Bernard Njenga

Review of Pyramids Park Intercontinental...

This is a place where you get mixed feelings.

This is a place where you get mixed feelings.

The reception and lobby area is air-conditioned, gleaming and the gentlemen at the front office are impeccably groomed, polite and helpful to a fault. And they, not unexpectedly, also speak very good English.

The restaurant has good variety of food, if only the bread variety can be less and the fruits variety more (I encountered only dates and slices of melon, I think). Still, the food is fresh and some pancakes are oven-baked while you wait.

The positives end there. At this hotel, the WiFi is essentially non-existent. At the lobby, it is "free" but it is so painfully slow that it is not worth it. I measured the speed at zero-point-something Mbps. In the rooms, the WiFi is paid for, where the hotel charges per device per day. Absolutely horrendous.

A better deal I figured was to buy a local Etisalat sim card at the hotel's own bookshop and loaded with 10GB data at less than 300 EGP (about $15). Using a mobile hotspot (not to mention high-speed, and of course, mobile) this was more than enough for my family's 4-day stay. And, with the added advantage of having a local line, we could Uber seamlessly.

The atrocity of housekeeping/room service should be reserved for last. It was, for want of a better word, non-existent. You have to beg to get linen and towels changed. On a public forum, I won't narrate the horror stories encountered in this regard.

However, my assessment is that the housekeeping department is terribly thinly manned (and therefore overworked), and likely without formal hospitality training. And without good English. And basic communication skills.

Apart from the lobby area, the rest of the hotel has definitely seen glory days, and now is in the decline. Do not be fooled by the profile pictures, likely taken eons ago. Pyramids Park can definitely do better.