Heliopolis Towers, a Waldorf Astoria property, (the first in Africa)

100   Recommended
Room 230 , King Deluxe One Bedroom S...
March 1, 2019 by

 Map | 1 Review | 100% Recommended
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Heliopolis Towers Hotel
 Map | 1 Review | 100% Recommended

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Room 230

King Deluxe One Bedroom S...

Liked:
Location
Service
Food
Amenities
Room
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King Deluxe One Bedroom Suite

An excellent hotel, one I hope to visit again when in Cairo. Plenty of pictures and text for those interested in the sections below.

This was originally a Sheraton property (the area the hotel is in is formally known as the Sheraton city block), later it became a Fairmont property and has now, less than a year ago become the first WA property in Africa.

It has been open for nearly half a year as a WA branded hotel I believe.

Check In

Atrium.jpg

 

The property has generally had good reviews but not its own thread (MODs move if I am wrong!) so you can check out previous reviews in the discussion thread on hotels in Cairo on this forum, especially near the end of the thread where this property gets quite a bit of discussion.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilton-hilton-honors/127808-discussion-hilton-honors-hotels-cairo-egypt-egy-14.html

Anyway, had booked a cash stay for 6 nights (I was here for work purposes nearby) and was pleasantly surprised to get a 2 level upgrade via the app the day before my stay when I checked in but also very pleased when they upgraded me further to a full suite upon arrival.

WA Lobby Area:

Lobby direction WA.jpg

Check in was quick and friendly, even though it was 3 AM in the morning, the duty manager still came over and greeted me and separately, someone escorted me up to my room to show me around and offered to unpack my things. (I declined the offer).

From the floor plan, rooms x30 are suites and have quite a bit more space than other rooms (besides the even bigger suites at the end of the building IIRC).

Floor Plan Floor 2.jpg

Room

Mostly pictures for this section, as they tell more than words most of the time.

(as an aside:) I wanted to use the pool but never got the chance due to extra meetings but there is a 3rd pool just for the WA guests and I believe 2 other pools for both hotels to share.

The room didn’t look out on anything particularly nice but it was quiet and did get some sun if you wanted that but no opening windows in the suite (and no balcony, maybe in the bigger suites).

The water pressure was very good and very hot when you wanted it. The toilets worked well and had no problem with paper going down the toilet (which can be a problem elsewhere here).

There were bathrobes and slippers in the room.

The Entrance to the suite:

Entrance.jpg

The living room:

Living Room 1.jpg

Another of the living room sofa corner:

Living Room 2.jpg

The living room work desk and Nespresso machine:

Living Room Desk.jpg

The bedroom as you enter it from the living room:

Bedroom from Living Room.jpg

The King Bed:

King Bed.jpg

The Chaise Longue:

Bedroom Chaise Lounge.jpg

The bedroom desk:

Bedroom Desk.jpg

The Wardrobe area:

Wardrobe Area.jpg

Wardrobe contents:

Wardrobe Contents.jpg

The minibar area:

Minibar.jpg

Glasses Snacks.jpg

The Bathroom:

Bathroom.jpg

Bathtub:

Bathtub.jpg

Sink/Vanity Area:

Vanity Area.jpg

WC:

Toilet.jpg

Shower:

Shower.jpg

 

 

Service

The hotel was excellent in terms of providing bottled water in the room, one day I counted over 15 bottles available and placed all around the room. You can see them in nearly every picture I have taken of the room!  They were replaced daily (there was a turndown service and likely would have been replaced then too but I was rarely back in time to notice this). The bathroom amenities were Shanghai Tang, my favourite and I went home with a few extra sets as each day they would replace any that were missing or empty. (2 sets each day were put out).

Housekeeping were great and the room was kept spotless. There was a nice welcome amenity of several types (fruit, some nut bars and some other sweets). A nespresso machine was also in the room with some capsules (3).

The exec lounge served alcohol from 7 PM (along with a nice selection of nibbles, which those so inclined could easily make a small meal out of). The food is buffet style in the lounge but the drinks had to be ordered each time and then were brought out by the excellent staff and delivered to your table. We drank the very nice Sakara Egyptian beer but there were other beer choices and may have been other wine/spirits as well. The lounge was a reasonable size and had lovely comfortable sofas to sit on as well as some tables and chairs.

Dining

Ate here for both breakfasts each day as well as a few evening meals.

Breakfast was excellent, plenty of hot and cold choices with a manned station for eggs / omelettes and good service from the staff. One can order speciality coffees and they are properly made from a barista machine and tasted great. (properly strong coffee too!)

The breakfast seating area of the WA main restaurant for breakfast:

WA Breakfast area.jpg

I ate a few times in the various restaurants in the hotels (I believe there are 12 or more restaurants/bars in the two hotels, so plenty of choice of style, if somewhat close in proximity to each other and also lacking in character for surroundings as you dine effectively in the lobby in most of them). We tried the Thai restaurant and another night, the Italian, both were good, if somewhat lacking for spice (hot curry and an arrabiatta were quite bland but tasty).

We did try a couple of the bars in the hotels, 2 over by the Hilton and the Fuze bar by the WA, all were good and had plenty of seating and decent service. The Rainbow bar had live entertainment as did the Fuze bar but they varied in the style so you could pick what you wanted, the Rainbow bar was more Middle Eastern style live music and dancing and the Fuze bar was more jazz or EDM. The third bar was meant to be an English pub style and was a reproduction of one…it is downstairs by the Hilton and beside the casino in the same place.

Everywhere in the hotel had a smoking section, so effectively the non smoking section would only be separated by a few tables or some other equally trivial distance so that may put some off but it is simply a representation of elsewhere in Egypt…smoking is still very much present and you will get some second hand smoke, smell and will have to deal with it. (I say that as a non smoker that hates smoke but just accept in when in some countries).

Some pictures of the various restaurants and bars around the two hotels and shared facilities:

French restaurant/cafe:

French.jpg

Fuze bar seating area:

Fuze bar seating.jpg

Indian:

Indian.jpg

Italian:

Italian.jpg

Rainbow bar (by the Hilton):

Rainbow Bar Hilton area.jpg

Thai:

Thai.jpg

 

A few of the other restaurants (Lebanese and others IIRC):

Restaurants.jpg

 

Location

All in all, a fantastic hotel, wish I could have enjoyed it more, I’d definitely stay again and it would be the only place I’d go if staying in Cairo. Obviously a bit of a trek to downtown from here but very convenient for the airport and a far better hotel in my opinion than those right on the Nile and in the city centre.

While there is the ability to use hotel cars or taxis to go places for a charge (quite a bit of money), I’d suggest Uber while here, it worked flawlessly for us and we used it extensively over the 6 days to get around everywhere. Very, very inexpensive compared to the hotel and never had an issue.

Overall

The short story is that the place is lovely, I’d definitely go back and prefer the location to the city centre Conrad, although I have not stayed there. The facilities in the two hotels (the WA and the Hilton in the other tower of this shared building) are brilliant and one is hardly left lacking anything. There is a bank in the building, near the Hilton side, I believe both hotels now have separate lounges (I saw signs for the Hilton one but didn’t try to get in, the WA has the exec lounge behind the WA reception.)

A nice welcome to Egypt wall painting that one can see from the atrium:

Welcome ready to Egypt.jpg

Hope this review helps, any questions please post and i”ll try to answer in case I forgot anything.

Egypt and its people were lovely, would happily return, they desperately need the tourists back and I felt quite safe there but there was an incident by the bazaar during the week I was there unfortunately killing a few people.

Safe travels

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