Top Egypt Travel Tip: How To Decide Where To Stay In Cairo.

Let’s assume you’ve overcome everyone’s opposition to your going to Egypt, that you’ve realized that it’s a safe place to go and somewhere everyone should visit. So you’ve decided to book the components of your Egypt trip yourself – which we highly recommend, because it’s easy, and you’ll have a more personal and probably cheaper trip. Now you’ll need advice on where to stay in Cairo. You’ve come to the right place. In this post, we’ll tell you all you need to know to make a smart and informed choice. The best way we can do that is to describe our research and thought process, and share our review of the property we selected, so read on and let us save you a lot of the legwork.

Cairo is a massive city of around 22 million people. It’s spread out around the Nile, with the West bank occupied by the sprawling city of Giza, and the East bank by even more sprawling Old Cairo and New Cairo. Deciding where to stay in Cairo is like deciding where to stay in LA: there’s nowhere that’s close to everything you want to see. Plus, you have traffic challenges every bit as demanding as LA. You are definitely going to want to see the major sites, like the Pyramids at Giza, the Egyptian Museum, the Khani El Khalili market and a lot more. We would highly recommend also seeing the ancient city of Memphis, the step pyramids at Sakkara, the Mohammad Ali mosque and Citadel, Tahrir Square, and the Hanging Church complex, plus taking a dinner cruise on the Nile. You also need to take into account your proximity to the airport when you arrive and leave.

Picking The Right Location

All the attractions are in different parts of town, and the traffic between each of them is challenging and requires careful planning, so the location of your hotel in Cairo is a pretty important factor. (Not that you’ll be driving yourself, since you’ll presumably have a tour guide, but it’s still your time). Most people will tell you to stay in Giza, near the Great Pyramid, and that’s where a lot of the tourist hotels are located. But once you’ve seen the Pyramids, you’re far from everything else, and you’re stuck in Giza, which is a poor city without the crazy charm of Cairo proper. Plus, you’ll pay a premium to stay there. Our impression was: it’s a nice place to visit, but it’s crammed with tourists in one pocket near the Pyramids, with not much else to recommend it.

So then there’s downtown Cairo (downtown is a bit of a misnomer, but if there is a center, it’s at Tahrir Square). This is close to the Nile and The Egyptian museum. There are plenty of well-known hotel brands here, and you’ll also pay a premium to be here. As with most downtown areas, getting in and out is hard, so you’ll be jammed in place trying to get to and from the sights other than the Museum. You’ll also give up amenities like space, swimming pools and health clubs because most of the downtown hotels there are a bit tired and cramped. Even the best reviews of the most luxurious hotels downtown (like Kempinski) warned about being surrounded by traffic. The same traffic issue applies with Giza. As a tourist hub, traffic converges on the areas around the Pyramids, so it can take quite a long time to leave on your tour, or to get through the jam back to your hotel. We were not interested in spending extra hours in traffic, so we looked for alternatives. When we looked at the map of Cairo, we realized that it makes sense to be fairly near the airport and also to the ring roads so that you won’t be clogged up in traffic going to and from your hotel. That led us to look at the New Cairo area, figuring that we would have plenty of views of the Nile during our tours (which we did), but that we didn’t want to stay right on it because of the crush around the river. As we said, nowhere is close to everything, which also means everything is close to something. Our hotel on the edge of New Cairo happened to be close to the Khan el Khalili market, which was one of our favorite experiences in Cairo, and the airport. But because it was also close to the ring roads, we could circle around downtown to get to the Pyramids.

Picking the Right Property

We knew that we would be touring from morning until night, with little time to spend in our hotel. We also knew that with the heat and traffic in Cairo, we would want to get away from it all once were back in the hotel. That meant we were looking for a pool to relax at, a good health club and modern, clean rooms with all the amenities. We also figured that good on site restaurants would be useful. Although we very seldom choose to eat in hotel restaurants in other countries, in Egypt it’s very handy because you can sure of food safety and late serving hours when you get back from a long tour.

So our checklist looked something like this:

• Is it a well-known brand we could trust?
• Does the location work?
• Does it have new rooms and comfortable beds?
• Does it have a pool and health club where we can relax?
• Does it have good restaurants on site?
• Can we trust the food safety?
• Is there good concierge and other tour help?
• Is the price reasonable?
• Does it have affiliates in other cities or a cruise ship to make booking easy?
• Could we book from the US?

So we used word of mouth, TripAdvisor and other means to narrow down our choices. Our budget was around $100 a night for a good hotel. There are quite a few choices at that price. The Ramses Hilton downtown, for example, or Le Meridien near the Pyramids at Giza. The Sonesta came in as 4th best value overall, and best under $100. The JW Marriott downtown comes in at about $150. On talking to friends and reading reviews, we saw that the Hilton and JW Marriott are really quite tired and in need of renovation. Also, the Hilton and various other downtown properties we looked at didn’t have pools. Plus, there was the constant concern about downtown traffic eating into our sightseeing time.

By the way, recent refurbishment is something to keep in mind in Egypt, because tourism really slowed after the Arab Spring, so there wasn’t a lot of money coming in to refurbish hotels. The business-oriented hotels have done much better than the tourist ones, so we leaned in that direction too. (The country is perfectly safe now, and tourism is roaring back; see our other upcoming posts on this subject.)

How We Made Our Cairo Hotel Choice: The Sonesta Hotel and Towers

As discussed above, we weren’t crazy about staying downtown or at Giza because of the in and out traffic. Taking the whole checklist into account, one option that really stood out for us was the Sonesta Hotel and Towers, ranked by TripAdvisor as the best value for the price in Cairo. The location seemed to work: near the airport and the ring roads. It’s price is about half that of the JW Marriott, it has newly renovated rooms, it has a great pool and health club, and it’s a brand we know and like. But there was one more important factor to look at before we decided.

Consider the Hotel and Cruise Ship Relationship

A big factor in our choice was whether the hotel group also had a cruise ship. Movenpick and Sonesta are hotel chains that have cruise ships, and there are others, such as Oberoi. But Hilton and LeMeridien don’t. The reason we checked this out is that when we decided to book our Egypt trip ourselves rather than take a package tour (as discussed above) we wanted to work through just one company for our reservations. We also were concerned about how recently the boats had been refurbished after the huge decline in tourism after the Arab Spring revolution. Recognizing that everyone calls themselves 5 star in Egypt, we wanted to be sure that the quality matched the rating. The exceptionally strong reviews for the Sonesta St. George cruise ship (shown below) tipped the balance for us, so we decided to go Sonesta all the way.

Our Review of the Sonesta Hotel and Towers, Cairo

This video will give you a quick sense of our experience

Having decided on the Sonesta group for all the reasons laid out above, it couldn’t have been easier to make reservations. You just go through their call center or website (sonesta.com) and you can easily book both the cruise and the hotel in a matter of minutes.

So let’s talk about the front desk and check-in experience. As elsewhere in Egypt, the staff are extremely welcoming and are genuinely happy to see you. Actually, they’re thrilled, because Americans are still quite rare in Egypt, and other nationalities have returned sooner and in much bigger numbers after the revolution. One of the first things that struck Elaine and me was the sophisticated ambiance in the lobby. There’s a French cafe called Fauchon on one side, complete with piano player and retro pink seats: pretty stylish. It serves French pastries, confections and gifts, plus gourmet items such as Paté de Fois Gras, gourmet mustards, oils, vinegars, jams and of course coffee and tea all the time – like until 1am. Check-in was super efficient and luggage is whisked to the room ahead of you. (Full disclosure: once we had decided on Sonesta and were prepared to pay the $80 a night rate, we advised them that were planning a review on our blog and they kindly provided complimentary upgraded accommodation. This did not affect our choice, which was already made).

The Rooms at Sonesta Hotel and Towers

Our suite was beautifully lit, tastefully decorated and with high quality furniture. In short, it was what we expected of a 5 star hotel back in the US, if not better (see the video above for our actual suite amenities.) Below is an example of a Deluxe suite bedroom.

We were delighted with the little things that make a big difference. It was nice to have a fruit basket and a couple of liters of drinking water provided. Even in the under $100 per night rooms (a rate which obviously fluctuates), they provide all kinds of extras and the rooms are sleek and modern. Other touches like plenty of outlets for charging and a US plug adapter were very useful. The high end L’Occitane brand toiletries we got in our suite (only a small price step up from the standard room) also shouted luxury.

On the TV, there were plenty of English language channels to choose from, and the room was impeccably clean. The bed and linens were the same topnotch, high thread count caliber you would expect from a top hotel in the US (maybe better, since Egyptian cotton is the tops.) In short, the mild apprehension we had about a Cairo hotel being worn or below par was completely assuaged from the get-go. Elaine was thrilled with the fabulous bathroom, which had a built-in hairdryer and lighted magnifying mirror. I liked the fact that the wifi was free, and strong.Other room choices we looked at so we could give you an idea of the range available were the Deluxe, Superior and Executive Rooms in the main building, and they have similar rooms in the adjoining Tower, which have a view of the pool or patio. There are also Junior and Deluxe Suites, which are extremely spacious and comfortable, or Royal Suites if you’re looking for opulence. The main difference between the Deluxe rooms and the suites is the additional living room. We ended up with a Deluxe Suite, which was HUGE. We didn’t really have time to use the living room much, but there are comfy sofas, flat screen TV’s, minibar, desk, credenza, strong floor lamps etc that make it delightful to spread out. The high room standard was present in every room we looked at, so you should pick one based on your taste and budget.

Superior room

Junior Suite living room

Royal Suite Bedroom

Now, Elaine and I are generally happy campers in all kinds of accommodations, and we don’t necessarily always seek out the big American brands, because we like experiencing local culture. But in Cairo, where there is a cacophony of traffic and unique sights and sounds, we were very happy to come back to an oasis of calm and quality, and that’s what our fabulous room at Sonesta provided.

The Food at The Sonesta Hotel and Towers

First, let’s talk about food safety

A big question we had about Egypt was: how’s the food safety? We had heard and read stories about “Gyppo tummy” and other unflattering complaints. There’s nothing worse than being laid up on your valuable (and expensive) vacation days with a bad tummy. On the other hand, you want to be able to eat healthy things like fresh vegetables, and to enjoy the local cuisine. So food safety was a comfort factor we were looking for in our hotel, and a key reason we looked for a famous brand hotel group with high standards. We figured those standards would carry through to the food preparation.

In short, we wanted to be able to eat salads and other fresh foods without worrying about food poisoning. Having traveled through India with a group that fell like flies through incautious eating (and we were the exceptions), we are very careful about the water and uncooked fruits and vegetables we consume. So we were impressed and reassured to talk to an assistant chef in the Patio restaurant, where breakfast is served at the Sonesta, and to discover the amazingly stringent food safety standards that are applied at the hotel. (As might be expected, similar standards were applied aboard the Sonesta St. George cruise ship, which you’ll also see in the video below). We were surprised and pleased at how we could relax and enjoy the food in Egypt.

Play the video!

The Restaurants at the Sonesta.

Okay, here’s a video review of the restaurant we chose for dinner, plus a quick overview of the others.

In case you didn’t watch the video by clicking the play button in the picture above above, here’s the list of restaurants at the Sonesta for your reference and reading pleasure. (Or skip down if you already got it.)

The Patio Restaurant

Here’s where we tucked into the great breakfast selection, putting on way more weight than we should. The bright, airy breakfast space lends itself to lingering breakfasts. There’s the usual custom egg order counter (where we met our friendly chef Hassan Hussein, who hailed from Texas). Plus lots of cereals and yogurts, and of course the full Middle Eastern spread from labneh to hummus to halvah. The breakfast, included with the room, is excellent. There was a small selection of fruits, but as elsewhere in Egypt, we noticed that there’s not a great variety of those at breakfast.

Italian à la carte cuisine. It looked good, a nice romantic spot, and had very reasonable prices, but we decided to stick with Middle Eastern.

 

Baalbak

This is the Lebanese restaurant we chose for dinner, and it was excellent. (See our review in the video.)

 Other Amenities

Okay, there’s a long list of other amenities, and you can see the various features by watching the overall review video. Briefly, there’s a great health club and spa. There’s a Casino, and a Disco that opens at midnight. (We Baby Boomers may want to rock that late sometimes, but not on Pyramid watching days, so we can’t tell you much about them.)

Oh yes, there’s SHOPPING. Listen to what Elaine has to say in this video:

Here’s a few more:

 There’s a very useful ATM in the lobby, plus currency exchange. There’s a GREAT Concierge, Shabaan Abdallah, who wears his Cle D’Or qualification keys with pride.

There’s a free shuttle bus to the airport. There’s a free sightseeing tour every week. There’s babysitting…