Helnan Shepherd

We enjoyed our stay here, a character hotel with great atmosphere of grand days. Large rooms, well serviced and laundry was so cheap to get done. Breafast had many choices and Mohamed in the cafe was brilliant at looking after our group of 4 adults, nothing was a problem for him. Would definitely stay here again.

Breakfast team is very good. But some more training they would be excellent. The house keeping teams very good. Overall experience is good. The only setback is that the hotel needs to renovated. Carpets, paiting, Faucets, closets, oilets Etc.

The pluses: 1. Near the Nile 2. Ok breakfast The negatives: 1. old rooms 2. old facilities 3. staff are unfriendly 4. staff will be after your money & does not give change 5. bell boys/help lure & force you to use unmetered taxis 6. Gym has fees Spend the extra money for a room in the Marriott, Hyatt or Peninsula.

An old hotel with character. The staff were friendly & rooms very good. Would stay again.

housekeeping wasn't very good 9bathroom not cleaned properly), and we didn't find loal restaurants exept the ones from the nearby hotels.

I am american and my fiance is egyptian and they would not allow him to escort me to my room with the luggage. They said it was against their egyptian law. If you are married or single then you are safe but they would not let him enter my room unless I had a marriage certificate. Remember you are in muslim land. Grand Hyatt cost more but did not care if we were together or not. This hotel was one star lower and in my opinion was even more lower in class also.

The hotel advertises that it has a business center, an exercise room, etc. etc. but everything has an extra cost. The rooms are incredibly noisy!

It's a fine old hotel -- normally pretty expensive but thanks to Orbitz I got a great price. The breakfast buffet that came with the room included piles of just about every different kind of food. Oh, and there's free wi-fi in the lobby/breakfast area. This a great hotel to use in Cairo; if you're fit and a little adventurous you can walk to Islamic Cairo no problem. The metro and buses and YELLOW taxis are close by in Sadat Square.

I was at an international conference for one week in June 2009. This hotel was much less expensive than the one across the street, where most of the meetings were held. It was fine for me because the service was good and the rooms were spacious, if not spotlessly clean. Beware of the taxi manager in the lobby -- his arrangements doubled our fare.

The hotel is a historical Egyptian hotel. The service was excellent (everyone helps you, and in turn expects gratuities). Rooms were large with dated appointments (like I said, a historical hotel last renovated in 1957), however it was quite comfortable and clean. Street noise in Cairo is loud. I had a Nile River room on the 6th floor. Sitting on the balcony was noisy, but fine indoors. The problem was with my reservation. Although my Orbitz receipt clearly indicated a 'Nile Room', the reservation agency transmitted to the Shepheard 'standard room (no Nile view)'. The hotel insisted that I needed to correct this through Orbitz. I tried using the Chat on-line service, but after about 45 minutes I was told I must call their customer service line. This required an international phone call that cost me >$100 and two and half hours of hassle before it was corrected. I was not pleased with Orbitz.