ANEX Tour
reviews and complaints

This travel experience with ANEX Tour was absolutely terrible. It was the absolute worst trip we have ever had. If you're looking to be deceived and have your flight ruined because of them, and then be abandoned at the airport without any assistance or an agent to guide you through the process, then this is the company for you.

During the whole coronavirus situation, it seems like everyone has been struggling to get their money back for bookings they made. Unfortunately, we were not an exception to this frustrating trend. We had actually canceled our booking with ANEX Tour before the lockdown was even imposed, and they had promised us a full refund. However, that promise turned out to be empty, as we never received our money back.

But let me tell you, the issues with ANEX Tour go way beyond just the current situation. Personally, when I go on vacation, I like to indulge in good food and I am willing to pay a bit more for that privilege. So, in a previous booking, I specifically asked my agent at ANEX Tour to provide us with information about premium restaurants and the dining options available. To my disappointment, they completely lied to us about the choices we had. It was a major letdown.

Furthermore, ANEX Tour has this orientation session scheduled for the day after you arrive at your destination. During this session, they try to push all sorts of expensive excursions on you, which are actually overpriced compared to the local prices. It's like they are trying to squeeze every last penny out of you without considering your budget or preferences. It's quite frustrating, to say the least.

Honestly, there are numerous other examples of their incompetence that I could mention, but I think you get the idea. My advice to you would be to steer clear of ANEX Tour and find another travel agent that can provide you with a smoother and more reliable experience. Trust me, it's better to avoid these unnecessary issues altogether.

I'm writing this review from Sharm el Sheikh to warn other tourists about buying excursions from ANEX Tour. We purchased a tour for $340 per person, which included a flight to Luxor and visits to various historical sites. We were promised a Russian-speaking Egyptologist guide and expected a high-quality experience.

Upon arrival in Luxor, we were greeted by our guide, Dua. Unfortunately, her language skills were lacking, but that wasn't the main issue. The problem was that she rarely provided any informative information about the history of Ancient Egypt. Instead, she would often talk about unrelated topics like the cost of education or the harvest of various crops.

At each stop of the tour, Dua would recite a memorized script for about 15 minutes and then send us off to take pictures while she sat in the shade. This resulted in us spending only 30 minutes at each location, instead of the promised 1.5 to 2 hours. We even had to rush through important sites like the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens.

Lunch was served at 11 am, and after that, Dua tried to persuade us to deviate from the planned itinerary and purchase additional trips from her. She claimed it was too hot for her to continue the tour as planned. We declined her offers and eventually made it to Karnak and Luxor temples, where she once again provided a quick, memorized explanation before sending us off to take photos on our own.

By the time we arrived at Luxor airport at 4:30 pm, other tourists who had taken similar excursions were just arriving at 7 pm. Our guide, Dua, proved to be unprofessional, lazy, and greedy, leaving us with an extremely negative impression of the country.

In addition, witnessing the professionalism of other guides at Karnak and Luxor museums only further confirmed our belief that we were deceived by Dua.

In conclusion:
1. Avoid booking excursions with ANEX Tour as they overcharge by at least 40%.
2. The quality of the tour does not match the price, as the guides lack knowledge and professionalism.
3. Consider not visiting Egypt anymore, as the overall service is deteriorating, and dishonest guides leave a negative impression.

If Egyptian tourism representatives read this review, we urge you to license the activities of guides. These unprofessional individuals tarnish the reputation of your country and heritage, leading to disappointment and frustration among tourists. We share our negative experiences with others when we return home.

Vacation in Sharm El Sheihk. 2 adults and 2 children. We flew with another tourism agency and AnexTour agent met us there.

Next day, in the morning the AnexTour agent Karim (Egyptian probably) came to tell us the most important that we need to know about our stay and give a voucher number without which we could not safely go outside the hotel.

In reality, nobody asked about this voucher number at all.

All that AnexTour agent did was to frighten us that Sharm El Sheihk is not a safe place to be, everyone tries to trick you, and that the only person whom we can trust is him. He started his speech with "I'm your brother", etc.

He told us about our health insurance. He said that in case of an emergency we should not call the doctor in the hotel as he will change us 85$ for only speaking to us, so we'd better not even say 'Hi' to him if we see him in the hotel (weird joke). Instead, we should call the number of the insurance and they'll come in 30 minutes and we'll not pay anything except 30$ that is the franchise cost.

This was not true, we had an emergency at the hotel with our son and went to the hotel doctor, we found him in 5 minutes, he helped us and we paid him the same 30$ (he asked if we have insurance, but did not look at the papers at all).

In the same meeting, AnexTour agent started talking about different excursions we can buy from him, threatening us that we should not buy these excursions from local agencies as everyone will trick us.

First he convinced us to go on a 'free' city tour next day with a Belorussian woman guide. The agent said we go to a state pharmacy with fixed prices and they give certificates for the products without which you cannot take anything from Egypt in your luggage. (This is a lie again, no one at the airport checks these fake certificates).

We visited some monuments and an orthodox church and after that most of the time we spent in a mall (not a pharmacy), right near AnexTour office. The name of the markets are Oriental Treasures and Le Delice. There work Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussian and other Russian-speaking women and locals.

There the guide told us that we can buy the best Egyptian oils that are very efficient for health and beauty and perfume which lasts 48 hours.

She started to tell us how her father's health got better after using the oils. Also, said that without Black Seed oils and Lady Diana perfume, she will not let us back into the bus, we need to buy them.

At the mall, they had us try some back seed oil and described some other oils that treat all kind of diseases (which is not true again). They said the oils.

As my parents are ill, I bought many oils (380$) and a perfume (65$ for 30ml). The prices were 20% discounted but are 4 to 8 times higher than those near the hotel.

I also bought 1kg of baklava with 40$ (we can find it cheaper in our country).

We also went to another 'state' market where I wanted to buy some lokum in transparent package where you can see how much it is, and the guide said 'no, this is $#*!', and gave me another heavy box where she said there is 1kg of dates in chocolate for which I paid 12$, but when I came home and opened it there were less than 500g. You can find the same dates in chocolate near the hotel for 15$/kg.

Next day after buying all this, I searched on the internet and saw some bad posts about Oriental Treasures, then inspected the oil bottles and understood that they are not even closed. I opened one of them (1 out of 9) which should have been 'Rucola oil' and saw that there is sunflower oil, very little aromatized, also the sandal oil was white while it should be pale yellow or yellow. We also bought some packages with karkade and lemongrass, they were also not factory-closed and 100g was 7$ while I got 130g near the hotel with 3$.

As I understood that I was tricked, I called the AnexTour agent, and told him my problem. I said that I did not open anything and I want to return back the perfume and the oils and get my money back. Hearing that, the agent started to say that I do not respect him, that he did not take my money from my pocket, I decided to buy by myself, he has nothing to do with that. After I insisted, the next day, he said he talked to the company and the market said it can give me back only 40%. Hearing that, I told him I do to the tourist police and went to talk first to the police and security staying at the entrance of our hotel.

So, I found out that Sharm El Sheihk is a secure tourist city and police is taking care of visitors. They called Karim, the AnexTour agent, and he said that next day he will send a car for me, we'll go to the Oriental Treasures market and we'll solve the problem.

So, we went and out of 445$ they gave me back 90% which is 400$, saying that 10% is the banking fee as we paid with credit card.

We also bought a dolphin show from AnexTour for 90$ (30$/adult, 15$/child), while on the dolphinarium's website: http://dolphina.net/ the tickets for adults are 20$, the kids younger than 7 years do not pay (the case of our children), there were 2 adults with 2 kids in our bus who paid the driver 50$ and attended the show.

We bought a boat trip from AnexTour for 160$ (80$/adult) + diving for 30$ (15$ each). The boat was an old 'katamaran'. He said there will be a seafood lunch, and we got 2 shrimps taken from soup (not tasty at all) with some rice and pasta. Instead of showing us a lot of corals while diving, they made me stay in different positions for photos and video, then asked 35$ for photos, and 35$ for video. This trip was not worth 190$ at all!

So do not trust AnexTour, they are always lying to you in order to take as much money as they can get from you. Also do not be afraid to tell your problems to the police and the security who understand English and can help you anytime.

I'm sorry I did not take photos of the fake products, but I was so upset, I did not even want to look at them. I just made a phone of the certificate which had lots of stamps with 'We do not take back or exchange the bought products'. The certificate also contains some number which I think is fake, the labels on the bottles are just printed with some names of certification like 'SwissCert', their website is not functional: https://www.oriental-treasures.net/, and there is no Oriental oil factory in Egypt.

Instead of going to the seaside, I lost half of the day and money and had my vacation ruined because of Anex Tour.