Fontana Hotel — Hotel in Luxor City

I'm genuinely shocked to see so many negative reviews. We found the Fontana a solid value with a super family running the place. ||Checked in almost at sunrise and the owner didn't fuss when we asked for four nights starting that day, so we got the room 6 hours early. Breakfast was ample for hot Egypt days when you need energy and not a bloated stomach. The Wi-Fi was the best we've had in the middle east (yes, I know Egypt is Africa, but I'm culturally grouping here), if a little inconsistent. ||Additionally, the clientele here is great. We met other long term travelers, travel writers, and a dude who'd been to Egypt 60 times in 30 years! So much knowledge hanging out in the dining room.||Now all of that said, avoid the tours like the plague. While I don't hold the owner at fault for making a few extra bucks selling such things, our tour we booked through them almost ruined our trip to Luxor. Another fellow joined us who'd payed 50% less than we did after factoring tickets and the guide was just a straight up jerk. I probably wouldn't have mentioned it, assuming it was a one off problem, but per other reviewers, it seems to be a systemic issue. Just stay away from them.||Also, wife says -.5 for really hard pillows.||Anyhow, if you're on a tight budget or just like a super deal, you'd do well to stay here. Just firmly say no to the 'information' you will be offered at check-in.||P.s. We agreed to a price on arrival and paid cash up front. It was more than fair, included breakfast, and were not hassled at all...

A good location with reasonable facilities and space, however avoid this hotel for a few reasons, the main one is that you CANNOT trust the owner or his son for a second, after talking and bartering about the agreed rate, it spiked up as he says the dorm rooms with external bathrooms were occupied then also added to the bill a "great" breakfast is included for a slight increase in price, however both were blatant lies, the occupancy it was not enough for those rooms to be booked out and breakfast was very poor quality. Furthermore there is a constant and pushy hard sell of more overpriced tours, bus tickets etc..seriously every five minutes you are pressured to buy something, even after you have declined it before.||The beds are in poor condition and one of the ones I tried was sunken halfway through the night. ||Really they are silver tongued salesmen, without any reservation about ripping you off while making it seem like they are your best friend and they are saving you from the devil agents and taxi drivers outside, alas you are already staying with the very type of people they are trying to warn you about. Please heed the warning and avoid the place.||||Signed an unhappy and foolish former customer, with an unreasonably...

As the title says Fontana is a nice place to stay for backpackers, as long as you make sure you get backpacker rates. As mentioned in other posts the owner is extremely kind, and we tried to reward that, but he also changed the price of the room for us for the very nice breakfast which was really just average breakfast so at the end, we ended up paying the same we would have paid in the much nicer next door hotel. So if you can get you very cheap price and skip breakfast ( you can do much better for cheaper in the street) do... then you will have nice clean rooms, with free wifi and aircon, although our water heater didn't work, and the electricity went off quite often, but then again that nobody has power over... but after all the rip off with the room and the tours we had no energy to fight for anything else.... ||So make sure you bargain to death and stay put... get your tours from outside and skip breakfast and you will love the place. The rest of the staff, is super nice though, that is the only reason I am giving a good rating...