I am overdue giving a feed back to your valued recommendations for hotel stays in Cairo.
This was my first visit to Egypt and to an Arab country as well. So everything was rather unfamiliar to me. To start with I did not find Cairo easy to visit. This disastrous traffic, more often than not blocked sideways, holey pavement, dark street lightning and beware in touristy environment. Nevertheless, we had 2 nights (then Luxor, Nile cruise, Assuan, Lake Nasser cruise), then 2 more nights (then Alexandria) and then four more nights.

We started at the Hilton Zamelek. Lovely staff but totally dated room (708). The outline of the floors was old fashioned with large vestibules, sparsely furnished, leading to two rooms each. We had a corner room surrounded by a balcony. The wind blew into the room since the windows did not shut properly. Staff in sharp contrast! At breakfast the restaurant manager took us literally by his hand and started putting food on plates for us. - Staff would make me returning to this place. From outside it looks quite good, but inside is a need for renovation. Maybe higher floors look different? We did not try the hotel restaurant. Instead we walked to Abu El Sid, a bit difficult to find in the end but it was good. This was a recommendation by the guest relations agent.

For the second stay I tried the Ramses Hilton. On arrival I thought all apprehensions would come true. We arrived in the evening and the place looked very dated, it was crowded and the agent could not decide to turn to us for check-in. All of a sudden he sent to the Executive Lounge for check-in. And then a different world opened. Our room 2320 was one floor below the executive floor. However, we had Nile view and the room was renovated. Here we had a lush welcome amenity (cakes and nuts, fruits). The executive lounge was very nice. For breakfast we went to the restaurant. It did not look appealing on first sight, but it was well managed after all and the food offer was great. The most peculiar was a piano player! Never saw that before (except for the DT in Lisbon when there were two musicians for breakfast on weekends). The lifts were shaky. As if in Disney World riding one of these fun things. Or in the old Waldorf=Astoria in New York. - I liked being at the Ramses Hilton a lot. Conveniently situated to the Egyptian Museum (still in operation). From there we learnt how to cross the busy roads in order to get to the Museum. The other day we crossed the bridge to walk to one of these restaurant ships on the Nile.

The third stay was in the Conrad Cairo. And that was really good. Upgrade to an Executive Deluxe, Nile view, great executive lounge. We tried the Asian restaurant (music playing too loud and unsuitable, we asked twice to put it low, went back to the original level after short time) with reasonable cuisine. The other night we tried the Italian restaurant. The first and only time our bottle of red wine was decanted, wine glasses were larger than glasses for water, and the glass was not filled up to the brim. Other than that, the cuisine was so-so. Well, we liked Egyptian food and thought the ingredients were superb. There certainly are alternatives but you just have to know where to find them.

Which hotel to be preferred? I would opt for the Ramses Hilton or Conrad Cairo, both in renovated rooms only. And both have great executive lounges. I do not regret the Hilton Zamalek stay at all, but this ranks no 3 for me.