How Not to Get Ripped Off in Hurghada

We are a Hurghada excursion company, so you can reasonably assume we have an interest in you booking with us rather than someone else. Read this anyway, and then go and check what we say against the forums. Everything below is common knowledge among people who live here and almost none of it is told to you on arrival.

The taxi meter that does not work

This is the most common one, and it starts at the airport. The meter is broken, or there is no meter, and the price is named after you are already moving — or worse, on arrival, when your luggage is in the boot.

What to do: agree the fare before you get in, every single time. Use Uber or Careem where you can; the price is fixed in the app and there is nothing to argue about. If you are being collected as part of an excursion, the transfer should be included and there should be nothing to pay the driver at all.

The free tea in the bazaar

You are invited in. The tea is genuinely free and the hospitality is genuinely warm — Egyptian hospitality is not a con, and this is what makes the next part work. By the time you are holding a glass of tea and being shown a third rug, leaving without buying feels rude.

What to do: accept the tea, enjoy it, and understand that you owe nothing for it. Decide your price before you start and be willing to walk. Walking away is not an insult here; it is part of the transaction, and the price will usually follow you out of the door.

The "private" boat with forty people on it

This is the one that matters most to us, because it is the one we compete with.

"Private" has no legal meaning on an excursion listing. It is used to describe a shared coach, a shared boat, and occasionally a boat that is genuinely yours. The price is the tell: a private boat cannot cost the same as a group ticket, because it is not the same boat.

What to do: ask directly how many people will be on the boat, and how many stops the boat makes to collect them. If the answer is vague, the answer is "a lot". A real private tour has a pickup time built around your hotel, not a route that collects six hotels in sequence. Our sea excursions and desert safaris say plainly which are private and which are group.

The park fee at the jetty

Covered in detail in our guide to what excursions really cost, but briefly: the Red Sea marine park conservation fee is real, mandatory and around €5–€10. Many operators leave it out of the advertised price and collect it in cash at the boat, once you are already there.

What to do: ask whether it is included, and get the answer in writing — a WhatsApp message counts.

The mandatory tip

Tipping is normal and welcome. Being told at the end of a trip that the tip is compulsory, or having a specific amount named for you, is not tipping. That is a surcharge that was hidden from the price.

The hotel lobby desk

Not a scam, but not your friend either. The desk is a reseller taking a margin, and it recommends the operator that pays it best, not the one that runs the best trip. You will usually pay more for the identical excursion, and if something goes wrong, the desk is not the one who has to fix it.

The quad bike "damage"

Rare but it happens: at the end of a quad safari, a pre-existing scratch is discovered on your machine and a fee is produced.

What to do: take thirty seconds and photograph the quad before you get on it. Any operator who objects to that has told you everything you need to know.

Booking your excursions safely

None of this means Hurghada is dangerous or that everyone is out to cheat you — the overwhelming majority of people here are honest and the town runs on repeat visitors. It means you should book with someone you can identify, reach, and hold to what they said.

• Book with a named operator you can message directly, not a man with a clipboard on the beach and not a leaflet with no company name.
• Get what is included in writing. A WhatsApp message is a record. A verbal promise on a jetty is not.
• Do not pay in advance. There is no reason to. We take no deposit and no card details; you pay the guide on the day.
• Read the inclusions, not the title. The trip name is marketing. The list of what is included is the contract.

If you want to test that on us: message us on WhatsApp and ask what is included in any trip. You will get a straight list, and you will not be asked for money until the morning you travel.