Our morning begins at the pyramids! This is the first event on our two-week expedition with Lindblad National Geographic. Is it all downhill from here?
We have an extra day in Cairo courtesy of a Qatar Airways screwup. They cancelled our original flight and rebooked us the following day without our knowledge. Only because they later screwed us out of our Q-suite return and did notify us of that did we discover they were about to also screw us out of the first day of our tour! Recovery was having them rebook us outbound a day earlier.
CJ does his usual thing at brekkie. We are in a new land. It is time to explore new food items on the breakfast buffet! He has little idea of what he's eating.
We attempt to book a guided tour of Citadel of Saladen and the Khan El-Kahlili market. They need more notice. Bummer.
Intrigued by the boardwalk along the Nile we see 28 stories beneath our window, we go for a walkabout.
We walk into JR's Steakhouse for lunch, and we are the only customers???? We can't help wondering why since our meal is good, the service is good, and the wine is good. We take an unfinished red and and unfinished white to the room.
There is good news and bad news associated with our room at the St. Regis Cairo. The bad news begins and ends with the long walk from the elevator to the room. It is the room farthest from the elevator. It is located ten zig zags from the elevator.
That is where the bad news ends. We have booked one night using our Marriott Lifetime Titanium status that CJ earned through his many stays at Marriott properties over the course of his working career and since. We have three additional nights booked as part of the Lindblad National Geographic group. St. Regis could have made us move after one night. They don't!
The good news is that CJ booked a good room hoping they wouldn't make us move. He booked a king bed Nile view, Astor room. It's a 46sqm/495sqft room with a lot of extra space.
The folks at the St. Regis have given us a four-level upgrade to a 154sqm/1657sqft 2-bedroom apartment. The room is nearly four times larger, has two and a half baths, a full kitchen with stove, oven, full sized two door refrigerator/freezer and a wine cabinet! The room has twenty-one doors! It has a walk-in closet, a dressing room, a separate office room, and in the master bathroom there is a shower and a tub with a TV. The room has four televisions.
A bit inconvenient is the room's location. It is 310 feet and 13 corridor turns from the elevator. Each time we walk to and from the elevator, it's more than the length of a football field.
The St. Regis has it all over the Ritz Carlton, or at least Cairo has it all over Tokyo!
In preparation for our return to Adelaide, major surgery, and rehab, our dining plan for this trip is planned to be low alcohol and low calorie. This evening, we dine at the Asian restaurant, Tianma.
We suppose it can only go up hill from the first impressions afforded by Cairo's airport. We had expected the tour operators to meet us at the airport. They were supposed to take care of visa processing. We suppose if we arrived tomorrow all would be well. Arriving a day early we're treated to the worst of Cairo in heaps.
The wheelchair drivers speak limited English. We told them we did not have visas and we were supposed to have been met by someone to handle it. There is no one for us as we pass the greeter line. We're pushed to immigration where without a visa we're turned away. In the process we lose one of the pushers and Carol must push her wheelchair.
We finally find a place to purchase a visa with a credit card. The Aussie lady in front of us was rejected since she only had Aussie dollars. The fee is 25 EGP for each of us. All this trouble and delay for a buck five US. I would have given them a twenty to let me pass. That's what we had to pay for the visa the time we needed one to enter Qatar for five minutes!
With luggage retrieved three fellows are pushing us to a taxi. We're stopped by a lady while entering the customs line. She wants 20Egp for some reason. The fellows inform us we must pay. Carol eventually tells CJ it is the luggage cart fee.
One of the things the three guys do is get us through customs without scan or inspection. We pass folks with all of their belongings tossed about the customs benches and their owners screaming in heated debate with each other and with customs officers. We avoided that bullet.
The arrivals lobby of the airport is mayhem and chaos combined. Somehow, we make it out and to their contracted taxi. The leader seems astounded that CJ has so little the cash. He appears to have a credit card machine back in the terminal. He barely gets the guard to allow CJ to return inside the terminal. 1800 EGP (Egyptian Pounds) sounds like a lot for a taxi ride into the city. It really isn't given the length and time of the ride. It's less than $38USD or $59 AUD.
At the hotel, the driver wants a tip. CJ has limited options 30 EGP or a 200 EGP bill. The driver refuses the offer of the three 10 EGP. The St. Regis porter considers we've been taken. 200 EGP is $4.10 US. The porter informs us that they are waiving the porter fee because they are embarrassed by such Egyptian behavior.
We are simply happy to be at the hotel, checked in, and on our way to the room.
From the first time one sees pictures of the pyramids, it becomes a dream to visit. Today begins the quest to fulfill the dream, and then some.
We get off to a shaky start. We arrive at the airport 45 minutes before the Qatar counters open.
Due to our impending surgeries, we are both in wheelchairs. At security, CJ tested double positive for explosives. What?!!? 15 minutes and unexplained phone calls later we're cleared to proceed.
The Virgin Airlines lounge becomes more and more spartan every time we attend. One would have thought a merger with Qatar would have increased the quality of service.
At immigration CJ gets caught out again! Australian Border Force does not recognize his new passport. As always, they highly guard their processes and tell you nothing. One of CJ's final decisions before leaving home was to throw in his expired cancelled old passport. Having it along does not get him cleared to proceed but it does get him treated like a bloke caught up in buggered paperwork rather than some desperado.
It appears a combination of things caused the issue. CJ did not edit his paperwork for the new passport number and the lady who checked him in did not catch it and fix it. It appears that once Qatar changes his passport number in their database, he's cleared to proceed. The delay makes us one of the last to board the aircraft.
We get a short sleep on the 12+ hour flight to Doha. There must be favorable winds as the flight is usually just short of 14 hours.
Since our continuing flight to Cairo is first class, we're afforded our first look Doha's first-class lounge. In this lounge food is made to order from a professional kitchen and there is table service. We prefer the more spacious business class lounge.
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