Stay Safe in Cairo Egypt

So some of you might ask what SPG is?

Well firstly let me tell you it is FREE, and as a single Mum traveling long term, anything that is a bonus to us is a winner.

SPG is a programme and there are so many benefits.  One benefit is the use of the magnificent 5th floor SPG Club – where every morning they serve a separate breakfast from the Buffet downstairs in EVOO. Then there is morning tea, and next is a light lunch.  We popped into the SPG Cub two of the days for a superb afternoon tea.

And then each evening from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. is Happy Hour where we enjoyed a variety of selected complimentary alcoholic beverages as we watched the sunset. With a growing boy, we found this to be a useful place to sit and use our computer and other devices, whilst my son snacked.

There is also the option to go downstairs and enjoy some Fizz at the Sparking Cocktail Bar at Latitudes. (Part of the Branded Programme from 5:00 – 8:00 p.m). There are alcoholic and non-alcoholic sparkling cocktails and a cheese corner at the side.

But not to be confused, there is also Latitude Coffee Bar where signature Eclairs and Illy Aromatic Coffee are served.  So many choices of places to relax – its just wonderful !

Here we enjoy ‘Sakhr Cake‘ – (Sacher Torte) a lush Chocolate Torte that is served to my son, that he washes down with one glass of full cream milk.  And for me, I select ‘Raspberry Macaroon with Strawberry’, and a Cappuccino that is flavored with a hint of melted white chocolate.  YUM!

One of the other fun places to visit is the Live Sports Bar on the Basement level that leads out to the rear garden and pool area.

Family time is an important part of travel, and here we had a fun time together, as Explorason set the camera up on auto-timer (his new passion is photography). There is a Football/Soccer table and Snooker/pool table, and it is filled with sports memorabilia.

I really enjoyed finally not having to wake at a set time for a tour (even though we really had an amazing time on our Nile Explorer Tour with Egypt Uncovered), so it was nice to sleep in, and to then meander down to the breakfast area at EVOO Restaurant where we could sit out on the patio area by the pool, or inside by the buffet.

I was trying (rather unsuccessfully) to go on a health kick, but I was able to have some lovely fresh and healthy juices here including Hibiscus Juice ‘Karkade‘, which is packed full of vitamins and is Egypt’s own ‘power’ drink.  It isn’t sweet, and a little similar I thought to a light Cranberry Juice. You don’t need to drink much either – just a shot glass size is enough for per day.

I think we ate our way around Le Meridien Cairo Airport Hotel during the course of our stay!

For lunch one day we enjoyed MEZZEH Restaurant which has a Middle Eastern and Lebanese flair – we enjoyed not only fabulous service, but also incredible food, and the starter platters were beyond awesome.  These included ‘Tamiya’ – a chickpea patty, ‘Hummus’, Oriental Pickles, ‘Sambossek Cheese’ – Deep fried halloumi cheese and mint pastry (my all-time favorite).

For Main Course there was ‘Fillet Aroos’ – Char-Grilled Marinated Sea Bass fillet with a fine tomato salsa served with jasmine infused rice for me. And Explorason chose ‘Djaj Masahato’ – Char-Grilled boneless 1/2 chicken marinated with garlic and lemon served with a parsley salad and rice.

There was so much food at this lunch I thought I would burst, but it was hard to stop eating, as it was so delicious.

In the end, my son content from a healthy filling meal nearly fell asleep at the table, so I had to pop him to bed back up in our room for a rest.

Never in my life have I eaten so much incredibly interesting and flavorsome food as in Egypt.

Another night we ventured to Indochine which is their Singapore themed Restaurant. It is a groovy restaurant that adults and kids alike enjoy, as it has a runway of lights that color change and infuses the whole room with a vibrant reflection of its lights. Great for kids!  Not only was the decor just amazing, yet again the service was really great.  I so loved the angle bowls they served their food in and would love to have purchased one as a memory of a great evening there.

Here we chose ‘Nasi Ayam‘ for my son – which is a Chicken dish, and I had ‘Vegetarian Tofu Goreng Wok’ which was sensational.

It is a real mix of Chinese, Indonesian, Malaysian and other Oriental dishes.

I highly recommend Indochine Restaurant, and if I had to pick out of all the restaurants, for some reason this would be my favorite. I think it is because it has been so long since we ate Asian food, that it was a real treat for us.

We came back to our room to be surprised with a dish of their signature Eclairs. We really were getting thoroughly spoilt here!

Explorason was just so excited, as he is such a sweet tooth. They have two Eclairs that are unique to Egypt and if I remember rightly one is Date, and the other is Hibiscus.

“Mum, do you want to Make a Green Choice?” (MAGC) my son asked me from the bedroom (I’m in the bathroom).  Seeing we only ever write about what we actually do, we thought we would give it a try.

We decided on our first night we would start using the Make a Green Choice option, and we did this for two nights of our stay.

So thus ends our nearly one month stay in Egypt.  It has flown by, and I wish we could have spent longer.  We have been told by quite a few people here they think we will return, and I hope they are right.  We have so much more to see here, and we did feel safe throughout our stay.

Never once were we threatened, heckled or harassed. Faith seemed not to be an issue as we found out at Easter, and Christians can still safely go to church here even though it is predominantly a Muslim country.

Egypt is an incredible place to visit.  Egyptians have warm hearts, friendly smiles, and welcome visitors to their country.

I hope that if any of you have thought about coming to Egypt that we can encourage you.

For us, Egypt felt really safe.

A little information about where we stayed