New Royal Grand Hotel Cairo — Hotel in Cairo

I had a good experience at this hotel when I was there for a week recently to attend a conference. There are a few tips to make your stay enjoyable here! Instead of booking a five star hotel at the conference centre, I decided to book a local hotel and booked the deluxe double room with a bathtub ensuite. Firstly, Room selection and booking : this hotel has 2 seperate listing on booking which I read from another review. One is for the rooms facing the square and busy street and the other is for the room facing the back streets. Although I booked the former, I eventually chose the latter when I arrive in person as I like the back street local housing view more and the shisha cafe views. Also it is very quiet unlike the rooms facing the front streets. When I turn up at the hotel, initially they brought me to the front street double room which didn’t have a bathtub but gave me a few more choices of rooms that has bathtub after I showed them my booking that is a double room deluxe with bathtub and balcony. Eventually they provided me a triple person room with 2 beds even though I am one person. It comes with a private although seperate huge spa tub bathroom which is across the room corridor. I am fine with this arrangement as the single bed in that room is firm and the room is spacious and quiet. The aircon/heater is slightly noisy but i quickly got used to it. Although the tv doesn’t work, they repaired it a couple of days later but I don’t think there is sound. I was not in Cairo to watch to so it doesn’t matter to me. The room number is 205. I highly recommend this room and paying a few dollars more for a deluxe double or triple room with your own bathtub and balcony view and choose the room facing the backstreet. If in doubt, just email the hotel owner your enquiries and what kind of room you would like, and they will assist you. Secondly, Front entrance: the hotel is located on the 6th floor and does not occupy the entire building. It has a sign on the lift inside. Do give the hotel a call when you arrive and they will send their staff down to help you with your luggages. You have to walk inside the main entrance of the building which looks like a typical public housing /office corridor. But go up the lift and you reach the hotel reception which is in good decor. I was from Asia and have seen HDB and old buildings, so this facade entry on the ground floor did not bother me after a couple of days, although other tourists may not be used to this. It may be worthwhile for the hotel to advertise it as being on the six floor of this building, so the tourist would not have thought the entire building represented the hotel. In any case it was lovely of the hotel to send down their staff to help with the luggages both when I arrive and when I finished my stay. Thirdly, Breakfast: I am pleasantly surprised that the egg was cooked fresh on demand , so they only cook your breakfast egg when you asked for your breakfast. You can either have it in common area or in your room. It is tasty enough for me. Fourthly, housekeeping: if you would like your toilet or room cleaned and towels changed, you have to drop off your key at the reception, and they will put it in a box for you to collect at the reception desk when u return. If you didn’t drop your keys to the receptionist, they will assume you don’t want anyone to enter your room or have housekeeping done. Lastly, their luggage storage is at the corridor which other guests pass through. I left my luggages there at the storage open area but my valuables with the front reception. So you can do that too if you are more pedantic. Of note their tours although a bit more pricier than outside local shops, is very convenient and the tour guide I got is called Mahmoud and I highly recommend him. The hotel staff are all very friendly and I highly recommend this hotel to budget travellers who don’t mind a worn down building entrance, a basic hot breakfast, and paying a bit more to get a spacious deluxe db/triple room facing back streets & want to experience a well located...

The staff are nothing short of cheats. I had booked a Royal Double room through Agoda and it was paid for by credit card. When I reached the hotel the manager informed me that apparently there has been some sort of mistake and I have actually booked a tiny room not much larger than a shoebox. I was shocked - I have been booking through Agoda for years and never have I faced a situation like this.

They offered to show me around the other two available rooms before I made a decision. Upon seeing one of the rooms I realised it's actually the same room which I had seen photos of on Agoda while booking. I had paid for it too. But they said I will have to pay extra $15 per night if I wanted to take that room or stay in the small room which I know I did not book through Agoda. I refused to pay any additional charges for a room I have already paid for! So I stayed in the small room.

This was shocking level of dishonesty. It felt like they do this often with gullible customers and make them pay extra for rooms which they have already paid for. The room was barely adequate to sleep at night. The shower had no curtains so everytime you take a shower they entire floor gets wet and slippery. The room was clean though. They would not provide toothbrush, toothpaste or shampoo. Not even water bottles!

The lift to get to the hotel seems like it's from the 19th century. The breakfast is rudimentary - bread butter and bananas. Still no water!

The only positive aspect is the location - it is in the heart of downtown Cairo so you can easily travel to major tourist attractions. There are two metro stations within walking distance. The Cairo museum is also within walking distance.

Avoid buying tours from the manager! He will ask you ridiculously high prices and is no help at all buying train tickets. He will try to put you in taxi everywhere and charge through the roof in US dollars. Make your own trips or...

The room and the staff were good value. A strong word of caution. When you arrive the owner-manager :Hussein meets you . He is quite personable.,He sold us several tour packages which were somewhat over priced , but that was ok. We were going to travel in Aswan and he offered to buy our tickets for us from the train station. We thought he was being helpful. He said the tickets were $40.00 U.S. and they were VIP tickets for foreigners. We had already booked a cruise on the Nile and he offered to grt our return train tickets from Luxor. We paid him upfront for all tickets including $35.00 U.S. from Luxor back to Cairo. When we finally got our tickets, the ones from Aswan were about $12.00 each and the ones from Luxor were about $10.00 each. There were 3 of us traveling so in all we over paid by about $150.00 U.S. The distance to the hotel to the train station to grt the tickets would be about 2 or 3 kilometres! We questioned him when we saw the actual price on the tickets. He said " the difference was his agency fee". We feel we were cone! Beware of Hussein at the Hotel Grand Hotel in Cairo! He took a substantial chunk of our...