I stayed at the Shepheard, formerly called the Helnan Shepheard for five nights at the end of February 2007.
The location is absolutely ideal and that is the only reason I booked it.

At check-in, I asked for a quiet room away from the traffic noise. The room I had was very comfortable if a little dated. I slept well.

That I am afraid is the end of the good news. The reception desk staff were unbelievably slow. Just getting one`s room key back was a major achievement so I stopped handing it in.
I told them the day before leaving that I would be at the desk just before 5.00am to check out and to be sure to have the bill ready. It was not ready and it took two people conferring with each other 15 minutes to sort it out.

The service in the restaurant and coffee shop was equally dreadful.I would sit there calmly being resolutely ignored by the staff. Sometimes I just gave up.

The bank was staffed by a man who expressed complete indifference to serving his customers.

I was not surprised to learn that this hotel is now owned by the Egyptian Government and not by the Helnan Group.

In summary, the location of this hotel is it`s only plus. After that it is downhill all the way.

After 3 nights of misery at Maadi Hotel, we transferred over to Hotel Shepheard during our extension stay. The lobby was classy and the room was huge. We had a Nile View room and the view was spectacular. The toilet was spacious and even came with a washing bowl. There were 2 queen beds and a huge dressing corner.
Breakfast was a widespread and coffee and tea were served personally to you.
We were really happy with it and should we visit Cairo again, we would definitely return to Shepheard!

Our tour group booked into the Shepheard Hotel on May 2 and then again on May 7. Our rooms were more than adequate, actually very good. The food was excellant and the staff were very accommodating. On our May 7th stay we had a celebration dinner to wind down our trip and the kitchen prepared a wonderful layer cake for our Priest's Anniversary .
The hotel is a very nice place to stay with lots of charm.

The excitement of our first business trip to Cairo was overshadowed by the horrible experience we had at the Shepheard hotel. The view of the Nile from the hotel was incredible. Unfortunately, that was the only positive aspect of the hotel.

Housekeeping would go through the motions of making the beds and possibly replacing the towels, but that was it. Dirt - that they caused from knocking off a floor board and exposing a nail - remained on the floor for days before they vacuumed it. At the end of our stay, the housekeeping staff looked to us to tip them for doing a good job.

Though the website mentions a hair dryer in every room - this is an item that has to be requested via housekeeping. We had requested to keep the hair dryer in our room until we checked out. However, after the first day, we returned to find that they had reclaimed the item. When we inquired about it, they said they did not have enough hair dryers for all the guests in the hotel and had to take it back. They were also calling other guests to return the appliances (hair dryers and irons) as they were still using them. The shortage of hair dryers and irons in the hotel was annoying. Logic would dictate they needed more, but that wasn't the case.

Like all the hotels in Egypt, the Shepheard had the metal detector for guests to pass through. This was used as decoration only. Visitors and guests were not searched while the detector would beep uncontrollably. More often, security would let the visitors bypass the machine all together. We were able to rest easy knowing this.

Eating at any of the restaurants was an experience. For breakfast, the staff was never around to serve coffee or tea to the guests. If they had left the pots at the buffet, it would’ve been easier and more practical. One would wait a considerable amount of time, even after flagging them down repeatedly. Our second night at the hotel, we went to the restaurant for drinks. We sat at the table for ½ hour before we could get anyone’s attention. The restaurant was EMPTY. The 2 juices and 1 tea took over an hour to be delivered to the table. The other guests at the table left without ordering anything due to the miserable service.

On another occasions, we returned to the hotel after a long day at work, only to find that they had misplaced my room key. They accused me of keeping the key with me and losing it. They let me into my room with a master key and asked me to search to see if I had accidentally left it in the room. I showed the concierge that my room was void of the misplaced key. He said he would verify with the front desk. After 30 minutes, I called the reception to see if they located the key and they said, Oh yeah, we have it. When I asked if they were planning on calling me to notify me, they kept quiet.

When we checked out of the hotel, they only had 1 cashier who was able to complete the transaction. I was notified that another guest had transferred 3 meals from their room to mine without my approval or consent. The hotel wanted me to pay for those charges which I adamantly refused. He accused me of having breakfast in the morning. I told him that breakfast was included in my room rate and if he checked his records, he would find that I only dined there once. After a while, he finally consulted a manager to remove the charges.

Despite the beautiful view of the Nile, we will never stay at this hotel again and we strongly suggest nobody does either. This was not a 4 star hotel by any standard. Camping in a tent in the desert is more luxurious than staying at the Shepheard.