Egypt Discussion Forum

Discussions regarding holidays in Egypt.
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as they seem to add a few lilos

That's nice of them to give you free inflatables. :wink:

Seriously though, we've never come across this ourselves. One way round it is just to make sure that they only have one case at a time, and stand your ground. Or call the police. Sod making the plane late, they are stealing from you.
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They were charging people when we came back from Sharm, but the people involved knew they were over the limit by £200! They were going to pay it by card, but the girlfriend said if they pay £100 egyptian to them, would they waive the other, which stood at £200 sterling not egyptian, they said yes as that did mean it went into their pocket :shock:
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There are actually big scales that you can weigh your cases on yourself,before you get to the chech in desk...thats what i would do then we are prepared :)
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As someone who has been done in Dalaman (another rip-off airport), I'm not sure I believe those airport abroad check-in scales are accurate. Why is it a small % of people are over outbound & loads are resort side, where they like to be paid in cash :shock:

My sister & her husband, had a week holiday in Olu Deniz (they came in our second week & we returned together), they were under leaving Gatwick. Upon return in Dalaman they were over, despite using toilitties, leaving a book & purchasing ONE momento a fridge magnet :yikes They were so desperate they even made her put her tiny hand bag on the scales to get it up as much as pos, mind you the bag probably only weighed a couple of lbs.
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I heard someone suggest that people should get on the scales with their cases as some folk are a lot bigger than others!Will that day ever come?A man was turned away from one of our local airports this summer because of his size.
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Hi Jay

We came through Sharm airport on Thursday 2oth December. It was so busy that as soon as they checked our passports they waived us through without even checking the weights of our suitcases. I was a bit worried of been over the 20kg allowance but they just didnt have the time, so on this particular occasion we were lucky. Phew!!! :P

Queenbee
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That's not happened to me at Sharm at all, but I can't say I'm surprised... it's been total carnage in the airport on both occasions when I've visited! I'll certainly be aware this time round!
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It only seemed to be happening at one check in desk.The bloke on this desk was tall,overweight and wore a smart suit.His assistant who was loading the cases and pushing down on them was small.I kept pulling our cases up as he was pushing down on them as I was determined I was not going to pay as our cases only weighed 17 and 19 kgs at check in.I left all my toiletries,sun creams and books.If you see this bloke just go to another desk.
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This is also going on at TABA airport, There is a short well built chap doing it he speaks very good english.
Told us we where 6kg over weight, Knew we wasnt as weighed them at airport. I told him we get a extra 5kgs if we are divers produce our cert cards
and we went on our way.

You have to be wary everywhere you go..

Gaz
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so what should we do if this happens?
I am going in May and we were so under the allowance loast year in tunisia but really am scared as we are going t o Taba
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I have just bought one of those large holdalls on wheels today to try and reduce the weight as I plan to go with Thomas Cook to Turkey and they only give a 15kg allowance.Look at the weight of your cases when you check in at the UK airport and if you are not bringing anything heavy back ,your cases will be a lot lighter especially if you use all your sun cream and toiletries.Stand your ground with them and make sure they weigh one case at a time.
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Jay, we are also flying with T. Cook now. There are 4 of us in our party, so will we be ok if we do not go over 60kg? (eg 3 bags weighing 20kg)
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Starry,It depends on when you booked as Thomas Cook only allow 15kgs on bookings made this year.You can pay for extra allowance but I object to this.Usually when we travel with friends(who are always over)the check in staff here in the UK allow 4 people to pool their allowance.I dont know if they do this in Sharm.If you are allowed 20kgs I would try and pack 18kgs to allow for them trying to "add" more weight to your case.As someone has mentioned on here I suppose it also depends on how busy they are.We were the only flight checking in so they had more time to do this.If its busy they may not do this.
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Thanks. I'll have to check the small print.
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Another problem at Sharm airport is the purchase of visa on landing. I knew that we would not need a visa as we did not plan to leave Sinai and had written 'Sinai only' on the back of landing card (as advised on this forum AND on the plane) and went to join the passport control queue. Despite this, the First Choice 'rep' insisted we join the visa queue despite my protestations, saying it was for 'formalities' (a visa put in your passport and you are charged before you realise what is happening perhaps?). Fortunately another 'official' waved us out of this queue and into passport control. BE AWARE and stand your ground if necessary!
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It happened to me at Taba airport in October. We put our suitcases on and the guy told us we were 8 kilos over and it would cost us £90. I must have looked so shocked, he immediately reduced it to £50. I thought we might have been over a little as we had bought several cds and a few other things, but not 8 kilos. Anyway, I was digging in my travel bag to find my money and I asked him if he would take Egyptian currency. He said yes and I continued to dig into my bag, holding the queue up. In the end, he waved me on and let me off thankfully, but will certainly watch our weight in future.
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Helene, Was it a tall thin guy with Glasses, with a smaller stocky guy. Who both spekl very good english.

If so the smaller Guy has his foot on the scales.

Im surprised at the tall guy as he has a english wife, so he should know how much we dislike this..

Gary
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Morning Gary,

I didnt notice a small guy, but the description of the tall slim guy sounds right. He did speak very good English.

On my next trip I shall mention this to the Thomson Rep and Longwood rep, but I was travelling independently in October
Regards,
Helen
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Hi
All our problems occurred on the way into sharm.Firstly they badgered me into paying for visas in pounds instead of dollars that i had and wanted to pay with and which is half the price, i refused and went back a few days later paying in dollars and i still saved money!
Secondly don't leave the baggage area to get a trolley from outside as they won't let you back in,my missus had to struggle with a 11 month baby a 12 year old and 4 very heavy cases on her own not knowing what had happened to me! Not a good start! How i wasn't arrested for giving the official who wouldn't let me back in grief, is beyond me.
On the good side we didn't get charged for excess baggage on leaving as our luggage was well over the weight limit.
Ray
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