Michele rated the Sofitel Pavillon Winter Luxor as follows:| Cleanliness |  | | Location | | | Staff | | | Food |  | |
| Entertainment |  |
| said: The cleanliness of the hotel public areas, rooms and grounds were excellent. The pool however, did have a number of slimy spots below the swim up bar and stools and around the side walls in places.
Breakfast - was a poor affair by Egyptian standards and this is possibly the worst breakfast we have received in all our years of visiting Egypt. This being our 7th visit to Luxor since 1994.
There was a chef cooking fresh eggs outside and not always the same chef. Some of the chefs could cook eggs and others couldn't. Pancakes were those small thick American style and were brought out first thing when the restaurant opened at 05:30 - they were stiff and almost always cold. I've had fresh pancakes cooked to order in a 3 star Luxor hotel before now. The toaster did not work properly at all during our stay with guests having to put slices through between 3 and 4 times. On the last morning, only one side of the bread was toasted after going through twice and finally, the engineers were called in!
The choice was quite good but sadly, the food was out from the very early hours of the morning so bread was quite stale by 08:30 and breakfast was ongoing until 10:00am.
Tea was a thermos flask of hot water and 2 teabags per person. Coffee was also provided in thermos flasks. This isn't what we expected from a hotel of this rating.
We did not eat any other meals inside the hotel as these were very expensive (around LE130 or 18 Euros) for a main course alone. A bottle of local beer (Stella local 63cl) was LE40 and could be bought in the local restaurants for anything between LE14 to LE18. The thought of paying so much when the breakfast was short lived completely put us off trying any meals in the hotel.
We knew of the Old Winter Palace hotel and had visited it a number of years ago but were not familiar with the Pavillion at the rear. The New Winter Palace hotel has been demolished.
Firstly, the Pavillion is not a 5 star hotel. It is situated in the sumptuous grounds of a 5 star hotel but can only be rated 4 star at best. Some refurbishment has already taken place and rooms on the 3rd and 4th floor were still being refurbished during our stay. Not much fun if you wanted to have a cool snooze in the mid afternoon as the workmen opened the patio doors for the noise to extend to the other rooms in the L shaped block.
Refurbishment has been new carpets, new headboard and beds, bathroom fittings have not been replaced and some of the baths have been repainted. The grouting and plastering behind the toilets and sinks need to be looked at and made more pleasing to the eye.
That being said - the hotel is in a fantastic spot immediately across from the Corniche and the River Nile and spitting distance to the Luxor Temple. You could not want for a better spot! The hotel grounds, gardens and swimming pool/s are superb. A sort of half moon shaped shallow pool with walk in steps and swim up bar move on to a deeper length swim style pool so for serious swimmers, this is a godsend.
There were a few issues with power outages during our stay but we were only affected on our very last day. Other members of our party had problems with electrics going on and off in their room from day one. The power went off every evening just before 7pm when the hotel put all the garden lights on!
As always, we found the local staff very pleasant and they will generally go the extra mile to make your stay enjoyable. We did struggle to get 6 beers though on the night of our arrival and waited for over 20 minutes for them to arrive. Our beds were made everyday and turned down in the evening after we had gone out for dinner. A couple of nights we came back to flower petals strewn on the beds with a minty smelling flower stem. Fresh towels were brought to the room in the evening whilst we were out ready for an early start the next morning.
There was no entertainment at the hotel that we saw.
|
Subscribe For FREE Updates
Michele from Cyprus travelled to Sofitel Pavillon Winter Luxor with
Booked with Travel Republic - Accommodation only
on a friends holiday.