Egypt - Currency recomendation?

Threepints

Off to the Red Sea on sunday and wondering whether it is best to take Egyptian pounds, sterling travellers cheques or dollar travellers cheques?

Many thanks

Paul.

skr80

I am out there (so to speak) next Thurs, have ordered some egyptian pounds - will take along a little sterling, and will use cashpoint if more local currency needed.

mr_fishbulb

Was in Cairo a month ago. Everybody wants paying in Egyptian Pounds apart from big hotels where you can pay in mostly any currency but at a bad rate.

Take some egyptian £s with you, plus you should be able to get money out the cashpoints there (do you have a nationwide account? no foreign fees).

mystic_trev

Egyptian pounds pegged to the USD like a lot of other currencies, so some USD notes are always a good idea.

EDIT - AND YOU GET A VERY GOOD ROE USING YOUR NATIONWIDE DEBIT CARD!!!

Threepints

Egyptian pounds it is then. I'm stopping at Taba Heights so no cashpoints there unfortunately.

trigger_mike

Threepints wrote:

Egyptian pounds it is then. I'm stopping at Taba Heights so no cashpoints there unfortunately.

Im staying at Hyatt Regency Taba Heights in june for my honymoon as i got a good deal, so you'll have to let us know what it's like

Threepints

I'm staying at The Marriot, I'll certainly try to remember to let you know when I get back

GRIGGSY

When i was in Egypt we were asked if we would be paying by Euro, in most shops and in the hotel. Dont know if this was due to where we were - lots of Germans - or if it was due to the fact that it was about a year ago!!!

pin

Egypt Pound is the way to go in the country, however most major tourist places will accept Euro, Dollar and probably Sterling.

Girl_least_likely_to

trigger_mike wrote:

Im staying at Hyatt Regency Taba Heights in june for my honymoon as i got a good deal, so you'll have to let us know what it's like

We stayed at the Hyatt in July 04. It was FAB . We had the cheapest rooms but they were massive, lots of pools to choose from, staff very friendly. The snorkelling is amazing just off the hotels beach. Everything was great.

The only slight downside was at the weekends the Isreali's come over the border and stay at the hotel, it's mad busy but come Sunday evening it's back to normal. We went to the lagoon at the weekends to avoid the madness. Also the food was buffet style, and whilst we enjoyed it, we didn't think it was up to the standard of the rest of the hotel. But I've said the hotel is fab so don't be too down about the food . Also, when we went there were only 3 hotels at Taba (I think another one has opened since) and everything is very hotel based. There isn't a town or village that you can walk to. This was fine for us as we only went for a week but it might have been a bit restricting if we'd gone for 2 weeks. There are plently of tours available if you want to get out.

Hope you have a great time, we did and we'd be going back there if we hadn't got a young baby (too hot for bubs!)

Girl_least_likely_to

Forgot to say that moneywise, because the Hyatt is half board we ate our breakfast late (they served upto 11am) and our dinner early (6.30 - 7pm) so we didn't really need lunch. The alcohol is expensive, we paid around £12 for a bog standard bottle of french white wine. We're not massive drinkers so for the whole week we only spent £100, that included a couple of lunches but mainly wine . I'd recommend buying some duty free spirits, if that's your thing, and drinking that before you go out or when you return back to your room. We did this and it saved us quite a bit.