We just returned from a tour of Egypt with BestWay Travel. We were a group of forty two people - thirty of them high school students. I worked with Dahlia at BestWay, via internet and telephone (all e-mails and calls returned promptly, always) for one full year to arrange this trip. She was always helpful, courteous, obliging, friendly, and eager to give us everything that we requested. That she did - and more. We felt that the price was an amazing bargain. Let me put it this way, the flight to Egypt cost us four times what everything provided for us in Egypt cost - the hotel, cruise, all meals, guide, entrance fees, felucca rides, boat rides, horse and buggy rides, party, - you name it. We got far, far more than we had anticipated. Communication in and out of Egypt is not always easy, but Dahlia never stopped trying to contact me whenever neccessary, returning all calls and e-mails ASAP. No question or detail or request was too trivial for her to answer. Upon arrival in Cairo things just got better and better. Our guide Amr stole our hearts from the start. he was a mountain of knowledge, a pillar of strength, a fountain of kindness and patience - and a whole barrel of fun. Egyptology is his passion, which he was eager to pass on to us - students and adults alike. His skills at co-ordinating travel arrangements are remarkable. Everywhere we went everything was ready and waiting for us on time, and exactly where it was supposed to be. Our hotel was delightful. Maybe the corridors were a little dusty in places - so what? It didn't bother us. Otherwise we loved the hotel - Maadi, a four star in the Maadi district of Cairo. the buffet food in there was wonderful, the staff absolutely delightful, the rooms large and comfortable, with very clean beds and bathrooms. Our cruise ship was so great that none of us wanted to leave it - ever. Again, charming crew, great, great, food, and the most beautiful scenery in the world. Dahlia called our guide daily on the telephone throughout our trip to ensure that everything was going well with our group. She even asked to speak to me once or twice. Every single person in our group commented many times on what a great deal we had got from BestWay Travel, how very pleased they were with Dahlia and Amr, and forty two people will never forget Amr and would all welcome him into their homes here in Canada. We would also, ALL recommend BestWay Travel to anyone and everyone.

Based on my experience, i really would not recommend Best Way to anybody, and yes I am not the first one, I still regret why I booked with them, in the first place.
http://www.touregyptforums.com/index.php?s...post&p=5088

I have noticed that positive reviews are prevalent from tour groups
while individuals seem to have problems with the company.
Coincidence or business policy?

I will go to Egypt this September with my husband, we already paid the deposit for bestway travel.
I will let you know if they are good nor or. I hope they are good.
Something make me worry is that the my band has confirm that the deposit has been transfer, but i still haven't heard anything from bestway .

I would send Bestway an email or call them and ask them to confirm that they received the wire. I have been told that some banks in Egypt place a hold on wired money and the client (Bestway, in this case) won't see the money show up in their account for days. So, don't worry unnecessarily and don't panic. But, I would still ask Bestway to confirm the transfer - they should be happy to do this for you.

Best of luck!

We just completed a week-long tour with BestWay. We had a custom tour that resembled the “preview” package, we were two families with a total of eight people, four adults & four children (ages 9-11). We were our own group with no one else but the eight of us. If you don’t want to take the time to read the rest of this let me just say that except for a few relatively small issues, which I will cover at the end of this writing, BestWay did a good job and we had a great time. In spite of the fact that Cairo is a large city (33 mil in greater Cairo) and that there had been an extremist attack that killed and injured western tourists two months earlier, we felt very safe the entire time. The Egyptian government assigned a security element from the Tourist Police to our group for the entire Cairo portion of the trip, although we didn’t feel like we were ever in any danger. Our security guys were great, very professional and yet a lot of fun once you get to know them. With 4 young kids in the group it was a comfort to know we had someone watching our backs, kids tend to wander. The drivers that BestWay enlisted were all great too, nice guys, easy to hang out with.

The real test of the tour is the specific tour guide that works with your group. You get one for Cairo and one that meets you when you get off the train in Aswan. These people are with you all the time and become part of you group, or in our case, family, while you’re there. I’m sure it’s possible to get someone that doesn’t quite mess with your group but for our tour, we got terrific guides. We showed up at the airport, flew in on Al Al from Tel Aviv, at about two in the morning. BestWay had an expeditor there to meet us. He took care of the visas, got us through passport control and handed us off to the BestWay tour director, Mohamed, a very nice young man new to the company. He got us to our bags and the bus and took us to our hotel, the Oasis in Giza. The hotel was better than I expected. I travel… a lot, and have stayed in western style, four-star hotels and hotels with more of a local flavor. The Oasis is a local hotel that caters to western tourist. It’s pretty big, comfortable, and the breakfast buffet was great. The staff was helpful and friendly. Anyway, we got to hotel about 4:00am, we had rooms arranged, checked-in and slept until about 9:30. We all met for breakfast and then began our first day touring. Our Cairo tour guide, Heba, was waiting for us in the lobby. Heba, a young lady about 24, is a graduate student of Egyptology. She is VERY knowledgeable about the region’s history. Heba, was terrific. She took time to explain everything and by the end of our time in Cairo she had received a real education herself on what it would be like to have kids of her own…she may stay single for a bit longer.

We took the overnight “sleeping” train to Aswan that night. $35 extra per person to get a bed was worth it! You won’t sleep really well but you will sleep a little. The food on the train wasn’t great but we had picked up some take-away koshari which helped. Mahmud Farah, our Aswan tour guide, met us at the train station the next morning. Mahmud, another Egyptology grad student, was also very knowledgeable and passionate about the region’s history. Let me just say, we all really liked Mahmud, he showed us a great time and is a super nice young man. He was able to improvise when we had a couple of open times during our stay and it turned out great. We ended up seeing a Nubian village while in Aswan, took up about a half day and everybody really enjoyed that. We got there by boat and on the way back we stopped at a beach and went for a swim, the kids loved this, actually, we all did. We checked-in to the river boat about mid day the day we arrived. The boat, the Beau Rivage 2, was very nice. The food on the boat was great, mostly western cuisine, and the staff was helpful and friendly. The temple tours from Aswan north were all very good. The days were hot and long and the kids were pretty much done with temples and ruins by the third day, but they did hang in there. They liked swimming on the boat at the end of each day. The temples were all awe inspiring, but the temple at Karnak was by far the best. It is also the only true Egyptian temple that we saw (without Greek or Roman influence). It was the largest and even the kids, who by this time were templed-out, enjoyed seeing it. As to spend more time there if you go. We ended up in Luxor and visited the Valley of the Kings. The tour included 3 tombs but we paid the extra fee to visit Tut’s tomb. It was worth it. His mummy is there and they are going to be closing it permanently soon due to mold damage caused by the constant stream of tourists. We finished up in Luxor, got on the “sleeping” train again for the nine hour ride back to Giza. Mohamed met us at the station and got us back to our hotel. The other family with us paid extra to visit Saqqara that day, we stayed at the hotel. They said that there Saqqara visit was worth it and again, Heba showed them a good time.

Ok, here is where improvements can be made:

When we arrived, Mohamed told us that they wanted us to pay in Euros, we were prepared to pay in dollars. Dahlia at BestWay had told us that dollars would be fine even though all of her estimates were in Euros. If you use BestWay, work this out ahead of time and make sure everyone is clear on the payment method. The other family with us brought dollars, we brought travelers checks. The traveler’s checks were virtually IMPOSSIBLE to cash. The bank next to the hotel would not take them and they were American Express. It took two and a half days to cash them and get BestWay paid. After visiting numerous banks the “African Arab International Bank” finally cashed them for us. If they had a branch here at home I’d open an account with them just to say thanks. I know Heba felt bad about the misunderstanding; they eventually took a combination of dollars and Egyptian pounds.

Our schedule seemed to have changed a bit leaving us with free time on certain days and a compressed, too-ambitious schedule on other days. This may have been due to the boat’s cruise schedule. The rest of the passengers on the boat were all part of one big French tour, so I think they were accommodating them and our little 8 person tour had to adjust. It was upsetting at the time but it all worked out and we got to see some extra things, albeit at our own expense.
No real mention by BestWay of having to fill-in with extra things at our expense, which after a while, became pretty expensive. The option to see extra sites was communicated but we never knew that it was going to be a choice between doing nothing on the boat or paying the extra.

Heba and Mahmud were great, they provided a lot of detail at each site. This was very good but for a group with 4 kids, it might have been better to provide less detail at each site and just more touring the site. Mahmud caught on quick (because we spent most of our time with him) and shifted into a more family friendly mode after a bit. It was pretty hot and after a lot of walking and not a lot of sleep the kids started to fade.
Tipping, at the sites, hotels bathrooms…everywhere! BestWay has to make their clients aware that the tipping is constant. I was aware of this and was prepared but even I was caught short a few times.

It spite of these issues, I would recommend BestWay. We had a great time!