travelled a lot... I travelled to countries much poorer than Egypt, but never ever had such a disaster!

We, 3 adult ladies with 4 kids bought a 9 day tour in Egypt from Khaled Abbas’s from Egypt_tours. We paid over 1000$ per person including same 1000$ payment per kid for 4 days of actual all day touring in Cairo and Luxor. Other 5 days in Hurgada tours were not included, only hotel. When we bought the tour everything was discussed. We discussed that we are 3 separate families and we need 3 separate rooms. In the contract it was specified that lunches and breakfasts were included plus some dinners.

When we arrived, right away Khaled start telling us how he made specially for us special upgrade on everything. Special upgrade on tours, special upgrade on restaurants, on pick up cars and basically everything like we did not pay for it…. It’s specially for us because we are so special. He start telling us that it about friendship, he does not care about money and so on…

The first night started ok but problems already started!!! He picked us up and checked in a good hotel indeed with view on pyramids. Our flights were late, so we put kids to sleep and went to sleep ourselves at 3 in the morning. But!!! There was still a construction going on the roof 3 in the morning with a dozen of bare feet works dumping gigantic bags of cement on the roof making entire 3-store hotel shake. Meanwhile, Khaled told us to make sure we keep our kids quiet because people are sleeping!!! My friend went downstairs to complain. She complained, they promised her right away they will stop construction. In the next 20 mins nothing changed, she went again…. 15 mins later she realized nothing will stop and she had to go upstairs to yell at those workers herself to make them stop!

Next day, he told us we need to exchange money and pay in Egyptian, not dollars. We asked him to take us to bank, he said no. He will do it himself. He mentioned us that bank will screw is, because unofficial rate is 55 on black market, bank one is 31. He fixed us to exchange all money we will need to pay for diving - it was over 1600$ for Egyptian at the rate of 31. He exchanged on black market for 55, gave us 31. Then later in Hurgada another guide told us if we pay in Egyptian the rate will be 55 Egyptian per dollar!!! Meaning on 1600$ we would lose 77% of value!!!! And guess what - in Egypt you don't even need Egyptian money!!!!! You can pay everywhere in dollars! But more about this later...

Day 2 he also start telling us stories about him fostering 13 kids… it was so creepy, so weird. 13 kids from 13 different moms and it is not sexual… some kind of nonsense. He says: people think it is sexual, it is not sexual... why do we need to know that? Also he complained to us about other clients he had who left their kids and went to have sex somewhere or whatever... And a bunch of other stories about terrible clients he had before...

Then he also gave us another tour guide to do a tour in Cairo. She was a disaster. He told us something about her sad life story and whatever like we are supposed to feel bad. A disaster. Because of her the experience in the museum was insanely boring and then we missed Christian churches! we had 15 mins to look at 3 churches! ALso Khaled allegedly told her we are not hungry! So stingy with lunches and breakfasts - it was impossible to handle psychologically to constantly remind and beg for food that we actually fully paid for! I won't even go to the nonsense excuse he told us about British vs American English meaning of dinner... lunch... supper... whatever. Time management was so poor, we would not be able to have time to do lunch anyways because we stood by the Egyptian museum entrance for 2 hours not moving at all listening to entire Egyptian mythology no one understood anyways.

After we complained about him not providing us promised and included in price lunches he started lying to us blaming the tour guide he hired. The tour guide got mad at him and made him apologize to us. It took hours of bad vibes just from figuring out who are to blame for us not getting fed.

Then he almost made us pay for the 3rd day tour in Cairo!!!! That actually was supposed to be included! Additional 65-95$ per person. He told us it was not included! He did a trick of moving days around... moving last day in Cairo to now because flight got moved from morning to night. After a long fight he said money does not matter to him and as a hero he led a tour for us for free as he presented it.
To be honest to Khaled's work - he is a terrible organizer and a liar, but a great talented tour guide. His tours were actually pretty good, timely, well organized and clear. I have to give him credit on it.

Also, Khaled told us some nonsense about firing the driver with who we had no problem.... He was telling us that driver was not professional for a long time - we did not want to know... we did not care... why do we need this information?

Also, Khaled complained to another driver that we fought with him and the driver made angry comments at us in English!!!!!! So that we know that Khaled turned around and complained about us to absolutely everybody... maybe told some nonsense. And we just asked for what we paid for. It was super unpleasant.

Then when we arrived in Luxor he checked us in an illegal apartment in two small rooms with dusty beds with no sheets!!!!!!! We had to use a dusty never washed smelly blanket not to freeze at night with no sheets. As a matter of fact he also told us he had "a lot of fun" with ladies in those beds....

On top of it, we are 3 different families. I would understand if he would put us in the same AIRBNB but with separate rooms for each or something, but with stupid design of the apartment we had to break into 5 people in one and 2 people in a 1 bdr apartment. And all of it considering 1 shower for 5 people with open shower with barely any water pressure and no hot water at all! And no doors! All bathroom was so wet one of the kids being taking shower after 3 other people being tired fell down and hurt his elbow!

Plus the next day we wanted to go on a tour 4 in the morning and the hotel was closed!!! We could not figure out how to leave hotel for 20 mins. Our guide for the tour was waiting for us forever. Then we found the key to open the hotel to get out.

We had to fight again complaining about this terrible experience. So to make up for the terrible experience Khaled returned us money for the hotel in Egyptian pounds (remember that he took payment in dollars, exchanged in black market at 55 pounds per dollar and returned us back in Egyptian pounds payment for the hotel at 31 pound per dollar). Also to make up for the trouble he promised us to pay for lunches and breakfasts for our 4 day stay in Hurgada..... and here it was another lie....

In Hurgada everything was ok until the guide sold us the tour for 20$ per person called “city tour” that includes a show with light dinner and some city tour… ok. We were excited for the show. Then a car picked us up and dropped us off by Marina where we walked around ourselves, then the car picked us up and took us to a mall….. I am asking- when is the show? What is this? The guy who was with us start lying that we already missed the show and so on… then another guy said it was cancelled, then it turned out the show does not exist!!!! Does not exist! It is closed forever and the guide allegedly found out only 30 mins before… and he yelled at us for not understanding that he will not give refund.

As soon as the payment for diving conversation came up - surprise surprise, we need to pay only in dollars or in Egyptian pound at a rate of 55 pound per dollar losing 77% of value!!!!!!! and we exchanged 1600$ with Khaled!!!!!!! Khaled strongly recommended us to exchange money with him to pay for diving. This is where I lost it completely! Only after another round of yelling and arguing, Khaled agreed to exchange money back to us to dollars, so we don't lose value. For all of you to get a perspective instead of paying let's day 1000$ for diving, we would have paid 1774$!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hello Hello scaming tourists....

Moving on.... Then many lunches were included with the dives we paid for separately. We had to basically beg the tour guide to feed us or refund us money for the lunches/ breakfasts that Khaled promised... At one point for the last day of tour he was 30 mins late saying that he got something for the kids.... and it was just our lunches that we were owed by Khaled! It is not a surprise! Not a present! Not anything special...

Also, by the end of the days we got tired of those cheap ass breakfasts and lunches and ate where we wanted. We asked for refund for whatever included lunches/ breakfasts were worth but obviously never got anything back...

Overall, on top of terrible lies we experienced from Khaled and fighting for what we paid for, it become extremely annoying to deal with moody angry Egyptians every day. One time they call you queen and assure you of a special upgrade every day, another time they complain about you in Arabic right in front of you, yell at you, make you beg for water and lunch that is included… absolutely everyone all around ask for tips… all the time. Quality of everything they do is subpar. You buy video from Balloon trip- it is bad… you buy diving videos- it is bad. You buy camel tour with pictures- pictures are bad, they cut off your head or camel from the picture or put a stone on top to do some visual whatever magic- looks bad. Catcalling and aggressive selling practices increasingly became more and more annoying every hour. At some point you feel like snapping at every Egyptian saying hello to you.

I would definitely not recommend anyone to take Khaled tours to travel with children to Egypt. Do not ever travel to Egypt as solo woman or a group of women either due to constant misogyny and disrespect. You will be lied to, mistreated, you will have to yell and argue, you will be cheated on constantly and at the same time he will make you feel like you are a bad person for breaking a friendship......