Benben By Dhara Hotels ( Adults Only) in Aswan

Our stay at Benben was a bit of a mixed one.

If you are someone who has a lot of time on your hands and you want to take photos for instagram and do not care about water supply/shower issue, this may be the right place for you.

On the other hand, if you have travel schedule planned and not too flexible with time (e.g., Abu Simbel day trip) and care about sleep quality, this is not the place for you.

We stayed here for 2 nights, on our first day, we arrived around 3pm with sweats and heat exhaustion from our Philae temple visit. After being sent to our room, we realised the water wasn’t working. Hotel told us to wait as they had some water supply issue, after waiting for 5 hours, we called again and were told they are still fixing it and could not tell us an ETA on the fix. With frustration and massive migraine from heat exhaustion and no clear ETA, I figured I had to sleep with sweats and anger.

The 2nd issue we encountered was the ferry to the dock. The hotel is on and island which means every time we want to go in and out, we would need to contact the hotel to arrange for the boat for transfer).

On the day we need to leave, we were waiting on the boat with a Danish couple but we could not depart after waiting for 20 mins (post the initial agreed departure time). Even though the other couple made a complaint to the hotel staff, they did not care or give a clear answer on when we can leave. Another 20 mins later, we we realised we were waiting for another couple to come onboard (and confirmed with them that they were 20 mins late to their original appointment). At this point, we were already very late to meet our own driver and start our 8 hours trip to Luxor.

Most hotel staff could not speak English, the only ones we can communicate to was Nirvana (from front counter) and the restaurant manager. The rest of the staff were not well trained to do basic communication.

So… If you have time, ok to deal with the above potential issues (oh…and lots of stairs!), go ahead and you will enjoy the amazing views from the hotel.

The rooms were decent, and the views were nice, but the shuttle service was absolutely terrible! I'm extremely dissatisfied! There was a black guy at the front desk with a really bad attitude; he was right there but just wouldn't pick up the phone. I called reception so many times, but he never answered! It's like all the staff here take pride in being late. We had a flight to catch and repeatedly emphasized that time was critical and we needed to be on time, reminding them four times. We even asked the front desk staff to write down our pickup time in their logbook, but they still didn't pick us up on time. They were 25 minutes late, and then the boat transfer was also late. It's incredibly frustrating; despite telling them so many times, they still didn't do it, ignored us, and were so late. It's truly outrageous! The location is also very inconvenient. I strongly advise against staying here for travelers who want to maximize their time sightseeing, as it severely disrupts your itinerary and can make you miss your flight!