If you look around here with Egypt selected you will find dozens, nay tons, of recommendations on tons of ops.

STI Travel in Hackensack, New Jersey can arrange your trip
either on an individual basis or on a small groups basis.
There is an extra advantage-you can pay by credit card.

The agency arranged a private trip for my husband and me in
February 2010 and we were very pleased with the arrangements.

Pat

STI has a good web site, also-just type the name of the
company into Google.

Pat

I don't mind who you use, but I urge you to consider using an Egyptian company so the money you spend gets to Egypt and in the hands of the people you are coming to see.

Many allow you to use a credit card, if that is important. Others don't collect until you are here or until after your tour is complete.

You have lots of options.

www.ladyegypt.com

gets good reviews here for locals

affordabletours.com others Globus excellent

persoanl experience for me.

many local touts scammers on the boards

some with for profit bias.

I always pay reputable folks with credit card

Never wire money and insuremytrip.com

Monitor travel.state.gov Egypt lots of unrest

currently I always have a backup plan.

Happy Planning!

Lady Egypt by far!!! I had planned to go with Scenic Tours in a group tour... I went with Lady Egypt and got a week longer tour, a personal guide and driver instead of a big group, fabulous hotels and first class assistance for HALF the price of what I would of paid with Scenic Tours. I would vouch for them every time and would never ever dream of going with anyone else if I went back to Egypt and I would so love to go back to Egypt!

I just read this question out to hubbie and he said.."Lady Egypt of course"! After we were met at the airport, assisted with luggage etc and put up in our first hotel hubbie looked at me and said "you did good"! He loved it too.

We used STI and do not recommend them.
Our Guide in Cairo was young and inexperienced. He seemed most interested in taking us to various shops and earning commissions. Also, they had us leaving Luxor the morning after the Nile River Cruise depriving us of a visit to various museums in Luxor.
One other small problem, upon arriving back in Cairo from Luxor, the STI driver was not at the airport. Not too reliable.
Overall, needless to say, we were extremely disappointed with STI and sorry that we did not use Lady Egypt.
Nevertheless, we had a wonderful experience and are glad we went.
We tied in the visit to Egypt with a month long visit to israel and Jordan.

It's a sad fact that a lot of these companies pay their guides as little as $20 a day for the work they do. I know that isn't the customers fault, but the upshot of it is that the guide will be VERY interested to take you shopping where he can make more money on commissions. Some of the compaies even push the guide to sell sell sell as it puts more profit back to the company too. When you do find a really economical tour, you can be pretty sure something is going to work out to get the company the profits they need in another way.... often it is multiple shopping stops at junky stores that pay very high commissions. Egypt is NOT the only country in the world with this system. I've certainly visited my share of Wooden Shoe/Cheese factories, Wineries, and even the Masai villages in Kenya with a store somewhere included, no doubt use this same system.

As for finding experienced guides when you travel to Egypt - it is a bit of a crap shoot when you sign up for a standard tour. There are zillions of guides, all with the proper credentials, but only a minor percentage that are exceptional. If you care who your guide will be, and how good s/he will be, best to find a company that can be up front with you about the qualifications they have for their guides and perhaps explain to you how they test their guides before allowing them out with groups. This might help assure you that you will get a guide that is good, and perhaps even compliment your touring style and group.

I had a great experience with Lady Egypt. They customized a tour for me at a very affordable price and my tour included a wonderful river cruise.

There's also a great tour guide named Casual Cairo. She is highly recommended by members of this board as well as Frommers.

http://casualcairodetours.com/

We went with Lady Egypt. They customized our tour and we found our guides to be quite knowledgeable, kind and professional. We had to change or re-arrange a couple of parts of our tour and LE was quite flexible and accommodating.

We booked through Ahmed Mohamed Yousif -got him through Fodors. I was very pleased with him-he arranged the Nile Cruise-all the hotels,the flights and a trip to Jordan. I have not been on this site for awhile & just popped in. Just putting my 2cents in. I am so glad you are going to Egypt-we had a wonderful trip a year or so ago-Chris

We have regularly used Egypt Quality Tours for the last number of years, after having originally gone to Egypt with a big British tour operator as a package tour and didn't enjoy their group tours, or their cruise boat, too much.

As Casual Cairo says above, there are many many guides and tour operators around, you just have to try to get in touch with a few, compare their prices, see what their service is like, and check that their Egyptologists / guides are licensed and qualified etc. Also make sure that the agency is licensed by the ministry of tourism.

You will have a fantastic time in Egypt and will want to keep going back year after year

Scotsgirl

Lady.Egypt is wonderful. We even mad a change mid trip. Having been to Egypt twice, one e standard nie cruise and once using hired cars /private guides/ taxis. I much preferred the latter so I am not tied to ship schedule for lunch etc. there is a day tour north from Luxor and you might be the only tour boat as opposed to many. Also overnight at Abu simbel if you can -- it is magical. Finally, Cairo has some interesting art deco architecture in addition to the Islamic architecture.

Need travel advice to Egypt in view of recent violence ......
http://www.fodors.com/community/africa-the-middle-east/need-travel-advice-to-egypt-in-view-of-fresh-violence-post-elections.cfm

Some say go, while others say no. Refer you to this other thread, as suggestion to be fully informed (whatever your choice may be).

We used Egypt Quality Tours during the fall of 2010. They were fantastic and reasonably priced. Their guides were excellent and every detail was done to our satisfaction.

We also had some friends who used EQT during April 2011 and they too were very pleased.

I am sorry that STI did not provide the same quality of service to JerryS as it did for us. I will add that travellers should check the proposed itineraries very carefully so as not to be stuck with horrible schedules. I
was warned about this problems by a neighbor before I started looking for a tour group.

By the way, STI is a subsidiary of an Egyptian company. I think we were taken to 2 shops by our guides the whole time.
Both were in Luxor. We did not go to the major market in Cairo
but did go to the small Tentmakers street at our own request-
I bought a beautiful table runner there after quite a search.
I treasure it.

Oh, by the way the New Jersey office of STI was great when we
were in doubt about even making the Air Egypt flight over twice-major, major snow for trip to JFK and a lost passport.
The company also offered to deal with Delta about any cancellation of our trip to and from Washington. Delta was
infuriating to me personally.

Pat

<<Try to find the cheapest>>

Maybe it's me, but I don't go with the cheapest. I don't want to pay a premium, but I am happy paying a fair price for good service. The few times I have gone with the cheapest - I have ended up regretting it.

My grandmother used to say - buy cheap - buy twice.

Scotsgirl

Scotsgirl, I love that aphorism - hope you don't mind if I borrow it!

Do not try to go with the cheapest tour operator - quality of guides/hotels, etc can vary greatly. I found out about Lady Egypt on this forum and used them, they were not the cheapest quote I got nor the most expensive. The company provides top notch service and you can customize your itinerary, I do recommend Lady Egypt, they were great.

I would also recommend Lady Egypt, highly.

I had a terrifc time with Casual Cairo.

Debbie lives in Cairo and will custome your tour anyway you want.

e-mail her at Dds71@aol.com

I read many good reports here and another sites about Lady Egypt, Le Caire Travel and Travco.

another vote for Lady Egypt. They are very informative, care about your safety (I had my guide actually be mad at me because I wasn't paying attention crossing the road!) They care about animal rights (won't use some of the companies that use horse drawn carriages that don't take care of the horses), and are priced well for the long great days. Very worth the money!

We just returned (on Saturday) from a 19night/18day trip to Egypt and Jordan. We were treated like royalty.....5 star all the way with many upgrades and perks. Our group used Elite Tours (based out of Cairo) - ask for Raouf. And yes, Egypt is perfectly safe. An unbelievable adventure!! This is the time to go.

We just returned 2 weeks ago (April-May 2012) from a 17-day trip. We used the services of Mr. Ahmed Hamed Yousif (ahmedhayo@yahoo.com). See our posting about this.

This is a personalized service. He made the arrangements through local companies, arranges for our guides outside Cairo (was the guide himself in Cairo) took care of arranging van transport each day, airport transfers, took care of booking all travel inside Egypt (and to Jordan). Ahmed knows a few tricks about the way things work -for example, when we went to the Cairo Museum we went straight to the Tut room and worked backward, while everyone else worked their way forward. So we had the whole room to ourselves for about 5 minutes, once the half dozen others already in the room moved on... Just me, my wife, and Tut's solid gold mask and his sarcophagus...

All in all, an amazing and stress-free vacation.

The Cruise ships in the Aswan-Luxor area (the usual run) all seemed to be large-ish 3 deckers; but I am no expert, not sure what the other options are, we skipped the cruise in favour of being driven Aswan to Luxor - so when we got to the temples at Edfu and Kom Ombo, for example, we missed the crowds from the boats.

Off-season in Egypt usually means summer, as in hot weather for May to September. However, the hotels and vehicles have air conditioning, although the pharoahs neglected to build this into the pyramids.