Egyptian Railways

Finding the right platform at Cairo station was hard, there were no signs anywhere. The toilets on board were unpleasant and the train was an hour and a half late. I don’t advise anybody to use this method of transport in Egypt

The 12Go’s subcontractor didnt respond to our email on time. When we arrived the police took us apart and arranged our ticket and send us in the right direction. We were obliged to pay them for their service, we felt not reallu comfortable. When at the platform at Luxor we couldnt read the platform because it was in arabic. The locals (0 tourist on the train) were helpfull, thanks! The train itself was quite alright, it left only 20 minuts late, the AC worked and it was not that disgusting. However they woke us up 2 times in the middel of the night on a sleeper train) to check our tickets for the second time and pay for the food we bought hours ago… In the end we were happy everything worked out but I think the bus might be better value for money.

The train

This was a terrible experience from start to finish. You will receive a confirmation telling you to contact a WhatsApp number at least 10 hours before departure who tell you that you must retrieve your ticket from the police office at the station. This is not easily located. Don’t ask the customer services desk either as they don’t know anything and then point you in the wrong direction to get rid of you. The tourism police when they show up then take you to the office and then of course ask for money once they’ve given you the ticket. Because keeping a pre-booked train ticket in a drawer required a lot of effort. Finding the platform is then a nightmare. Ask for directions and you’ll be pointed in the wrong direction every time. This happened again on the platform where the tourism police pointed me to the wrong end of the train. Then a guy takes my ticket, as in grabs the ticket and takes me to the wrong seat, but tells me to sit there. Of course someone shows up for that seat later and a huge scene unfolds on the train between me, this passenger and the police officer who told me to go to the wrong end of the train. Eventually I’m in a sitting down but decide to go get something to eat. They had small sandwiches in the food car, I only dared eat the cheese one which was stale and I think days old and definitely wasn’t being stored in a fridge when I bought it. Wouldn’t touch the chicken ones for obvious reasons. Furthermore train door was broken so the smell of the toilets and cigarette smoke accompanied the entire 12 hour journey as did the sound of the compartment door constantly slamming due to the movement of the train. If this was the “first class” experience, God only knows what second and third class is. Do yourself a favour and fly, drive, walk if you have to. Avoid avoid avoid Egyptian trains and especially pre-booking them.

Toilet very bad. Can smoking in train which is not okay, very smelly.

Train trip was ok, but the price charged was $110 & the Egypt Rail ticket was $75. Thus, this company overcharged me. Plus getting a hard copy ticket was a major issue - the mentioned phone number never answered, and the email responses were very slow, then stopped before resolution.

Train was 30 minutes late departing. Restrooms disgusting. Other than that? Perfect! 😆

Contacted the email and number given to retrieve ticket at train station up to three days prior to departure and neither got back to me. We went to the station 3 hours prior to departure to try and sort things out and we were helped out by ‘tourist help centre’ who told us come back an hour before departure after they had made phone calls. We did so and they gave us our tickets on arrival and looked for money for retrieving tickets which we felt obliged to do so. If contact number/email given us contacted me back, this scenario would be avoided.

The restrooms in every car were beyond disgusting. The windows in the cars were so filthy you couldn't see out them! Other passengers smoking between cars, rail employees joined them for a cigarette! Upside? The A/C worked very well.

Great service and very comfortable trip!

I was told to meet a person at the station with the tickets and they were 1 hour and 15 minutes late. The station is not safe and was put in danger waiting around