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Hotel pickup: why the time is always approximate

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AV
Anorya Team · 23 juil. 2025 · 1 min read

One minibus, fourteen hotels, one convoy departure. Here is what determines your slot.

Every excursion booking in Hurghada ends with "we will confirm the exact pickup time the evening before", and visitors reasonably wonder why nobody can simply say.

Hotel pickup: why the time is always approximate

The answer is routing. One minibus collects from ten to fifteen hotels spread across twenty kilometres of coast, and the order is set only once the final passenger list closes — which is the previous evening. Whether you are first or last on that route changes your time by up to an hour.

For the long inland trips there is a second factor: vehicles travel to Cairo and Luxor in police-escorted convoys that leave at fixed times. The whole schedule works backwards from the convoy, not from you.

Hotel pickup: why the time is always approximateHotel pickup: why the time is always approximate

One minibus collects from ten to fifteen hotels spread across twenty kilometres of coast, and the order is set only once the final passenger list closes — which is the previous evening.

Practically: be in the lobby ten minutes before the earliest time you were given, take breakfast as a packed box if you are leaving before service, and have the operator's number on your phone. If nobody has arrived twenty minutes after the window, call — occasionally a hotel is missed on a route and it is fixed in minutes.

Hotel pickup: why the time is always approximate
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Frequently asked questions

We really have some of the lowest prices that can be offered while keeping the quality of service high. We are an online booking company working directly with large organizers in Egypt, so we can offer very favorable prices thanks to the large flow of tourists. Buying from us, you get quality service and don't overpay intermediaries.
The organizers' fleet has plenty of vehicles - cars, minivans and large comfortable buses. Vehicles for short, medium and long distances are equipped with air conditioning and safety systems, and buses with toilets are provided on long routes. All vehicles are regularly serviced and sanitized, hold the necessary tourist permits, and drivers are inspected before every trip.
We work without prepayment. Group excursions are paid on the bus or during the trip. The exceptions are individual excursions where plane tickets or documents are involved. The organizer comes to you - there is no need to look for anyone to pay. You can pay in cash in dollars or euros, and an alternative payment method can be arranged.
Egypt is heavily regulated when it comes to tourism. For a car or yacht to run a tour, daily permission from the police and military is required, and organizers without a license don't get permits. That is why on some tours we may ask for voucher and passport details (this applies to marine excursions, individual tours and some group tours that leave the city). For other excursions only the number of people is needed.
Some hotel guides wrongly claim insurance does not apply to third-party excursion organizers. That is not true. Your travel insurance is valid throughout Egypt, and once you are on the organizer's ship, bus or transport they carry full insurance responsibility for passengers - otherwise they could not obtain a tour permit at all.
Please check your belongings when you leave the bus or boat at the end of the tour. If something is lost it is hard to recover, as vehicles leave immediately to be cleaned. We will always help you look, but we cannot guarantee a 100% return - so please be careful!
We have a large daily flow of bookings, so most excursions run every day (or on set weekdays per the program's schedule). After booking we send the exact hotel pickup time. Many trips are shared with small hotel groups who bought the same tour from operators - the only difference is that our price is 40–60% lower.
Tour photographers are independent and do not work for the company, so any arrangement with them is your responsibility. We do not recommend paying in advance unless you are sure the photos will be delivered. If you do not want photos, tell the photographers early to avoid any pushiness.