We have traveled with Smartours before and had good memorable experiences. This Egypt tour, however, fell short of expectation. The Egypt air flight from JFK was held up on the tarmac for 1-1/2 hours and no updates or announcements were ever made. The Aswan- Abu Salem flights were disastrous! The outgoing flight was delayed an hour and the return flight was most chaotic ever with multiple repetitive screenings with associated lost/misplaced items. The whole Abu Salem tour was poorly planned. The original schedule allowed barely enough time [2 hours] and the delay reduced it further making it the most expensive and unwise investment of time and resources. Other groups traveled by cruise ship and spend a night there. Smartours could schedule a night there in the ship instead of an idle day at Luxor. While the Tour Director was a scholarly person and very supportive, same cannot be said about the other ground staff. The Manager provided some inaccurate, contradictory info. on optional tours and fees and failed to offer any regrets. The farewell dinner at Marriott was mismanaged, especially for the vegetarians. The cruise ship was average, but services fell short of expectations. Wifi was unavailable even in the reception area for Smartours clients and food services were very restricted. No tea or snacks were available in-between meal times. Too many early flights, midnight wakeup calls and crowded scheduling [too many commercial store visits] made it a strenuous trip even to many of our seasoned travelers in the group. Overall while it was an educational and valuable trip for us it could have been made more enjoyable with better itinerary scheduling and improved local services. Hope this would be treated by Smartours as constructive criticism from a loyal customer.