We booked our entire Egypt tour with Aton Travel, it was my 40th birthday present to myself and a double bonus was my 68 year old mother who had never travelled outside of Canada before finally decided to let me treat her to a vacation.
On December 7 we began a tour with Aton tour group which started in Aswan, Egypt. My wife, a vegetarian requested a vegetarian meal 2 months prior to leaving. We re-confirmed the meals 1 week and 1 day prior to leaving. Once we boarded the plane, Air Europa, and the food came, she didn't receive any food one on the plane as promised so by the time we got to the boat where our Aton tour would begin she had not eaten for almost 12 hours, due to travelling. We requested vegetarian meals on the plane and the on the boat yet there was no food for my wife and all any body would say was "Sorry, we knew nothing about it." No one did anything and my wife went without food until I ventured into the town of Asuan myself searching for a store to buy her food. The second day on the boat, after much complaining, vegetarian food was supplied.
We arrived on their boat to find every-one else in our group was Spanish speaking. After hearing that the initial welcome speech was also all in Spanish, we asked our tour host for information in English and explained we do not fully understand Spanish and were not told that this was a Spanish tour. Our tour host, Saladino, spoke with us in clear English and explained that we had been placed with a Spanish tour group but he would explain everything for us in English, and at that point Saladino explained everything he had just said in Spanish to us in English.
After hearing the initial welcome speech in English we were given a sales speech on the optional tours available with him through Egypt. We told him that we were under the impression that some of the tours were to be included in the package price and some of the tours were optional. Saladino told us that the tours were not included in the price and if we wanted to go off the boat we would need to pay for the optional tours. We asked if the optional tours would be in English or Spanish, we told him that if the tour would be in Spanish then we would make our own arrangements to hire an English tour guide. Saladino assured us that if we purchased the tours with him, he would explain everything in English for us. We at that pointed decided to purchase his tours and charged the 675.00 Euros to our Visa card. * (we found out afterwards that we could have gotten the exact same tours from a local company for under 150.00 Euros for the 3 of us)
The next day we began our first tour on a bus, Saladino spoke for approximately 30 minutes in Spanish, explaining all the sites we were driving past, we interrupted him and asked if he could tell us what he was saying, he assured us he would tell us everything when he finished in Spanish, so we waited and listened to him speak in Spanish during our entire bus ride, approximately 3 hours. When he finally finished we again asked him to explain what he had said. He said he would explain it in reverse on the ride back to the boat in order to point everything out.
We arrived at our first site where we all got off the bus and began our foot tour where Saladino was explaining everything we were seeing, again in Spanish. After approximately 45 minutes we interrupted him again and asked for an explanation in English, to which he claimed his duty was to care for the Spanish group first, he stated that he knew a number of tour guides that were speaking in English which he would ask if we could join their group. We waited for this to happen, however, it never did. We spent the entire day looking at sights without ever understanding what we were seeing. The trip back on the bus was the same, Saladino never explained anything to us in English as he had promised and spoke the entire 3 hour bus ride back to the boat in Spanish. That evening there were games and events on board the boat, all in Spanish. We were left out of everything and had no idea what was going on or being said.
That evening we complained to Aton head office. We telephoned and left messages, we e-mailed to adel. [email protected]. Eg, [email protected]. Eg, dahlia. [email protected]. Eg, mohamed. [email protected]. Eg and [email protected]. Eg, yet we got no reply at all, from any of them and not one of them had the courtesy or respect to returned or reply to our calls for help.
The following day our tour began the same way, we again asked for information in English to which Saladino stated that he would explain everything to us, but this did not happen. When we arrived at our next site we immediately searched out another group on our own that was speaking English. Saladino noticed that we had changed groups and came over to us and then introduced us to the English tour guide. Saladino then stated, "See I told you I would take care of you". He then also told us that we would need to pay the English tour guide for letting us join him. We asked Saladino why we needed to pay more when we had already paid, to which he stated "because you need to pay him as you are joining his group". This is the way it went for the next day's, we searched out English guides each place we went on our own and paid each guide in cash for allowing us to join their English groups.
We never did get any explanations from Saladino regarding anything we saw when we were with him. We even had a difficult time finding out when and where our meeting times were and had to ask others in our group that could speak English as to where we were to meet or what time the bus left.
We are very disappointed at the way we were treated and feel we were deceived as to what we were paying for and would receive. We do not feel we received what we were charged for and we had to pay other tour guides again for what we originally paid Saladino for.
We were informed on the first day of our tour that we were with a group doing the "Joyas del Nilo" in 8 days. We were convinced we were on the wrong tour since our tour, also called"Joyas del NIlo", was 11 days. We were with others that we had met on the airplane that were on the same tour that we were suppose to be on and they were put on a different boat, we asked why we were not going with the rest of the group that were on the same tour as us yet no one was interested in talking with us, they just wanted to rush everyone on to the busses and out of the airport. We were in Asuan at the beginning with the 8 day tour group. When we spoke with other tour guides they agreed and told us we were on the wrong tour and that we should be with the 11 day group, not the 8 day tour group. We tried getting help from our tour guide who did nothing. We called Aton head office who would not even speak with us and told the guide that called that we were on the right tour according to the paperwork they have. Everyone we spoke with said there was something wrong and we were getting shuffled around and taken advantage of.
After Assuan, in Luxor, once we had finished with our Luxor tours, we were separated from any group and no guide, no English, Egyptian or Spanish. We were at the New Winter Palace and stayed for 2 nights not know what to do or where to go. We arrived early in the day and were left on our own for the next 3 day's, so in all we were there for 1 half day and 3 full day's, with no guide and no information as to what to do or where to go and had no idea where everyone else from our group was.
Next we were taken back to Assuan and the New Cataract Hotel, (a terrible hotel with the worst customer service, very rude front desk workers and very dirty rooms. Our room smelled like wet, moldy carpet.) We asked them if we could please have a quiet room, we were put 1 floor above what sounded like a night club where the music pounded the entire night, we got no sleep at all that evening. We begged the management for a room change and were treated terrible and told we would have to pay for the change and pay extra for a room up-grade. We were told that because we were with a tour group we had to stay in the room we were given, yet we spoke with other guests who told us they asked to be moved to another room that were not with a tour group and they were moved right away and treated very well. During our stay there we had no tours/visits because we had already done the Assuan tours on our first visit to the City during the first 3 days being that we were with the 8 day tour group then and were now with the 11 day tour group. We were again left alone in the hotel for 3 days with no guide, no tours and no information as to where everyone else was or what we were to do or when we were to check out. We constantly asked the front desk staff if they had heard from the Aton Tour Company or one of the guides about what time we were to check out. We didn't know anything. They didn't know anything. We sat in this hotel for 3 days, this being our second time in Assuan, not knowing what or why we there again. We were told not to leave the grounds as it was not safe, so there we stayed, for 3 days.
For the next 3 day's we tried to contact Aton head office. We telephoned and left messages, we e-mailed to adel. [email protected]. Eg, [email protected]. Eg, dahlia. [email protected]. Eg, mohamed. [email protected]. Eg and [email protected]. Eg, yet we got no reply at all, from any of them and not one of them had the courtesy or respect to returned or reply to our calls for help.
On the 3rd day there we were informed by the New Cataract hotel front desk that we had to vacate the room. We told them that we didn't know what was happening, or when we were supposed to leave, or what we were supposed to do with our suitcases. We tried e-mailing and phoning Aton head office all morning. We e-mailed to adel. [email protected]. Eg, [email protected]. Eg, dahlia. [email protected]. Eg, mohamed. [email protected]. Eg and [email protected]. Eg, yet we got no reply at all, from any of them and not one of them had the courtesy or respect to returned or reply to our calls for help, even to this day we have never heard back from even one of them. I e-mailed every 10 minutes for 3 hours with no reply. I carbon copied a few of the e-mails to the travel agents office, who replied back to me right away and told me she would try to contacted Aton office. While I waited I telephoned the head office 7 times. I was hung up on the first 3 times, the fourth time they put me on hold for 20 minutes then came back on the phone and told me to phone the local tour guide, they gave me a telephone number to call, which did not work. I called the office back and they told me someone would call me right back at the hotel, we waited for one hour with no call back, I called the office again, the secretary this time told me they knew about us and everything was fine, there is no problem and we don't have to worry. I asked her to please tell us what we were to do and when the check out was, to which I was told to go check with the front desk. When we went to the front desk we were told we had to leave our room immediately. We asked what we were to do for the day and where would we put our luggage, to which we were told "That's not our problem, just get your stuff out of the room right now as the room needs to be cleaned". We asked if we could get some help with our luggage to which we were told someone would be right up. We waited in our room for 15 minutes then called down to the front desk and asked for help again, and were told someone would be right up. We waited another 30 minutes then made 2 trips down to the lobby ourselves, with no help. When I made the first trip into the lobby with our luggage I asked where I could put it so it would be safe and also told them that no-one came up to help with the luggage, the woman behind the front desk just shrugged her shoulders and turned her back to me. I put our luggage in a corner near the bellman's room and went back up for the second trip. When I came back down the second time, I was greeted by a large man who told me that I had to pay for the extra time we spent in the room as now we were checking out late. I told him we had been told to go to our room to wait for someone to come help us with the bags, "we had called down twice and now, as you can see, I am bringing everything down myself". We were forced to leave our bags in the hotel lobby and were charged 196,95. We asked what the extra charge was for and we were told it was for the food that we ate and the late check-out, even though we were told by the tour guide, other people in our tour group and the waiters at the hotel that the meals we ate were included in our stay. We asked others in our tour group if they paid for their meals or a late check-out and they told us "NO" that the meals were included with the package. After we got our luggage moved into the lobby we went out for lunch and on our return to the hotel we were surprised to eventually find them outside, where the bellman told us they had been all day because "no one knew who they belonged to". Finally, in the afternoon we spoke with the Concierge at the hotel next door, The Old Cataract Hotel, and they called the Aton Company for us and we were told that the guide would be there at the hotel by 4pm, the guide showed up at 4 pm the last day and we were taken to the airport and flew to Cairo.
When we arrived in Cairo we were then put together with a group on an 11 day tour called "Lo Mejor de Egipto", which was the tour we though we were suppose to be on. We met this same group on our second time to Assuan. This group was separated from us and stayed at a hotel closer to the Pyramids, where we were told we were going to stay at. Our entire group was left at this hotel by the pyramids, except for one man, and we were all driven to a hotel that was 3 hours away from the airport and 1 hours away from the Pyramids. We told the driver and the guide that we were supposed to be in a hotel closer to the pyramids but no one would listen to us, they just took us to the hotel and left us there. When we complained about this, nothing was done or offered. The Spanish gentleman, who was in our taxi with us and with the Spanish tour group also complained and he was transferred to the other hotel the next day.
Again, we called Aton head office, we telephoned and left messages, we e-mailed to adel. [email protected]. Eg, [email protected]. Eg, dahlia. [email protected]. Eg, mohamed. [email protected]. Eg and [email protected]. Eg, yet again, we got no reply at all, from any of them and not one of them had the courtesy or respect to returned or reply to our calls for help.
We only had one tour included there, the Pyramids and the Sphinx, which was suppose to be included with our package but when we went on the tour our guide told us we had to pay the driver and tips to almost every-one this guide knew (every time we went into a place or walked passed a guard we were told to give them money), we paid out over 150 Euros for that day tour. The guide didn't take us into the Sphinx but only sat at a coffee shop near the entrance. We had paid extra for this tour, we paid extra for the guide, the extra for the driver and the entrance fee's and all the tips, then we didn't even get a guided tour of the sites. When we complained of this, she said "we could see it from where we sat and it wasn't worth walking through as there was nothing to see but a pile of old rocks". We called the Aton company and asked them about the optional tours as we had 3 more days there. We only wanted to go to Memfis and Sakkara and see the Museum. Memfis and Sakkara was one package, the Museum, lunch, the Mezquita and the Bazar was another package. Both packages would be about 100 Euros per person. We didn't want the lunch and we didn't need to see the Mezquita and the Bazar. We were surprised to be told that what we wanted would now be a custom tour package and they wanted 200 Euros per person. Then they added, "More for less"...??
We did not purchase this tour through Aton but we did do all those tours, and much more. We hired a cab who took us to all the tours and more thorough Cairo city on our own for the next 2 days and paid less than 200.00 Euros for everything, total cost, including shopping for gifts, lunch, dinner, tips and driver, for 2 full day's. Quite a different price from the 600.00 Euros Aton wanted for a 1/2 day tour
When we left the Novotel Hotel we were again waiting for hours for our transfer and guide. We were told to be at the entrance of our hotel by 3:30 sharp, which we were but they arrived 1.5 hours late. We then had a 3 hour drive to the airport, BUT with the long taxi ride in really heavy traffic it took us 4 hours to get to the airport, where the airline was holding the check-in open for us. They told us 2 more minutes and they would have left without us. Any later and we would have missed the plane. You have to also remember, we have my mother with us, who is 68 years old, has never traveled before and who by this time is ill due to the stress and very bad service and treatment we have endured for the past 2 weeks, staying in noisy hotels and surrounded by people who don't speak our language, being left out of every package we paid for and not given information about where to go, when to be there or for how long as well as not being given any explanation about anything we have seen can you imagine the stress, confusion and panic we are dealing with by this point? This was by far the worst vacation we have ever been on. Of all the travels I have done, in all the places of the world I have been, I have never experience such terrible service and treatment or lack of courtesy and respect as we have experience with Aton Travel.
The coach
Kelowna, British Columbia
Canada
0 comments