Rany Mostapha

[montrealmaria]

Hi,

Has any one gone on a shore excursion from Alexandria to Cairo with the following private tour guide:

Rany Mostapha?

I am looking for recommendations either good or bad.

Please share your experience with me.

Thanks

Maria

[seafun]

You might try over on the tripadvisor dot com boards. If you look there on the Egypt forums, there are several threads devoted to recommended (and non-recommended guides) in Egypt.

This link will get you to the Egypt forums and you can search there. :)

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowForum-g294200-Egypt.html

 

To save you time, here's a thread of recommended guides. "Cairo Wendy" who started the thread, is a friend and a wonderful source of information:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g294201-i9404-k1732507-Tourist_Guides_Recommended_by_TA_Members_2008-Cairo.html

[montrealmaria]

Thanks...I hve done that and Rani seems very well recommended.

However, I was looking for people that did his tour as a dhore excursion for one day, to give me feedback.

On Trip Advisor most of them are flyinginto Egypt or staying for 10 says.

I just wanted to hear from someone who had to meet at the ship and had a time constraint!

I hope someone answers!

Maria

[kismetique]

I found my private guide on Trip Advisor. I can't remember if I contacted Rany, but I contacted many of them on their list. Most responded back quickly, but after corresponding with most of them, I came to realize most were only booking agents and the actual guide that showed up is not who I was speaking with in emails. Personally, I wanted to tour with the person I was establishing a raport with via emails, so I started asking about that specifically.

 

We ended up using Mohamed Komaty, who is also on that list. He is a young, very clean-cut gentleman with a wonderful driver. We did an overnight in Cairo with him and made our own room reservations at Mena House. I asked for an all-inclusive price to include ONLY what we wanted to see. I wanted him to negotiate and pay for camel rides, falucca rides, museums, etc. I feel he quoted me a very reasonable price for everything we wanted to do and tipped him and his driver well in the end, as well as paying for the entire tour at the end (he requested no deposit).

 

One thing I would like to note - I'm going to guess that some of the guides listed on Trip Advisor are not licensed - meaning they will not be able to come inside the gate at the pier to meet you directly when you get off the ship. We had to leave the pier and walk over the bridge to meet Mohamed and his driver - about a 5 min walk (nothing big deal). There were several tour guides waiting there with names. Here is my personal take on the issue. Backsheesh is such a way of life for these people, I feel that getting inside the gates just means more backsheesh for your guide, meaning more of a cost that has to be passed on to the tourist. Yeah, I would have preferred that he was licensed, but he had wonderful reviews on the Trip Advisor board, so I wasn't worried. Maybe these are some questions you can ask Rany.

 

We had no armed guard, but again, at no time did we feel unsafe or vulnerable in Egypt. His driver is an expert - given the fact that there are no traffic lights or stop signs in Cairo. I had heard traffic was a nightmare - it's not really - they don't really care how fast they go or how quickly they get from point A to point B, they just want their tires rolling at all times. When traffic stops, the horns start honking! LOL Oh, and those white stripes painted on the street to indicate traffic lanes means absolutely nothing to them! :)

 

Mohamed definitely has connections and to me that is what makes a guide as good as the information he has to share. We hopped out of the van to see a sight and as soon as we were done, the van was right there to pick us up (they were in constant contact via their cell phones). This type of arrangement meant close parking to sights and very little extra walking, which was great for us! We never waited in lines or to do anything - we really felt like royalty! Mohamed's English is very good and he has a very nice sense of humor as well as the ability to discuss political and social issues.

 

One last thing - don't cut your timing too close coming back to port. When we entered Alexandria about 2:00pm - the traffic was unbelievable. What took us 10 min to leave the city, took us almost an hour to travel back to the pier.

[montrealmaria]

Hi,

Thanks Kismetique!

Thanks for all your tips and advice!

I was just wondering, our shop sails at 10pm. I've made it clear that I would like to be back at the ship for 8pm, that means leave Cairo at 5:00pm.

Do you thing this is enough time to make it back to the ship in case of really bad traffic. The last thing I want is to be stressed that the 5 of us miss the ship!

Thanks for your feedback,

Maria

 

I found my private guide on Trip Advisor. I can't remember if I contacted Rany, but I contacted many of them on their list. Most responded back quickly, but after corresponding with most of them, I came to realize most were only booking agents and the actual guide that showed up is not who I was speaking with in emails. Personally, I wanted to tour with the person I was establishing a raport with via emails, so I started asking about that specifically.

 

We ended up using Mohamed Komaty, who is also on that list. He is a young, very clean-cut gentleman with a wonderful driver. We did an overnight in Cairo with him and made our own room reservations at Mena House. I asked for an all-inclusive price to include ONLY what we wanted to see. I wanted him to negotiate and pay for camel rides, falucca rides, museums, etc. I feel he quoted me a very reasonable price for everything we wanted to do and tipped him and his driver well in the end, as well as paying for the entire tour at the end (he requested no deposit).

 

One thing I would like to note - I'm going to guess that some of the guides listed on Trip Advisor are not licensed - meaning they will not be able to come inside the gate at the pier to meet you directly when you get off the ship. We had to leave the pier and walk over the bridge to meet Mohamed and his driver - about a 5 min walk (nothing big deal). There were several tour guides waiting there with names. Here is my personal take on the issue. Backsheesh is such a way of life for these people, I feel that getting inside the gates just means more backsheesh for your guide, meaning more of a cost that has to be passed on to the tourist. Yeah, I would have preferred that he was licensed, but he had wonderful reviews on the Trip Advisor board, so I wasn't worried. Maybe these are some questions you can ask Rany.

 

We had no armed guard, but again, at no time did we feel unsafe or vulnerable in Egypt. His driver is an expert - given the fact that there are no traffic lights or stop signs in Cairo. I had heard traffic was a nightmare - it's not really - they don't really care how fast they go or how quickly they get from point A to point B, they just want their tires rolling at all times. When traffic stops, the horns start honking! LOL Oh, and those white stripes painted on the street to indicate traffic lanes means absolutely nothing to them! :)

 

Mohamed definitely has connections and to me that is what makes a guide as good as the information he has to share. We hopped out of the van to see a sight and as soon as we were done, the van was right there to pick us up (they were in constant contact via their cell phones). This type of arrangement meant close parking to sights and very little extra walking, which was great for us! We never waited in lines or to do anything - we really felt like royalty! Mohamed's English is very good and he has a very nice sense of humor as well as the ability to discuss political and social issues.

 

One last thing - don't cut your timing too close coming back to port. When we entered Alexandria about 2:00pm - the traffic was unbelievable. What took us 10 min to leave the city, took us almost an hour to travel back to the pier.