Valley of the Kings tour reviews: what the customers actually praise
There are 51 reviews across the six tours this site lists. Forty-seven of them name a person — a guide, a driver, a tour leader — by name, usually in the first sentence or two. Four do not. Nobody was asked to do this. The tomb tickets are a separate purchase, and the reviews show what a tour adds: a person, and the customers say so before they say anything else.
Forty-seven reviews, forty-seven names
Three, from three different tours, chosen because they are typical rather than because they are the best written:
“Mena Oweda was a great live guide during these visits to the Valley of the Kings and Queens. We highly recommend him.”
“The tour guide, Mahmoud Essa, was great and fun. He explained everything to me in detail and in a very enjoyable way. I highly recommend him.”
“Maria was an excellent tour guide - friendly and well informed. She can also read hieroglyphics!”
Read a hundred hotel reviews and you get the room. Read these and you get a person, and usually a second one behind the wheel. That is not sentiment, it is a description of what the money buys. The tombs are fixed, the prices are set by the Ministry, and the thing that shapes the day most is who walks you round, though no listing names a guide in advance.
The four that name nobody are worth as much as the forty-seven. Two of them are on the long day trip from the Red Sea coast, one is on the private tour, and the fourth is the single written review on the ticket-only product further down this page. One of the two from the Red Sea coast explains why:
“The tour guide was great at providing information ahead of time, but we were often left alone at the actual sites to navigate them ourselves and recall everything we’d been told. If feasible, having the guide accompany the group throughout the sites would be a big improvement.”
“Great experience overall for our family! A special thanks to our guide, who was incredibly attentive, professional, and so kind to our children throughout the day.”
“Guide and driver were wonderful. The food was good. A great experience.”
Gareth’s review is cut where his second point begins, which is about drivers asking for a tip at the end of the day and asking again when they had it. His first half is the one that matters most for planning: a guide who briefs you in the minibus and then waits outside is a different purchase from one who walks the site with you. The listing does not say which applies.
Six products, and the sample size next to every score
Sorted by the number of reviews behind the rating, largest first:
| Product | Score | Reviews behind it | Quotes shown | From |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luxor: Valley of the Kings and Hatshepsut Temple Day Tour | 4.5 | 1,891 | 10 | US$50 |
| Hurghada: Luxor Tour with Valley of Kings, Karnak & Tut Tomb | 4.6 | 1,474 | 10 | US$63.05 |
| Luxor: Valley of the Kings and Queens Guided Tour with Lunch | 4.5 | 468 | 10 | US$40 |
| Luxor: West Bank Kings and Queens All-Inclusive Tour & Lunch | 4.6 | 330 | 10 | US$74 |
| Private Full Day West Bank: Valley of kings Hatshepsut &More | 4.9 | 74 | 10 | US$70 |
| Luxor: King Tutankhamun Tomb Skip-The-Line Ticket | 4.4 | 3 | 1 | US$95 |
The highest score on the list sits on the second-smallest sample. The largest sample shares the bottom score of the range. Ratings tend to settle as more reviews come in, so a product with 74 reviews and one with 1,891 are measured on different bases.
Here is the sum that makes it concrete. One more one-star review would take the 4.9 on the private tour to 4.8. To move the 4.5 on the day tour by the same tenth of a point you would need 28 of them.
A published average is rounded to one decimal place, so these figures are approximate.
Three customers describe the three-tomb rule without being asked
This is the most useful thing in the pool, and none of it was solicited. Three reviewers on three different products, one of them writing it as the single downside of a five-star day:
“Salma was excellent. Very passionate about the subject matter. The only downside is that the tombs you see are pre-decided for you, and there wasn’t any option to visit additional tombs if you wanted.”
“The tour was very well organized. The 3 included tumbs were nice. The Seti I tumb added with supplement was a must.”
“At the Valley of the Kings, she provided excellent recommendations on which tombs to visit, helping us make the most of our limited entries.”
Read those three together. Franck describes three included tombs and Seti I bought as a supplement on top, which is the ticket structure this whole site exists to explain, written by a customer who had just walked through it. Tom describes a guide spending her expertise on which three to use. Adia describes the version where the choice is made for you and the paid tombs are not offered at all.
The structure they are all circling is set out on what the ticket actually admits you to: EGP 750 buys three tombs from those open on the day, and Tutankhamun at EGP 700 or Seti I at EGP 2,000 are separate tickets that do not use up one of the three. Which three to spend is on choosing your three tombs. Whether Seti I is worth what Franck paid is on the tomb of Seti I.
Adia’s sentence is the one to carry into a booking. She gave the day five stars and praised her guide by name. She is describing a group itinerary, where the three tombs are chosen once for everybody. If the tomb you came for is a paid one, that is the sentence that decides whether a tour suits you.
The heat, mentioned by reviewers without being prompted
Seven reviewers raise the temperature unprompted, and another five volunteer that the car had air conditioning. In their words:
“Adam, our live guide, was exceptional! Despite the intense heat that day, he demonstrated true professionalism and made our visit a very enjoyable experience.”
“Our guide, Mina, explained the history before we explored each site and was very punctual. Since it was a very hot day, the efficient itinerary made it easy to enjoy the sights.”
“Mohamed gave a lot of explanations, and I enjoyed seeing the sights. We were able to visit two archaeological sites while it was still cool, so we enjoyed it efficiently.”
eli’s is the practical one. “While it was still cool” is a customer describing an early start and giving it as the reason the morning worked. Guides and experienced visitors have said the same thing for years, and the numbers behind it are plain: Luxor’s mean daily maximum is 41.4 °C in July and 41.2 °C in June and August. The valley opens at 6:00 AM. That page is when to visit, and the heat, and what to carry is on what to bring — including the rule that food and water may not go into the tombs with you.
The same names turn up under different listings
Reading all six pools in one sitting, several first names appear in the reviews of more than one product. Mina, Manal, Salma Khairt, Alaa Hassan, Mahmoud Essa and Maria each appear in reviews left on two different listings, and a driver called Amr appears in three reviews of the private tour alongside more than one guide.
It could be one guide working across several operations, or it could be common names in a city where guiding is a licensed profession with a finite number of people in it. What it does mean for a reader is narrower and safer: the guide you get is not decided by which listing you click. None of these products sells you a named person, and none of them can.
The US$95 product, and what its page includes
The Luxor: King Tutankhamun Tomb Skip-The-Line Ticket is listed at US$95. Tutankhamun’s tomb costs EGP 700 at the window, which at roughly 50 EGP to the dollar, read on 16–17 August 2026, is about US$14.
The product’s own page says it includes a guide, fast-track entry and the visitor centre, and those are real things that cost real money to provide. The difference between the two numbers is guiding, transport and convenience. At the window, the same tomb is EGP 700, and what is in it — the mummy, in a climate-controlled case, since 2007 — is on Tutankhamun’s tomb.
Its description offers an “Optional Visit to Additional Tombs – Depending on your ticket type”.
It carries 3 ratings, one with written text. Here is that review in full:
“This was an incredible activity. We were met on time from our hotel and driven to the valley of the Kings where we met our guide. He took us to the Valley of the Kings and gave us our general entry ticket and our specific one for the tomb of Tutankhamun. Guides aren’t allowed in the tombs themselves, so our guide gave us a talk outside and showed us a booklet of postcards we could buy if we wanted to. King Tutankhamun’s tomb is amazing, but small, so we made sure we got to see two other larger tombs before we left. Our guide wanted to take us to a workshop where ornaments and souvenirs are made from alabaster, granite and other stones that they say are mined from the Valley of the Kings. We were given a theatrical performance of how this is done by some locals and then invited to buy something. We didn’t want anything, so could have done without this part of the Guided Tour of the Valley of the Kings. Overall it was worth it, but I might just hire a driver and pay for entry in future.”
Two details are the reviewer’s own account of their day: that guides are not allowed inside the tombs, and that this traveller was handed both tickets. Check the listing for what your booking includes.
The reviewer’s closing thought, “I might just hire a driver and pay for entry in future”, is a reminder that there is more than one way to plan the day. What the day costs assembled from its parts is on what a day in the valley costs.
The three products with their own review pages
Luxor: Valley of the Kings and Hatshepsut Temple Day Tour
The biggest sample on the site by a distance, and the reviewer who wrote down the ticket structure without meaning to.
from US$50Read the review ›
Luxor: West Bank Kings and Queens All-Inclusive Tour & Lunch
Ten reviews, ten different guides named, and two of them describe different experiences of choosing tombs.
from US$74Read the review ›
Private Full Day West Bank: Valley of kings Hatshepsut &More
The highest score here, and six of ten reviews describing the same guide.
from US$70Read the review ›The two products without a page of their own are the US$40 Kings and Queens guided day, which carries 4.5 from 468 reviews and is the cheapest guided day here, and the Hurghada trip at US$63.05, which carries 4.6 from 1,474. Both are on every tour listed. The Hurghada one is a coach day from the Red Sea coast rather than a Luxor tour, and how long a valley visit actually takes is on how much time you need.
What to check on the booking panel
Not one of the fifty-one reviews mentions the price of a ticket, in any currency. People rate the day and the person who ran it. They do not write down what they paid at the window, and they do not say whether their tour price covered it.
A tour price includes what the product’s own inclusions list says, and that list sits on the booking panel, so read it carefully before you pay. The reason it matters is the whole argument of this site: general entry is EGP 750 and it admits you to three tombs of your choice, while Tutankhamun at EGP 700, Seti I at EGP 2,000 and Ramses V and VI at EGP 220 are each bought on top. The full grid is on every published ticket price. Entry is paid by card only; carry cash for the EGP 20 tram.
About these reviews
The platform chooses which reviews to surface, ten per product. On a listing with 1,891 reviews behind it that is a small selection; every one of the ten shown on that tour is five stars, and the 4.5 average also reflects reviews not shown here.
Nothing on these pages is solicited, no operator has seen a page before it published, and how this site earns is on the affiliate disclosure.
Quotes on this page come from the product’s own GetYourGuide page, with the first name and star rating as published. Scores, review counts and prices are live figures that move; read the current ones in the booking panel before you pay.
Frequently asked questions
Which Valley of the Kings tour has the most reviews?
The Luxor: Valley of the Kings and Hatshepsut Temple Day Tour, with 1,891 reviews behind a 4.5 rating. That is by far the largest sample on this site; the next is 1,474, and the smallest is 3.
Is a higher-rated tour the better tour?
Both are strong scores, measured on different sample sizes. The 4.9 rests on 74 reviews and the 4.5 on 1,891. One more one-star review would take the first to 4.8; it would take 28 of them to move the second by the same tenth of a point.
What do reviewers of Valley of the Kings tours praise most?
The guide, overwhelmingly. Of the 51 reviews across the six products listed here, 47 name a guide, a driver or a tour leader by name, usually in the first sentence or two. Almost nobody writes about the tombs themselves in any detail.
Do the reviews say whether a tour includes your tomb tickets?
No. Not one of the 51 mentions a ticket price in any currency. One reviewer describes being handed a general ticket and a Tutankhamun ticket on the day, and another describes paying a supplement for Seti I, which are two different arrangements. Read the inclusions on the booking panel: general entry is EGP 750 and the famous tombs are bought on top of it.
Why is there no review of the Tutankhamun ticket product?
Because it carries 3 ratings and only one of them has any text at all. It has 4.4 from 3 ratings. The count, the two prices side by side and the one written review are on the reviews hub.