• After two sleepness nights in Cairo (hotel and airport), Rome (Fiumicino Airport) and on Alitalia aircraft since April 19, we finally arrived home safe @ 7:00pm last Wed., April 21. We're lucky our flight from Rome to Toronto was just delayed for two hours and took longer air route (10 hours instead of 8-1/2 hrs Toronto to Rome on April 8, to avoid volcanic ash on air space according to the pilot) unlike thousands of passengers stranded in Europe due to cancellation of flights to and from Europe caused by the volcanic eruption in Iceland.
• Your arranging with Alitalia 2-seater window seats for our outbound and inbound flights eased up signifantly the long duration of both flights.
• At this writing, Lunesa  and I are still disoriented and suffering from exhaustion, jet lag and time difference. Despite the heat (more intense than in our native country, the Philippines) that Lunesa had to use an umbrella for the first time in our travel outside Canada), walking on an uneven and rocky terrains and climbing hills during our escorted tour, we truly had a wonderful and memorable first trip to Egypt. Part of our enjoyment was that our group of 19, including an Australian couple and a grandfather, grandmother and granddaughter from Cyprus and London, were very intimate during our tour, especially on that unforgettable 4-night Nile River Cruise.

• The attractions and sceneries you arranged for us, Egypt in Brief with three optional tours, including Abu Simbel, more than met our expectations, despite knowing much already about your country before touring it.
• From the moment we arrived in Cairo International Airport on April 9th and until we left Cairo for Rome on April 21st, your agents and friends in Egypt took all our needs. We'd be at a loss and it would cost us more if we arranged all the things you and they did for us on our own.
• We enjoyed the room accommodation, amenities, services and friendliness of the staff on all the beautiful hotels in Cairo and Aswan included in our package.
• We greatly appreciated our having good view rooms and late check-outs at Basma Hotel (Aswan) and Le Meridien Pyramids Hotel (Cairo), arranged by Amr Amin and Hesham Hassan respectively.
• We found the cabin or stateroom we had at Mirage 1 cruise ship, especially its wide river view window, more spacious, lavish, comfortable, and breath-taking than we've experienced sailing with luxurious ocean liner cruise ships. We also enjoyed the services, entertainment, food and the friendliness of the staff at Mirage.
• We generally found the Egyptologists or tour guides throughout our tour knowledgeable, friendly, patient and pleasant. They were also genuinely concerned with our safety.
• While we observed driving and crossing the street in Egypt very risky, South Sinai Travel provided us good drivers on all our tours.
• The tour provided us an opporunity riding a camel and a fellucca for the first time, both an unforgettable experience.
• We found the natives we met, including the market bazaar vendors and tourist police friendly and helpful.
• After joining the tour provided by the staff of Alexandria Library, we were overwhelmed by its beautiful building designs and collections. We were also so impressed by the staff guide when she demonstrated in a computer terminal many interesting stuff found in the Library available in its website, www.bibalex.org, free of charge! When I asked the guide what will the Library hopes to get in return for this free information and service, I was told, the management and staff of the Library are striving to attain its former role as the seat of knowledge around the world as in ancient times!
• Whereever we travel, we see to it that we buy postcards of the attractions we visited, to put side with side with the pictures we took in an album. This is because the attractions on these postcards were taken by professional photographers. And our postcard needs were adequately met in Egypt as the roll of postcards costs mostly only 5 Egyptian pounds! I became a good student of price haggling for this item in Egypt!
• Last but not least, The Egyptian Vision DVD produced by Egyptologist and Tour Guide Mohammed Fathy, out of his love for your land and culture, is a terrific memento of our first travel in Egypt. This fantastic DVD was made available to our group by our Egyptologist/Tour Guide Mary Hanna at no sale pressure on our group. Because of our hectic schedule on the tour, if it were not for Mary, we won't know the availability of this DVD. When we returned to Toronto on April 21st, I went to bed early that evening. After I woke up at 2:00am the following morning, I was curious to see whether the DVD which we bought from Mary for US$20 would work in our DVD player and TV set. We had a bad experience buying a similar DVD in Acapulco, Mexico that won't work in Canada. The DVD packet says it contains 1,530 photos of best quality of the most important sightseeings in Egypt with description broken down into three main headings: A-Upper Egypt, B-Lower Egypt, and C-Nature. After seeing the first series of slides about Abu Simbel with beautiful background music, while still feeling tired and sleepy, I was hooked to viewing more of the video. I started viewing the DVD at 2:10am and finished watching the last series of Egyptian Nature around 5:45am!

----- Original Message -----
From: Mylene Tuazon
To: 'Discount Holiday'
Sent: Friday, January 29, 2010 11:01 AM
Subject: Hi Rafik!

Hi Rafik!

I don’t know if you’ll remember me, Mylene Tuazon? I traveled with Neerja Goyal in the end of September 2009. You did an amazing job with our travel arrangements and although I’m rather delayed in letting you know this, we truly had an amazing time in Egypt and I just wanted to send my sincere gratitude for all you did for us!

I don’t know if you knew that we basically ended up with a private tour since there were no other travelers to join our group. This was really a surprise bonus for us since I’m not really into big group travel tours. We were able to get one-on-one education from our very well-informed and pleasant tour guides. No time was wasted waiting for those who tend to lag behind when in a big group!! This meant that there was more time for us to enjoy our visits to all those incredible sites of Egypt! J

People who’ve asked me about my trip are surprised when they hear me say that it was so far the best trip I’ve ever been to. Both Neerja and I agree on this, and we’ve both done quite a lot of traveling to different parts of the world. Seeing the Great Pyramids was a surreal experience. As much as we see this site on tv or in pictures, there’s nothing to compare it to being right there to see it and realize how really massive they are. Getting to ride camels behind the pyramids and going inside one of the pyramids was surely a plus!!! We wore the biggest grins on our faces as we rode those camels in the desert behind the pyramids. We couldn’t believe that we were actually there and having one of our travel dreams come true!! At least…one of my dreams, anyways!! J

I could carry on and on about all our wonderful experiences but I best stop, because it will take a whole day to do that! I just wanted to just really thank you for a wonderful job and all the extras that you did for us. You really made our trip one of the best ever!

Rafik, I just want to let you know also that I’ve given your name to a couple of people who are very interested in visiting Egypt. I told them about my wonderful experience and that you are the best person to help them with their travel plans.

BTW…our tour guide, George Onsi, in Cairo was such an amiable and well-informed guide. He really knows his stuff!! We really enjoyed our time with him.

Thanks again for everything!

Sincerely,

Mylene

To: <info@discountholiday.net>
Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 9:23 PM
Subject: Web Mail from: Sylvie Cadieux


Phone:
Email: sylvie.cadieux2009@hotmail.com
How did you hear about us:

Feedback

Hello Mr. Rafik

Just a little word to let you know that we had a wonderful trip to Egypt in may 2009.We were  pretty nervous about all this when we started to discuss with you, because we were a French speaking group.But like you had promised every thing was perfect all the way.The Hotels were first class with real nice personnel, we enjoyed the cruise on the Nile,we felt like a big family on the ship with the  members of the cruise.We also enjoyed staying in Sharm el Sheik,it's a place  where a would like to spend more time,but there is so much to see and we had only 2 weeks.Our french speaking guide,Tamer was very generous of his time and shared with us all he knew about the history of Egypt.We saw so many beautiful things ,including the nights show in Cairo and Luxor that I would be unable to say what i have prefer.Mr.Rafik,i must say that you gave us a very good service from the start,everything was perfect.

Thank you
Sylvie and Myriam

----- Original Message -----
From: "RodiAma" <rodiama@rogers.com>
To: <safaa.mohamed@southsinai.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 8:41 PM
Subject: email address

> Hi, Safaa.
>
> I have your email address from Rafik Bassili, with whom we booked a
> recent trip to Egypt. Thank you for all the effort you put in
organizing
> our trip. We had a great time and are very glad we came to visit
your
> beautiful country.
> I'd like to ask if you can send us the email address of Tamer Koriem,

> Timo for guests. He was our tour leader in Cairo. He was supposed to
> accompany us to airport, but for some reason he could not make it. We

> left without having a chance to say good-bye and thank him for the
> wonderful job he did. We would like to send him a thank you note, if
you
> can provide us his email address.
>
> Thank you for your help,
>
> Rodica and Paul
>

From: Charlie Bugeya
To: discountholiday@bellnet.ca
Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 2:53 PM
Subject: Egypt holiday

                                                                                                               March 17th 2006
Dear Rafik,
Erika and me, would like to thank you for our wonderful holiday we just had in Egypt and Israel, these past few weeks.

We met some excellent people there, like Amgad, in Cairo, who literally walked us through customs and passports and the visa offices. He is such a helpful guy, and well dressed too.

Raymond, our guide in Cairo, explained all that we were looking at, whether it was the Pyramids, the Sphinx or the Sun boat, even though the dust in the air was not in our favour. He was also patient with us during all our many questions.

Nabil, met us in Aswan, and was with us all the time on the Nile cruise, and the excursions off the boat. He calls himself, 'the Tiger', and I think its a name well earned, especially when he talks about his personal experiences. Did he really meet that girl, with that offer, or was it something that he tells to all his listeners? I guess, I will never know!

Lea, was excellent in Israel. Her knowledge of the Jewish / Christian / Moslem histories, is second to none. Nobody should miss the Holocaust Museum. Mohammed, the driver, can manoeuvre that bus with ease, whether it was in Jerusalem, the Golan Heights or Haifa. 

I guess the only little complaint we have, ( if you want to call it a complaint) is that we had too much time to kill before the boat left towards Luxor. I mean if we knew that we had so much time, we would have gone to Abu Simbel. Had we known that, we would have preferred to fly to Abu Simbel, and then returned to the boat by the bus. Perhaps, it was not explained properly to us. Anyways, maybe this can be arranged for future trips. 
But all in all, we can only say, BRAVO RAFIK, for planning our memorable trip to Egypt and the Holy Land. Thanks again.
 Yours truly,

From: Magdy Abdelmassih
To: discountholiday@bellnet.ca
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 9:33 AM
Subject: Thanks for a great trip

Hi Rafik,
This is just a little note to thank you so much for the wonderfully organized trip that you arranged for us to Egypt during the first two weeks of January 2006.  My parents and I had a wonderful time.  It was an especially confortable trip because of how well it was organized and the professionalism that we experienced from the Seniora staff in Egypt.  They were always punctual, courteous and professional. Our accomodations at the Meridien and Sheraton hotels in Cairo and Alexandria were top notch. 
Having never traveled to Egypt before, I was a bit anxious about arrangements but my fears were quickly put to rest upon arrival when we were greeted at the airport and assisted with customs clearance and baggage claim by the Seniora staff.  The rest of the trip went just as smoothly with no confusion at all about arrangements.  The cruise on the Nile abord the Nile Odyssey was exquisite.  What a wonderful crew.  The food was delicious and the accomodations were very comfortable.  The Egyptologist provided for the tours was extremely knowledgeable, patient and pleasant.
Overall, we had a wonderful time and I am anxious to return for a similar trip with my entire family.
Thank you once again for making all the arrangements. 

Karin Brothers

573 Horon Street , Toronto, Ontario M5R 2R6

Tel: (416) 966-2815

August 7. 2000

Mr. Rafik Salama

Sun Holidays

Fax: 789-3903

Dear Rafik:

You should be called Ter-rafik. We were so impressed by your organized of our trip. It went perfectly. We had the most impressive people in Egypt handle our trip. We had felt very vulnerable visiting a country that seemed to foreign, with a language we couldn’t make out at all.

In Cairo, Waheed and a very component women met us when our plane landed. Despite the fact that my son and I were not given entry papers on the plane, they quickly whisked us through everything. They even paid up front for our viasas, not even waiting for us to find the money ourselves. Waheed is a very impressive man: very handsome, educated, elegant, intelligent and sharp. He was there right on time, whenever he was scheduled to meet us. with his kind smile, smoothing everything in sight for us. we were even given his number for any emergencies that could come up. He also gave us important information about dating and tipping in Egypt.

In Luxor, Magdi (I’m not sure of the spelling)m met our plane and again made sure that everything went perfectly. He took us to the Sound and Light show at Karnak that night, Amazingly, and I can’t imagine how he did it, our cab was first in line in a parking lot filled with cars and buses. We appreciated that, as we had been up since about 2 a.m. with our travels that day and couldn’t have taken waiting too long at that point at night. Our cruise on the Nile Admiral was excellent. The boat was elegant, and the food was both good and safe. Excellent trips were scheduled with an informative, enthusiastic and wonderful guide. Sameh. At Aswan, we were met again right on time, if not earlier, and had very considerate, competent service.

And our plane into Cairo was met with a cab getting into our excellent hotel. We were somewhat dubious about the hotel at first, since we had been given a substitute hotel: but the Nile Hilton was just wonderful. The location was excellent, right next to the Egyptian Museum, the Metro, and on the Nile. The hotel itself was wonderful, with a pool, a dreamy outdoor restaurant that we loved, very good food, and a stupendous bar/restaurant overlooking the entire city at the top.

And our guide in Cairo, Said. Couldn’t have been better. We must have thrown him, as we had decided we wanted to do different things entirely than planned. He was terrific. We did exactly what we wanted. We had the most modern, comfortable car for the four of us, and a most impressive driver. Said quickly rearranged the schedule (amazing. As a driver would not have been needed for his understanding of the morning) and we did more than we could have imagined. We couldn’t have had a nicer and better guide: Said was great.

e believe that the kind and competent people we met through you made our visit to Egypt a real high point of our trip. We heard of other kinds of stories from fellow travelers. So we really appreciated the superb service you provided for us. Thank you so much. We would be happy to recommend your service to everyone

With best wishes, Karin Brothers

Magdi Morcos

1057 Mountview Dr.

Oshawa, Ontario, Canada

L1K-2L3

Dear Rafik

I want to take this opportunity to thank you for the marvelous trip to Egypt that you organized for us in March through "Discount Holiday Center". We feel that there is no way to fully express our appreciation for the superb organization and care that you and your staff demonstrated. It made our trip to Egypt both unique and successful. My wife and I depended on you and your staff and we will forever appreciate how friendly and helpful you were. If you want to use us as a reference we can be contacted at 905-448-9717.

Our trip was absolutely fantastic. Thanks again, Rafik.

Best wishes to you,

Magdi and Zaina Morcos