Monday 10th October - the journey home

It was an early start and up and away from the hotel without breakfast and then off to the airport.  It was a breeze at the airport with no hassles from anyone, no arguments about overweight cases, in fact no complaints about anything!  Was it all too good to be true - well, yes, it was!!

Our departure time with Egyptair was 08.45, but that time came and went with no explanation as to why.  Another passenger asked what was happening and announced to everyone that there was a delay due to not having a time slot for flying into Heathrow.  It turned out that there were problems over European air space and we had to be given another time.  We saw the departure time change to 11.00 and, when we eventually took off at 11.15, quickly realised that there was no way we would make our flight from Heathrow up to Scotland which was scheduled to leave at 16.35.  However, to give Egyptair their due, they did give us a free drink of juice while we waited at the airport.

Farewell Luxor (if you look really closely, you can see Karnak Temple)

 The flight was fairly uneventful apart from a few bumps on the way, and we arrived at Heathrow at 15.45 and headed for the baggage hall as our luggage could not be put straight through to our final destination.  The luggage, of course, was late in arriving (16.20) so there was no way we could make our connecting flight.  After our cases eventually arrived, we headed for the BMI desk where we were unfortunate enough to be served by a totally unsympathetic member of BMI staff.  The four of us had to pay £189 each for our one-way flights home!!  However, two ladies in exactly the same position as us has been served by a different member of BMI staff and he had given them their flights for £50 each.  To say that I was angry was a big understatement!!  Not wanting to create a fuss at the airport, I resolved to sort it out by letter once I was home and in a better frame of mind!!

Cutting a long story short, we were eventually able to make an insurance claim - but it took absolutely ages for confirmation to come through from Egyptair to explain what the delay was, and we were unable to make our claim until we had that information. Surprisingly, our claim was subsequently successful (minus the usual excess of course!!)

Although we had had a really great holiday and were sad to have left Luxor, it was still nice to be home and there's always something comforting about being able to sleep in your own bed!!

Monday 26th September - journey to Luxor

The long awaited day had arrived.  The day we were to travel to my 'second home' - Luxor!!  (There were four of us, my husband and I and our friends)

Being in Scotland, it's a bit of a long journey but this time we had booked with Kuoni who had handled the internal flights as well as the scheduled Egyptair fight from Heathrow and, as a special treat, we had booked into the Servisair lounge for some rest and relaxation prior to the flight.  I wasn't too happy wth Kuoini however when we got to Edinburgh Airport as we weren't able to book our hold luggage straight through for the Luxor flight so had the hassles of picking up baggage when we got to Heathrow, but that was all forgotten once we were eventually in the air and on our way!!

The flight wasn't too bad actually with quite a lot of leg room on the flight and, the encouraging thing was that the flight was quite busy and more tourists arriving is exactly what's needed after the recent troubles.

I'm not quite sure where we were, but here are some photos of some mountains and the sunset on our way to Luxor

 

We arrived in Luxor in the dark, which was a new experience for us, but the heat that hit us when we disembarked was not a new experience, and it was very welcome!!  We already had our Visas but was very surprised when the Kuoni rep directed people to the bank kiosks for their visas, unlike the the other holiday company reps who try to squeeze as much money out of the tourists as possible!  It was then onto the bus and off to the Winter Palace Pavilion.


We had been told that an upgrade to the Old Winter Palace was very likely as the Pavilion had been closed but, on our arrival, the Pavilion had just been re-opened and the anticipated upgrade never happened.  However, we were very pleased (as always) with our Pavilion rooms - here's a wee peek at ours (3009)

It was a lovely refurbished room and was very comfortable.  After a long tiring day travelling, it was just lovely to be back in Luxor to relax.  The men were sent to the supermarket for 'supplies' and I done some unpacking before a little nightcap on the balcony!!

There was one little panic however - I discovered that the adaptors I had brought with me and that I'd been using for years in Luxor, now did not fit the sockets in the newly refurbished rooms!!  Looking around I saw that the TV and fridge were plugged into the new sockets by the use of small adaptors, so I unplugged the TV as we don't really use it anyway, and used the adaptor so I could re-charge my phone.  Here is a photo to try and show the difference - we quickly discovered that these adaptors were being sold in Arkwright's supermarket and were also available on loan from reception

My own adaptor (European two pin) at the top and the new adaptor at the bottom

The adaptors for sale in Arkwrights plug into the new sockets and will take the European two pin as shown, and also the square three pin UK plug and the UK two pin round plug.  It probably takes others as well - here is a photo of the front of the plug so you can see for yourself

I was back in my 'second home' and immediately felt an overwhelming sense of peace!!