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I have wanted to go to Egypt from being a child and it succeeded all of my expectations, our Egpytologist tour guide Onsi was so passionate about his countries history it made the temples come to life. We chose to go with the optional trip to abu simbel which I have to say was well worth the money, it is a sight I will never forget in my life... it is about £138 extra to visit but I highly recommend it Rameses II temple is out of this world. On the trips I(especially in the summer) I highly recommend suitable clothing like light trousers or shorts and something to cover your shoulders and certainly a hat! I got sun stroke from one of the days we went out and it was not good! So if you don't want to miss any trips cover up slightly! We also chose on the last day to go on the hot air balloons (optional tour £90.00 per person) this again was worth the extra, you go on it for sunrise and it is a once in a lifetime to see the sun rise over the nile and the Valley of the Kings - I was nervous about doing this but once I got on it I thoroughly enjoyed it. Trips are always done early in a morning - get up time usually between 5am - 8am dependant on where you are going, this is to avoid mid day heat which is for the best. You do get hassled on the exits from each of your trips, this can appear quite intimidating as they do come very close to you but all you need to do is ignore them and walk past. Don't get me wrong it does get irritating but it is not the fault of the Egyptians, they do not understand that in our culture we need our own personnel space and do not realise they are been intimidating to us. They are so poor, houses don't have roofs in luxor and children are often walking around with no shoes so please be prepared for this as it can be upsetting to see. Staff on the boats and people working in the local bars earn on average £30 per month (and that is a good wage!) and work very long hours for next to nothing in wages, it is sad and unfair yet they remain such lovely, friendly people. We walked in Luxor without a problem and felt completely safe.
The only problem we experienced was with the flights not the holiday itself - we paid an extra £90 each for premium expecting free drinks there and back, choice of meals, TV's that work and extra leg room... what we got was the leg room and that is it! There was 5 of us on the holiday... 3 of the TV's were broken on the way out and all TV's on the way back did not have the movies working, no choice of meals and no free drinks. On our return Thomson advised that this only applies to long haul and apparently a 5 1/2 hour flight is not long haul! Completely miss sold these flights.
Overall a great holiday I would return to the same boat at the drop of a hat! It was only the flight which brought the overall score down to 9/10.