This was our first trip to Egypt and so we chose the Maritim Jolie Ville Luxor Resort Kings Island Luxor – Egypt which is not you’re typical 5* hotel but maybe on a par with a 3* premier inn but a premier inn set in paradise, ok the rooms were not the ritz. I have stayed in worse in this country and paid more. The setting of the sun each night was amazing, to sit there and watch it with a drink and some classical music in the background was a dream come true. Ok, I also was in the D block the same as a previous review stated and I also see the paper on the ground but saying that we had no trouble with blockages in fact the lady that cleaned our room was very good and thorough. The lady typified the whole complex every time you see her or any of the staff they always acknowledged you and said hello, I said once and ill say it again I recon that their were more gardeners there than Buckingham palace always busy and that was why the place was virtually always spotless. The restaurants to us were mixed; you had the buffet, which had theme nights for 150LE each (about £15) and my little girl ate for free after adding drinks came to about 400LE, which I personally thought was on the steep side. The king’s bar on the other hand was a lot more reasonable 3 good meals, drinks, all for under 200LE (about £20), you would have trouble having that in a pub let alone a restaurant in Briton. The BBQ outside was more a Calvary than a BBQ with roast chicken and Kofti meat, roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings, not too bad for 3 with drinks about 290LE. I must admit I did not try le fleur restaurant as its not really ideal for an 8 year old, so sorry to say we gave it a miss. Drinks across the board were all the same price, water per litre bottle was 15LE (about £1.50) pepsi either diet or normal was also 15LE, the beer was about 30LE (about £3) which to me being on holiday is not to bad, if you go to butlins you would pay more than that. My wife went to lego land recently with my 8 year old and paid £5.50 for 2 cokes.

Being our first time here we thought we would take it one step at a time, so we took the free boat to luxor and stayed on it until it came back (the boat leaves at 10.00 am and 4.00 pm and returns at 10.45 am and 4.45 pm) that was a trip in its self and that does not cost a penny. So then we decided to get a bit more braver, so we decided to go on the free shuttle bus to luxor (9.00 am, 12.00 am, 5.00 pm, 9.00 pm and comes back 15 minuets after these times) as we got of the bus by the temple we inundated by taxi people, cars and carriages alike, after finally getting to the temple (which for 2 adults and a child was 125LE) we were asked by 3 builders if we want to take there photo, so we did after taking a few with them and the family they immediately started on the tips but at the time I had no change but they would not have this, in the end I did find a couple of LE then they said it was not enough so found a couple more LE and gave it to him, we carried on looking around for a while then we run the gauntlet again to macdonalds at the rear of the temple until I realised the boat was leaving soon. When on the boat we meet a lovely couple (Sue and Dave, hope the backs better Dave) they explained to us a bit more about the ways and means of surviving Egypt.