14-Day Itinerary to Israel with Unfrequented Destinations

Through Zicasso’s travel company and its agent, my husband and I had a wonderful experience in Egypt and Jordan. 

While we loved all the sites, the most unexpected visit was to the gorgeous Wadi Rum in Jordan. We were glad we missed the flash flood at Petra by a few hours, so we were still able to enjoy the ancient city and lovely natural canyon. And we were only minimally touched in Luxor by the sandstorm in Cairo! 

The whole experience was five-star, especially in terms of the sites visited, guides provided, hotels, and kindness of the people.

Thank you for arranging such a memorable and enlightening trip! We strongly recommend traveling to Egypt and Jordan through our travel agent and his team "on the ground”.

Largely, we had an amazing time and really appreciated many people going out of their way to make it amazing for us. Here is everything we have to share:

Positives:

Guides: Our guides were largely a bright spot. One guide was excellent and having a female Egyptologist also helped us feel very comfortable. She was excellent as a photographer and had many interesting stories to share. We loved her best of everyone who worked with us. Our other guide I also thought was an excellent guide and, overall, I really enjoyed him. It was only the photos thing that I did not like. Otherwise, I thought he was very kind, flexible, and knowledgeable. I really loved that he’d give us a very thorough tour, then free time to explore and a very clear meeting point.

Special Event: As honeymooning couples, there were many spots where our guides really tried hard to make it special for us. We really appreciated this thought and care, and we came away very happy with our experience.

Hotels: The hotels were mostly all lovely and great choices (with one exception, as below).

Nile Cruise: We felt the river boat was extremely pleasant and the staff were very kind and thoughtful from the first minute we boarded. They took extremely good care of us and were very sweet.

Support Team: A member of the support team, as well as everyone we communicated with online via a messaging app and the Zicasso portal, was truly excellent and very accommodating with almost every single request. Even my minor negatives below, if ever brought up, the team was very receptive to listening to the feedback to fix it mid-trip or for future guests!

Negatives: Overall, very minor! But, these few things could make a big difference in the future!

Promotional Images: One of our guides initially asked us if he could take a photo of our group with the company sign for promotional purposes. Although we’re a bit shy, we agreed to avoid confrontation and wanted to help the team. However, this turned into him asking to take upwards of five to 10 photos and, sometimes, videos of us daily. Then, after the trip, he messaged multiple times asking for these photos and videos. While we sent some, we’re not comfortable with being an advertisement and wish he had been a little more understanding. The more he asked, the more uncomfortable we became, and we still feel a bit uncomfortable now.

Early Flights/Days: Before the trip, I mentioned that it was a priority for us to be able to eat a relaxing breakfast in our hotels prior to early flights. I was assured they were able to move flights to later so we could eat at our hotels, but every single day we were brought to the airports quite early and given "breakfast boxes." This is fine for some, but for us, it wasn’t what we expected/hoped for based on conversations with the team.

Tourist Traps: Although we learned partway through the trip, there were many requests by the guides to take us to "tourist-trap-type" stores and restaurants. This was worst in Jordan, but happened a couple of times in Egypt as well ("papyrus workshop," "stone workshop," etc.), where goods are sold at high premiums, with likely guide commissions. In general, I would have had a much better time if guides were able to point us to more inexpensive souvenir options. One that was recommended to us later in the trip by our guide was the shop inside the Egyptian Museum, which we found very reasonable and nice. Other options like this would have been great!

Jordan Guiding: Our experience in Jordan was very different from Egypt. In particular, our guide was not ideal. He did a few things that bothered us. He was a chain smoker and every single opportunity to stop, even if we didn’t want to stop, he stopped to smoke. He would often smoke with one foot still in the car, but technically mostly "out of the car." The car was fully black above the driver's seat so it was obvious this was common. He would talk to us even outside of the car and be constantly smoking and blowing smoke in our faces, which was extremely inappropriate. His English wasn’t very strong, so he wasn’t able to tell us too much about the area. On the day of us going to Petra, he didn’t even come to the hotel to help us get settled or take us to the ticket office. We could easily handle it, but I wonder if the company even knows we didn’t see him that whole day. He took us to a lunch restaurant on our arrival day that felt like a tourist trap, was expensive, a buffet, and didn’t cater to our dietary restrictions, despite us asking ahead of time.

Our hotel at the Dead Sea did not have the best customer service. They were rude checking us in, provided inaccurate time assessments, delayed in providing us our breakfast boxes in the morning, delaying our trip to the airport, and there were similar delays when ordering food within the hotel (besides their dinner buffet, which came with good food and good service). If you have other hotels you partner with along the Dead Sea at this price point, I would consider sending more customers to your other partners.

Overall, our experience was excellent and five stars, without a doubt! These minor things are just to help guide improvement and we really can’t thank the team enough. The trip was truly magical. We've had many friends from home ask for the trip details and I've shared your information!

Through no fault of Zicasso's tour company, we were not able to do the Jordan portion of our trip due to the outbreak of hostilities between Israel, Iran, and then the US. When learning Jordanian airspace was closed, the company jumped into action to provide us with immediate alternatives to the Jordan portion of the trip, including a full refund for that portion if so desired. But because they had done such a fabulous job on the Egypt portion of the trip, we decided to extend our Egypt trip and spend several days in Alexandria and out in the desert at an oasis.

My wife and I cannot say enough good things about the job Zicasso's travel company did for us. We received first-class service, travel, and accommodations, with help, from the moment we deplaned in Cairo until we went back to the airport to leave Egypt 15 days later.

My wife and I travel each summer to Europe and beyond, and most often do our trips entirely on our own. However, Egypt and Jordan are places I believe American tourists need help with at most stages of the journey ,and our travel company provided that help in an extraordinary way. I would personally recommend this company to all of my traveling friends, as well as anyone else interested in my opinion.

The staff at Zicasso's tour agency were easy to work with. They really listened to what I wanted to achieve on my trip, were flexible, allowed me to voice my opinion, and were very respectful of my budget. The guides were very knowledgeable, friendly, and concerned. I would recommend them to anyone wanting to visit Israel and neighboring countries. They were very professional and personable.

Our experience with Zicasso’s travel company was fantastic. When I started planning our trip, Zicasso’s travel specialist was very helpful in giving me ideas on putting together an itinerary to cover the historic sites of Egypt, as well as Petra in Jordan. He sent a detailed proposal with hotels, inter-country flights, tours, and optional activities. He made himself available to answer any questions via WhatsApp during the planning process.

When we arrived at and departed from various airports (Amman, Cairo, Aswan, Abu Simbel, and Hurghada), we were met by company representatives to ensure everything went smoothly. We were also given WhatsApp contacts for the operations team while in-country in case we had any questions.

Our three guides in Jordan, on our Nile River cruise from Aswan to Luxor, and in Cairo were all excellent. They were very knowledgeable and made our trip logistically stress free. All of our drivers got us where we needed to be on time. All of the hotels, as well as our Nile River cruise, were excellent.

Everyone at the travel company really wanted to ensure we enjoyed ourselves and all our needs were taken care of. We decided to do a hot-air balloon ride in Luxor last minute and switch from a horse-drawn carriage to a boat ride, and they made it happen. Our two-week trip was relaxing, enjoyable, and stress free.