The President Hotel — Hotel in Geziret al Zamalik, Jazirat al Zamalik

Clean and decent sized rooms but staff are close to useless.

We came to check in at 3pm (check in starts at 2pm) and were told to wait 5 mins so they could check the room. We sat at reception for 30 mins before I went up to ask what was going on and they said the room was still being cleaned. Their excuse when I said we had paid for the room since 2 was that they were "busy".

After I complained we were given a room but it just had two single beds pushed together, not even a double bed like we had paid for. We decided to just take the room and not complain any further as we wanted to see the city before it got dark as it was almost 4pm by that time.

As we were changing and getting ready to go a staff member just opened our door and walked in. Shocked to see us but without any apology they just walked back out again. Weird.

Lastly, we ordered room service the next day and were told it would come in 30 mins. I called 40 mins later when it hadn't come and they said they didn't have our order. After I repeated it to them they said it would be there in 5 mins which didn't seem right considering they hadn't even started making it. I said we would just come to the restaurant instead as we were in a rush to go on a tour. After getting there I had to repeat our order to them a third time and then it took 20 mins to come, even the drinks had not been done so it was clear they had just ignored us.

We stayed here for one night and still had all of this hassle. Spend your...

We stay here for 2 nights and underwent a horrible experience. The decoration of this hotel looked elegant and new, but all that glitters is not gold. Almost everything malfunctioned here:

In the beginning, we couldn’t get our room cards after we checked in. The receptionist explained that it was due to a machine error. Therefore, we were forced to find the room keepers to help us open the door once we left our room. The room cards weren’t available until noon of the second day.

Next, the main elevator conked out in the second morning. Everyone could only use the worn service elevator. What’s worse, the power of this old building was unstable. The elevator shut down for seconds out of the blue while we were still inside. Everyone in the elevator was frightened.

Finally, in our last night in Egypt, I had no idea what’s broken this time that the hotel couldn’t offer us the hot water. We told them the situation and they lied to us that it would be fixed in about 1-2 hours. However, throughout the whole night, there was no hot water at all. In fact, the problem wasn’t solved before we checked out. It’s ridiculous that you spend a certain fare to stay in a “hotel” but couldn’t even take a hot shower before your long flight.

Sincere reminder: prevent to stay in this hotel unless you want to...

The rooms were superb, as was the restaurant. Esraa at Reception makes a fantastic coffee, Ali the porter was very welcoming each time returning to to the Hotel and the reception staff were wonderful. Mohamed in the Cellar bar was superb - always smiling and offering to help, however one of the staff members in the Cellar bar was possibly the most unfriendly staff member I've found in a very long time - I'd prefer not to name him in case it caused any issues with his work, but the experience was poor. When the bar was empty, we asked for a table and were told to sit at the bar counter. When we asked multiple times for a table for our small group, he refused again and again but eventually relented sighing loudly. When we sat down, he literally dropped the menus loudly on the table in front of us and walked away ignoring us. When we asked for coffees before food and drinks, which were on the menu he provided us, he said no rudely. When asked for an explanation, he repeated no and walked away speaking Arabic and looking clearly frustrated. We left the bar, went upstairs, and were served with no issues by the lovely staff on the ground floor.

Overall the Hotel is highly recommended, and couldn't have done more for us to welcome our group. We just recommend some of the staff receive...