip my husband slipped and injured his leg. Mo saw that we had all the necessary medical supplies and informed the ship’s crew, so we were well looked after by everyone with bandages, ice packs and whatever was necessary. He made possible a final trip on our last day in the Upper Nile to visit Philae.  Mo was very helpful on explanations of local customs and practices, especially as we were travelling during Ramadan and help with the Baksheesh culture. He then continued to check on us as we moved to the lower Nile and even made sure we arrived well in Jordan.

Our second guide for the lower Nile part of our trip was Mahmoud, again organized by Mara. We were fortunate in all three guides we had (Mo in the Upper Nile, Mahmoud in Cairo, and Tariq in Jordan) as we got three different perspectives on Ramadan, daily life and culture. Mahmoud was able to give us a very thorough academic visit to the sites of Saqqara, the Citadel and the Alabaster Mosque, and the GEM, the highlight of our trip. It was important to have someone as thoughly educated in the treasures of Egypt and the ancient Egyptian history and culture as the Great Egyptian Museum is so huge we would never have had been able to search out the exhibitions in a cohesive way otherwise. We spent nearly 6 hours in the museum and, although we only saw about 800 of the 53000 exhibits we felt we had a very complete tour. Again, We appreciated the punctuality and care Mahmoud showed us the entire time.  We both thank Mara Tours for this excellent holiday and highly recommend her and her staff.  

Section of trip on cruise boat
As my husband has a reduced mobility, a cruise boat seemed the best and most relaxing way to travel from Luxor to Aswan. As usual, Mara had everything perfectly organized. The ship, Concerto Plus was clean and comfortable and we had the first cabin on the entry floor, reducing the number of stairs we had to use. Our guide met us at each excursion stop, everything went very smoothly and we always got priority treatment as we used the wheelchair for excursions.

The best part of the cruise was the restaurant and the personnel preparing and serving the food. The food was delicious, everything from excellent local cuisine to European fine food to pizza and homemade ice-cream. As I had to manage two plates at a time, the staff right up to the chef hurried to help my husband to his seat and carry my extra plate. The food was always fresh, the buffet was well surveyed to stay full and neat, and there were more choices than one could imagine. 

The only negative I would have here is the drink offerings on the cruise. The bottles and cans were very large and very expensive. I would have preferred smaller servings so I could have a couple of drinks a day rather than having to drink a half a liter in one go. This goes for soft drinks as well as beer which were often purchased in cans so couldn’t be easily kept for later.  Still, all in all an enjoyable trip and all superbly organized by Mara and her staff.

This review was sent to Mara via email to post online for the clients.