Concorde El Salam Cairo Hotel&Casino

The green grounds give Concorde El Salam Hotel a calm feel, and its location near Cairo International Airport is convenient. I found the rooms comfortable, well equipped, and clean, with care given to the details. There are restaurants serving both international and oriental food, along with pools, a fitness center, and conference halls. The staff were friendly and professional, and the hotel worked well for either business or leisure. It was an enjoyable, comfortable stay with good service.

We stayed in Room 119 from February 5th to February 7th. The staff were polite and cooperative, and the room was acceptably clean. But the telephone in the room didn’t work, and the food choices felt limited and repetitive. On the day we checked out, the key card stopped working while we were taking the elevator up to collect our luggage, even though checkout time hadn’t arrived. Since that same card opened the room and operated the elevator, we couldn’t get back to either until reception reactivated it. That held up our departure and was frustrating. The stay was passable, though those details need attention, and the hotel could provide a better experience.

The hospitality was lovely. Everyone was kind, welcoming, and ready to help. The airport is very close, which is handy for a late arrival or an early flight. But the smoking smell reaches throughout the hotel. Smoking is allowed indoors on the ground floor, and even though rooms are non-smoking, the odor is still very strong everywhere. If you’re sensitive to smoke, I wouldn’t recommend staying here.

The breakfast was ordinary, just cheese, bread, eggs, vegetables, and fruit, and the price wasn’t cheap compared with other well-run five-star hotels. After our bad experience, our agency blocked the hotel from sending customers. I won’t stay here again. Getting there meant driving on very poor roads. At the entrance, security visually searched my female friend’s handbag by hand despite having an X-ray check. I found that disrespectful and felt they were abusing their position. They also asked for a $200 deposit per room for the minibar, which only had a can of Coke and fruit juice. At the outer gate, the guards ask drivers for money to let them in, which I think is corruption. Our first room was a nightmare. It seemed not to have been renovated for 50 years or cleaned properly, with dust all around and a bathroom in very poor condition. The corridors smelled of barbecue from the kitchen. I was cold, but they said the air conditioning couldn’t be set to heat and brought an electric heater that I felt was unsafe because of the fire risk. We asked for our money back so we could change hotels, but they refused. It felt like we had to pay regardless of the poor service, with our money keeping us from going elsewhere.