Awesome hotel!!! This place was built in 1869 by the viceroy of Egypt as a palace for visiting rulers to stay at during the inauguration of the Suez Canal. The hotel’s history as a palace is evident in its architecture, layout, and facilities. Everywhere that we turned was something new and sprawling. The ballrooms put anything in Gone With the Wind to shame. The hotel is home to a multitude of restaurants, catering to many tastes. There is the Egyptian restaurant, but otherwise the restaurants offer a variety of comfort food like we find in America...perhaps with a twist. The steak house offers Egyptian beef, the burger place offer stone cooked burgers. Warning, it seems that smoking is allowed in all of the restaurants. The steakhouse did offer us a non-smoking section. Our rooms were excellent. We stayed in two, both with balconies that offered excellent views of Cairo. Excellent amenities. I believe that all the rooms are smoking, but I did not notice an odor. Egypt has experienced a number of terrorist attacks, including attacks on hotels, in recent years. They have responded with markedly increased security. The security is very visible when you enter the hotel: vehicle barriers, armed guards (even soldiers at times), guard dogs. At the entrance is airport style metal detectors and x-ray machines. The increased security seems everywhere in Egypt, and one cannot blame them. Once inside the hotel I did not see any further overt security: we did not see soldiers with AK-47’s patrolling by the pool or such. On inside it is like a different world. And it is nice to know that the security is there to keep it that way