Nile Hilton

This hotel is fine if you are looking for a decent hideaway from the bustle of Cairo.
As you enter the hotel your car is stopped and searched by a sniffer dog. Also you must pass through a metal detector when entering the lobby.
The lobby is very nice with lots of check in staff available and also a concierge for tours etc.
As has been said before the rooms are spacious and clean but very much in need of a refit. Towels and bedding are changed every day.
Try to get a room with a Nile View if you can handle the noise. The city and the road directly below get unbelievably busy at night and the windows are not sound proof. Other than this however the view really is something else.
The restaurants are not too bad but breakfast is very poor. The rooftop bar is fairly reasonable in price and has a smashing view.
Watch yourself trying to cross the road outside the hotel, it's a death trap.
Be prepared to get lots of hassle from black and white taxi drivers. They will all honk and stop next to you. Additionally be aware of the rip off hotel taxi prices.
Also, never tip in the hotel as they add a 10% compulsory service charge to your bill for food etc.

P.S Hard Rock Cafe in the Hyatt just along the road!

My Nile facing room was situated on the 7th floor. The view was fantasic. The room was spacious with a great balcony facing the river to sit and people watch. A bit dissapointed that the room did not have a safe or any tea/coffee making facilities.

If you go up to the roof during the day you get a great panoramic view of Cairo.

Unique Quality: The location could not have been better I only stayed in Cairo for 4 days and did not want to be too far from the major sites. This hotel was definitely the best choice as its across the road fro the Nile and the other side faces the Egyptian museum (a must see). Very close to Tahrir Square where you will find many rows of clothes shop - for men, women chidren that are open until 11 - midnight so very lively.

I had a very pleasent stay at the Nile Hilton. Some reviews I read were quite bad and negative. I have stayed in a few Hiltons around the world, and do believe this was good value for money. (I sometimes wonder what some travelers expect from hotels)
It has a great location, is clean with good anf friendly staff. Also very safe.
As my flight left at 02h25 in the morning I was given a very late check out.
I do reccomend this hotel.

Unique Quality: Location!
Good swimming pool
Excellent staff

Beyond having what could be the most enviable hotel location in Cairo - right smack beside the Egyptian Museum - the Nile Hilton has nothing else good to show - except old age, fading interiors and lousy service.

Age would have been a manageable factor, after all, hotels, like people, can grow old with grace - and wisdom. But not Nile Hilton - exteriors need a fresh coat of paint (at the very least), furniture is so 70ish (or even 60ish?), and the salesmen at the hotel's souvenir shops think they're still in the Middle Ages in Khan el-Khalili, harassing you to view their merchandise.

Service is as bad. My reservation, booked through the Hilton website, clearly indicated a non-smoking room with large single bed. Oh no, the front desk personnel insisted I would love the room he was going to give me - yeah, it just reeked of cigarette and had twin beds. So I had to request a room change - to a room that would had been hip and funky in the 70s.

Perhaps it's high time for this Cairo institution to retire or undergo a massive facelift.

Unique Quality: The hotel's redeeming factor is its breakfast buffet, although service is clearly below par (unless you're blond and blue-eyed, so I've observed - no offence to Caucasians).

Right in the heart of the city, on the banks of the Nile and next to the Egyptian Museum, so the location is excellent.

We paid extra to be on an Executive Floor, and I thoroughly recommend that. There's separate check-in on the 12th floor, a huge buffet breakfast is included, available exclusively in the top-floor restaurant. Even better, the Club Lounge is exclusively for Executive floor guests; it's a great little room with - at no charge - snacks all day, a small hot & cold buffet in the evenings and unlimited drinks between 6 and 9pm (hours which the staff happily extend!)

There's a good choice of restaurants to suit all tastes, including a Deli, Coffee Shop, Italian, Arabic, French restaurants, jazz bar, rooftop bar. Also a pleasant small garden area and a good pool for a city centre hotel.

Service was excellent from every one of the staff in every department we dealt with.

Unique Quality: The rooms are very large, L-shaped with a screened-off work area. Nile View rooms look out directly onto the Nile and to Cairo Tower, which makes up for the traffic noise in the mornings - drivers use their horns all the time in Cairo.

The Club lounge is an outstanding facility.

I read somewhere that the hotel would be changed to a new operator in place of Hilton, so you'll need to check for an update.

Directions: Downtown on the main street running alongside the Nile, right opposite Cairo Tower.

Stay there in January 2007. The hotel is pretty old but it is still ok. The rooms need a serious refurbishing but the location overlooking the Nile River has no price.
The staff is friendly and efficient.
The internet in room is far too expensive !!!
Could not check the gym or the pool
The price was nearly 150 USD nett including breakfast but I was upgraded to the executive floor which allows you to have the breakfast on the top floor of the hotel.

Unique Quality: Location
Nile view
Staff

A great hotel with lots of facilities and good clean rooms, i found the serice to be very good with a good choice of resturants both indoor and out and a very relaxing pool area

Directions: Right next to the Museum

The only five-star feature about this hotel is its price. In fact, this is one of the worst five-star hotels we've ever stayed in. The hotel does not wear its legacy well. It is old and rundown. The deluxe room we opted for was tiny, old, and reeks of musty smoke. It is no different from a room in a two or three-star hotel. The powerpoints don't work, the TV was cranky, and the carpet looked disgustingly dirty. The balcony comes with a Nile view, but is less than welcoming - not a place you want to sit out in and relax. The hotel service staff is unhelpful and slow. The only saving grace is its location. But being smack in the heart of town also means you inherit the worst of Cairo traffic cacaphony. In any case, one is heavily dependent on the taxi to get around in Cairo. We still spent a bomb on cab fares despite staying in the heart of town.

Unique Quality: Great Nile view, but that's about it. You won't be staying in the room the whole day to admire it anyway, so forget it.

The Nile Hilton is supremely located - directly across the street from the Nile and right adjacent to the Egyptian Museum. The hotel contains two good restaurants that we visited - one has a buffet all day, and the other one is outside where you can order a sheesha pipe along with your meal. There is also a nightclub at the hotel, Latex, but we did not go in.

Inside the hotel and also surrounding it are little shops for purchasing souvenirs and clothing. There is an American Express office located in the building, a jazz nightclub and a coffeeshop. An ATM is on the ground floor.

The concierge desk was amazing - they helped us with everything from purchasing tours to retrieving feminine items from a pharmacy. We stayed in the Executive Suites on the 12th floor, I'm not sure if the cost was any different for that room versus another but we had almost 24-hour access to the Executive Lounge for free drinks (including free cocktails from 6 to 9 pm) and snacks.

You have the choice of a Nile-side view from your room or a city-side view (you should request one or the other when you check in, otherwise they will just give you whatever). The Nile side looked very pretty from the Executive Lounge, but our room was on the city side and the view was absolutely outstanding. Notice the profusion of billboards facing the hotel and the lack of billboards elsewhere around the city. Interesting!

We paid $155 US per night for a suite. Half-day tours ran around $30 US per person, includes a guide and transportation around the city. I'd recommend the Islamic Cairo and Khan El Kalili half-day tour, but you should find another way to get to the Giza Pyramids - we were only there for a few minutes so the whole experience was somewhat anticlimatic.

Unique Quality: The upscale hotels have a metal detector at the door with police guarding it, but for the most part we didn't have to worry about it. They let us breeze through.

The hotel is adjacent to Tahrir Square, which is basically just a roundabout with some shops lining one side of it. There is a Hardees located along this side with a good view of the square from the second floor. Prices run around 40LE for a meal at Hardees, whereas the hotel restaurant will run around 70-80LE for a meal.

Our guidebook said that the Nile Hilton is one of the few places where women can smoke sheesha without attracting stares. I smoked here, along with plenty of other women. I did not see women smoking anywhere else in the city except at touristy spots.

Directions: Along the Nile, adjacent to Egyptian Antiquities Museum

The security was kinda tight when we were staying there. On the way out, it's okay but on the way in, the police would check our bags but not everybody will have to go through this...
Also, Nile Hilton is just next to The Egyptian Museum !
The photo is showing a mall at the hotel where we bought mostly the stuffs that we would carry for this trip to Egypt. Pat bought a rayban ! I bought a few more rolls of film !