Al Moudira Hotel

You may think Al Moudira is far (it is on the West Bank) but as soon as you step into this oasis you wish you will stay here for ever or at least for long. You are surrounded by palm trees birds charming architecture lamps stars - like in heaven. The rooms are stunning (we have been here twice in family suites both beautiful, large, Like sleeping in an Arabian night dream). Take a walk in the huge garden and you will find sofa every where and candles. The pool is amazing and fresh with a nice restaurant (the choice is not vast but food is delicious; try their wine 365). The waiters and people are the nicest and most helpful ever. I hope that now that it has been taken over by Relais Chateaux it won’t change; loosing its dust which is part of the wonder. Do not make this another luxury place with no warm or soul.

The hotel and grounds were beautiful.  The room was enormous.  The service at lunch was exceptional.  They even opened the breakfast buffet at 5:30 am specifically for us since we had an early flight to catch.  However,  the checkout process ruined the experience for me.  The credit card reader was not working.  They tried running 3 different credit cards a total of 6 or 7 times, and every time,  on the receipt, it said "no response" and not "denied." I had also used these credit cards several other times elsewhere in Egypt without any issues.  The person checking me out essentially implied to me multiple times that it was my fault that the payment was not going through.  There was an ATM just outside so I asked if I could get cash out at the ATM and pay in egyptian pounds,  but the guy refused and said all the prices at the hotel were in US dollars and he could not do the conversion. (The conversion is just a simple multiplication of the price in US dollar x 50.) Finally,  I remembered that I did have some US dollars, and fortunately, it was enough to cover the bill.  I believe that the amount of the bill was approximately $196. I gave the guy $200, and he was like,  I only have $5 in change.  He kept asking me if I had another $1. I did not and kept telling him that I did not.  Since he seemed so unwilling to give me the $1 extra in change I just told him to forget it and let him keep my change since by this time it was 10 minutes past the time that we were supposed to leave for the airport.  I was quite upset because this person made it seem like everything was my fault that I could not pay, and it was essentially up to me to come up with a solution on how to pay. 

This is a beautiful hotel, the rooms are stunning and the service and restaurant are equally excellent. The standout memory from our trip to Luxor is our wonderful guide Omar who is extremely knowledgeable in Egyptology, and made each of our excursions in the area an absolute joy! We're so blessed to have met Omar who has become our good friend since then, and we still message each other almost a year later as I'm learning Arabic for work in this area and he's helped me so much with this. I highly recommend Omar and will always request him as a guide (and a friend!) whenever wo go to Egypt in future. We stayed at many places and had many guides in Luxor and Egypt and this was our best experience by far. Shukran Omar and our Al Moudira Luxor family!