My wife and I were very pleased with the fantastic experience of staying at the hotel, just downtown and a block away from very interesting features of Cairo. The service was impeccable; the employees very polite et quelques uns parlaient notre langue le Francais. Also we did appreciate the personable services of Travel Tour manager Hamdi El Shora both for Cairo but mostly for assisting us in our historical trip to Louxor.

A big 5 * for the whole! MICHEL and HELENE, from Canada, presently based in Ethiopia.

We booked three nights at this hotel through Lonely Planet, which gave it a 10 out of 10 and wrote that it never gave 10/10. We were excited and decided to splurge since it's a bit expensive for Cairo standards. The hotel rooms are nicely decorated and the hotel is in a good, central location though very difficult to find with a taxi. The breakfast that is included is a croissant, a glass of juice, as well as tea or coffee -- waiters are non-existent. All mini bar prices, as well as room service, are in euros even though last time I checked Cairo was in Egypt. The staff (with one exception -- the late late night gentleman) is unapproachable and don't do anything special to make your trip memorable, and the lobby contains three to four random people just hanging out which we found a bit awkward. We had planned on taking the overnight train to Luxor, but instead decided to take a quick flight in the morning, so we asked the hotel if we could stay one more night at the same price as well as our last night in Cairo as we caught our flight home from there. The late late night gentleman said no problem. The next morning, we were approached by a woman who questioned this and an argument ensued between her and another woman on whether they had availability or not. After an argument in arabic, they looked at me and simply said ok. When we went to check out and leave for Luxor, my husband went to get our bill to look it over and found that they had charged us 10% more on our 4th night even though they said the same price would be given. The man said that the late late night gentleman has no authority and doesn't know what he is talking about and that it is more expensive to book directly through the hotel than through the Lonely Planet website. We have been fortunate to travel extensively for both work and play and have never come across a policy such as this. He also came to tell us that the Lonely Planet guidebook stellar recommendation was simply "a business arrangement." Good to know!! They also charged us $3 or a 30 second phone call that they made for us to a local friend, yet did not tell us there would be a fee. Also, the "free" internet did not work for the first two days. When my husband went to pay the final bill in the local currency (as directed when we made the reservation), the man told us we had to pay in US dollars -- again we're in Cairo -- when we didn't have dollars, we paid in Egyptian pounds receiving a horrible conversion rate. After an argument between this man and my husband, we immediately cancelled our reservation for our last night in Cairo and the gentleman could've cared less. Overall, this hotel was extremely disappointing, nickel and diming its guests, had horrendous service, and we would never ever stay here again nor recommend it to friends (or enemies for that matter!) as there are sooo many other options in Cairo.

The Talisman is a lovely place. The rooms are charming, the sheet are clean and soft and the decorations special. Of course, you're not in a standard 5 stars, so you'll probably get disappointed if you are looking for those kind of facilities. Instead, you are in an Egyptian boutique hotel, where you can spend the evening talking with the owner, Mr Mohamed, about religion, politics, middle east and ... Monica Bellucci, or going shopping with a real friend, Hamdi El-Shora of Adventure in Egypt, that brings you around Cairo as long as you don't find what you are looking for (lovely manner and good prices).

Even though we had the correct addiress, it took the taxi driver almost half an hour to find the hotel, which is hidden in an alley off a very noisy commercial street. My adult son and I were traveling together and had requested two twin beds, both on the expedia booking and in a separate phone call to Expedia, which promised to call the hotel. But when we checked in, we were shown to a room with only one queen bed. The hotel's solution was a flimsy rollaway, which collapsed in the night. Worse, there was a whistling sound apparently coming from the water pipes, a sound that repeated every 10 seconds! When we reported the problem, the night manager said they would try to fix it and offered us a free night's stay (which the day manager claimed to know nothing about on check-out). We returned a few hours later to find the problem still unresolved. Exhausted, we fell asleep for a few hours, but were awakened by the whistling noise. By this point, we were ready to move to the Hilton that my son's friends had recommended. The day manager promised to move us at the first opportunity later that morning, and indeed, did so. The new room was bigger, with two twin beds, and no whistling water pipes, although the street sounds were still rather loud. We stayed the remaining two nights, but cancelled our reservation to spend our final night in Egypt at the Talisman.
On the plus side, the decor was as charming as the hotel's website suggested and the hotel had a computer with free Internet access for guest use.