Private tours

The best company, by far, is Abercrombie and Kent. They will do exactly what you want and by far have the best and most qualified tour guides. When my in-laws came we did a Nile cruise with them. Our small group was only 6 people, and our Egyptologist had 3 degrees in Egyptology and comparative religions. We liked them so much we hired a guide to do the Egyptian Museum and a couple sites in Cairo. The second guide had two degree and was equally fascinating. You can check them out on their website, just Google "abercombie and kent." Disclaimer: you pay for what you get -- it goes both ways. You pay a lot for Abercrombie. But in our opinion it was more than worth it. If you're interested in the quality of Egyptologists, there's no better group to go with.

Hi Lucy,
Not in the international tour operator category but We have a good friend in Cairo who makes a living by being a personal guide on a one to one basis. Nabil is a young mother and arts graduate and her husband is IT manager for a small hotel group. Nabil will show you what you want to see, feeding you plenty of ideas if you are not sure what you want. She is a bit shy like many Arab women but quite confident and certainly knows the ropes. We visit cairo fairly frequently on business and know our way round but when we take friends with us we ask Nabil to look after them for us. She is lovely!
Find her on www.egyptguest.com of if I have the link wrong google it, it is almost that.

Hi Lucy,

I used Egypt 7000 for my 5-week Egypt trip in April. They tailored the trip to our needs and our guides were very well informed. The price was great too. I was worried that for such little $$ that it would be a budget operation, but it definitely was not. You can read more about my experiences with them here if you're interested.

I hope your parents enjoy their trip!