7th November Nile Dinner Cruise

 

To celebrate Geoff’s Birthday we booked a dinner cruise on the Nile on a boat called the Nile Maxim (Alison went on it when she stayed). Knowing Cairo traffic we left at 6pm to make sure we were there for 7:30pm. Walking to the Mall we found a taxi driver who knew where we going (the Marriot hotel on Zamaleck) and got us there by 6:40pm so we wandered across the road to the boat, which is run by the Marriot Hotel.

 

We were served straight away and advised to have a selection from the salad bar for our starter (included in the price) Maddy chose soup and Ivy had what was described as shrimp on the menu but looked like prawns to the rest of us. The set meal Alison had wasn’t available so we had to choose from the Al a carte menu instead.

As we waited to leave people drifted on board and started their dinner, there were some young children wandering around but they behaved (mostly). We had a mixed grill for our main course and a mixture of chocolate cake and cheese cake for desert. There seemed to be a fixed time to start serving desert so while we waited we wandered up and down the outside of the boat watching the lights of Cairo go past and the other smaller open boats with other parties on them enjoying the evening. Sitting inside their were 2 singers to listen to, who had a repertoire ranging from Abba to Arabic songs all supported by the now traditional karaoke backing track. They were followed by a whirling dervish whoes costume lit up in the dark   and a belly dancer who didn’t. She came on and danced 3 selections with costume changes in-between. While we waited for her there was Arabic drumming which was very good. 

When the bill arrived it was a scary amount! there was an entrance fee, an entertainment tax and a service charge all adding up to nearly £200! As a one off I suppose it was ok, I doubt we shall do it again.