Can anyone tell me the opening hours of the currency exchange and visa services at Luxor airport?
I'll be arriving after 6pm and am wondering if I will be able to get a visa and cash on arrival, rather than getting them before leaving England. It'll be on Wednesday 11th July, if that makes any difference.
dear hedgewood, I just returned from Luxor on 1 July and everything is open till late at night. I always order currency delivered to my home ahead of my trip. I did not use the airport, but it should not be that different from Cairo. Don't know if you have a guide, but I can highly recommend the one we had. His name is Mostafa Hassan. He is an independent guide, and as such is available to work for other travel companies. He has been a guide for 12 years. He worked for the Egyptian government in Los Angeles, promoting tourism for 4 years. His English and understanding of both Egypt and the Americas is excellent. He has finished all his classwork for his Master's in Egyptian history. He is a teacher, and he comes from a family of teachers. His father is a retired professor from American University of Cairo and his mother is also a retired teacher. He recently completed 30 episodes for Egyptian public television. He is a frequent guest lecturer at the Amer. University of Cairo. He made our experience in Egypt quite memorable. He can be contacted at mostafami@hotmail.com I am taking students to Egypt and Jordan next April 2008, and I hope to use him again. Have a great trip!
You're absolutely sure about the currency exchange and visa services being open late at night? I can get the currency before I go, but the visa may take too long via post and London is quite a way from where I live.
Hedgewood, nobody can give you a cast-iron guarantee in a place like Egypt that currency exchanges will be open late at night. But there are several in Luxor airport and they do generally open in the evenings, so you'd have to be very unlucky for them all to be shut. In the unlikely event that they are shut, if you have US dollars in small denominations you can use them to pay for your taxi ride into the city centre. Having US dollars will tide you over until the morning when you can go to any of several exchange facilities or use an ATM.
