Cosmos / Flash, Lady Mary Review

Overall Rating

We have just returned from a week on the Lady Mary (Cosmos Holidays) which was one of the best holidays we have ever had. This was our first holiday without the kids, and there were no children on-board at all. The average age was probably 40 - 70, and consisted of English, German and Italian's (but mostly English).

I thought the food was above average, although that wasn't every one's opinion, but there was plenty of choice and you could eat healthily if you wanted. The entertainment in the bar was practically non-existent. But that didn't matter, because drinking at the bar on the top deck was much better than sitting in a smokey bar downstairs, especially when the boat was sailing.

It was well worth paying the extra £50 to go all-inclusive and all the people who hadn't paid it upgraded to all-inclusive on the first day. It's worth it to be able to help yourself to bottles of water to take on trips out, and cups of tea or juice whilst sunbathing, not to mention the alcoholic drinks. The wine (Obelisk Egyptian Wine) was passable if chilled, but it got worse as it warmed up, but the beer and spirits were okay. It was difficult to drink too much when you knew you had to get up at 4:30am in the morning on a temple visit though!

The highlights for me were the views on either side of the Nile whilst sailing, the visit to Abu Simbel (woken up at 2:30am for that), Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens.

The downside of the trip was the constant harassment by the local people who wanted our money. There isn't anything they don't expect a tip for. This included people selling pieces of toilet paper before you could get into a public toilet (even at the airport), and the market stall holders which were outside all the temples selling rubbish. Even if you politely said no thank you, they wouldn't take that for an answer and followed you down the street. It was impossible to look at anything in a shop or make eye contact with anyone selling anything, which meant we had to buy all our presents at Luxor Airport, as going into a shop or looking at anything for sale was such an ordeal. The trip to Aswan market was the worst, and we felt lucky to get out in one piece!

Before we went, we knew quite a lot of people who had ended up with bad stomachs on Egyptian holidays, so we went prepared with Imodium and Dioralyte, and about half the people on our boat had some degree of problems in this department, although only for a day or two. We were told the stuff we had brought was useless, but our Cosmos rep arranged for antibiotics to be brought on-board for anyone who needed them, and they did work! It was difficult to say why some people were ill and some weren't. It wasn't the food, although handling their money could be a cause of it, as it is all old and filthy notes (no coins). We took a bottle of hand gel, as many people did, and we were fortunately okay. We felt sorry for the people who had to miss trips though.

We'd love to go back, but not for a couple of years, and as we've seen the sights. Next time we will be spending more time on the boat getting better value for money from the all-inclusive.

Our Cosmos rep on the Lady Mary Glories of the Nile cruise was brilliant. Very knowledgeable about Egypt and very helpful. Nothing was too much trouble. Also, our Egyptologist who led the guided tours round the sights. Her English was great, and she was funny and made all the trips more interesting than they were already. Her only downside was taking us to a copy perfume factory, a picture gallery and an alabaster factory - these were all expensive, and there was a lot of pressure to buy (it was like being at a Tupperware party where you're given a pencil and order form when you go in), and you could only guess what percentage commission she was on, but I can't criticise her too much, as she's got a living to earn, and she was very good otherwise.