Day 112 - Meeting The Tour Group & A Dinner Cruise On The Nile

Meeting The Tour Group & A Dinner Cruise On The Nile,

Today is our 2nd day in Egypt & technically our first day of the tour. 

We were slightly disappointed that day 1 of our tour is checking in to the hotel & meeting our tour group, while day 9 is checking out of the hotel & saying goodbye to whoever hasn't already left. Technically we are only on tour & exploring Egypt for 7 days.

We said goodbye to the owner at the Giza View Hotel & hopped into a taxi that he organised for us. Our next hotel & starting point for the tour was at the Oasis Resort, approximately 15 minutes away.
Our taxi had to pull up at a guard tower before being allowed to drive through the gate to a second check point & sniffer dogs.

We were greeted at the door and someone took our bags through screening & into the lobby. Checking in was efficient & the staff are very friendly. Before we go to our room we receive our introduction meeting & brief written itinerary, with a few changes from the online one from a tour guide representative. He gives us a time to meet back in the lobby for our official meet & greet, before setting us free to explore the resort.
It's the first time since we've been overseas that we have stayed in a 5 star resort. It has the usual restaurant's, lounge & cocktail bar's, a pool, a spa & an enclosure of sad looking flamingo's & pigeon's.
While exploring the resort our bags were taken to our room, the service here is phenomenal! 

We had a few hours of free time which we used at the bar trying to update the blog & budget before going on tour. 

The tour meeting was at 6pm, we met our tour guide called Sam who I was very happy & slightly envious to learn was an egyptologist and has a vast wealth of knowledge. We also met a few people from the tour but realised that meeting everyone would be quite a process be cause there was 33 of us in the group. I was quite surprised at the size of the group, but we were told it was a very popular block of date's because of school holidays, we had a lot of school teachers on holiday with us. We were told the group before us and directly after us were only about 8 people per group. The group was quite big and had a  big mix of personalities, but not that many countries represented. There was a few Americans, 1 french lady, a couple of New Zealanders and the rest were Australians, a lot of whom were already living abroad in London. 

Straight after the meeting we were asked about an optional dinner cruise on the nile & traditional belly dancing show. Pretty much everybody elected to do this and it proved to be a great way to meet other people. 

We left straight away and drove down to the pier to get on board the cruise boat, the food was a buffet & was amazing, as was the wine, beer & service. The entertainment was a live band, a  traditional belly dancer who had 2 costume changes & songs involving the some volunteers from the crowd. There was also a dwarf & a man who wore traditional costumes that flared out as they spun around in circles, creating shapes. This was very impressive as they didn't seem to loose balance or put a step wrong as they continued to circle for minutes on end, occasionally using ceramic plates & cups of water as props to demonstrate their balance. 

We left the dinner just before 10pm, feeling very full & merry. We had a big day ahead tomorrow, with lots to organise & with our excitement overflowing, making sleep very hard, despite being tired! 

- Alli