For many years Le Méridien Pyramids Cairo was one of the biggest names on the Giza hotel strip: a resort style 5 star of more than 600 rooms set in landscaped gardens at Remaya Square, with the Pyramids and the Sphinx less than a kilometre away. It is now shut for a root and branch renovation, so this page is our honest record of what the hotel offered and our guide to where to stay instead.
The address, first and always. The hotel stands at Remaya Square in the Haram district, where the streets of Giza give way to the desert plateau, and from many of its rooms, its gardens and its pool terraces you looked straight at the Great Pyramid. Very few hotels anywhere offer that view with your morning coffee, and it kept the hotel busy for years even as newer competition opened around it.
Scale was the other calling card. With more than 600 rooms and suites it held the largest room count in the Giza area, backed up by two free form outdoor swimming pools, the branded Explore Spa by Le Méridien, and a proper spread of restaurants running from an around the clock international buffet to Tex-Mex and Lebanese cooking. It worked as a genuine resort in a city setting, somewhere you could spend an afternoon by the pool after a morning among the tombs.
It suited first time visitors to Egypt who wanted to wake up beside the Pyramids before flying south for a Nile cruise, and couples happy to trade a city centre address for that view. In our view the closure was overdue in one sense: by its final seasons the hotel was showing its age and guest feedback had become mixed, so a full renovation is exactly what the property needed. What has not changed is the appeal of sleeping this close to the plateau, and the good news is that we can book you the same doorstep at other hotels we know and rate nearby.
Le Méridien Pyramids is closed, but our Egypt specialists book superb 5 star alternatives in Giza, including the Steigenberger Pyramids Cairo and the Hyatt Regency Cairo West. Call free on 0800 041 8400 or request your tailored quote online. Every holiday is ABTA and ATOL protected.
Before the doors closed, Le Méridien Pyramids Cairo published the largest room inventory in the Giza area: more than 600 rooms and suites wrapped in gardens between Remaya Square and the desert. The look blended pharaonic motifs with familiar international comfort, and every room came with air conditioning, satellite television, a minibar, a safe and 24 hour room service, with many opening onto private balconies. The categories below are the last the hotel published; treat them as a record rather than a promise, because a renovation on this scale usually redraws the room map completely.
The workhorse of the hotel, comfortable rather than vast, in twin and king layouts with connecting rooms and non smoking floors available. Garden and pool view rooms were the quietest; city view rooms looked over the bustle of Giza.
The rooms everyone asked us for, facing the plateau so the Great Pyramid filled the window. They always sold first, and if the hotel ever reopens we expect exactly the same scramble.
Dedicated club level floors with upgraded amenities and a more personal service style; the hotel historically advertised butler service for its top categories.
A run of suites topped the inventory, from layouts with generous sitting areas up to a dedicated Honeymoon Suite, most angled to make the most of the garden and Pyramid outlooks.
Accessibility was better than the Giza average for its era: the hotel offered rooms adapted for guests with limited mobility, including accessible showers, and cots and rollaway beds could be arranged on request.
Dining was a genuine strength for a hotel of this size. Most of our Cairo customers stay on a bed and breakfast or half board basis and spend their evenings out, and this hotel was set up for exactly that: a big breakfast buffet to set you up for the plateau, then a real choice of restaurants on the nights you preferred to stay in. The line up below is the last one operated before the closure, and it may well change with the renovation.
The main restaurant, serving generous international buffets alongside an à la carte menu that ran from Egyptian home cooking to pasta and grills. It stayed open 24 hours, which suited sunrise starts at the Pyramids and late arrivals off delayed flights alike.
Our pick of the venues: an indoor outdoor restaurant overlooking the pools, serving Lebanese and Egyptian dishes, mezze and grills, with a live Nubian band playing on many evenings. On a warm night it was the best seat in the hotel.
A casual Tex-Mex restaurant and an unexpected find a kilometre from the Sphinx, popular with anyone who wanted a change from buffets after a few days on the road.
Freshly baked cakes, pastries and breads with proper coffee, handy for a quiet hour with a guidebook between excursions.
Restaurant line ups are usually the first thing to change in a major refit, so treat these venues as a guide to the hotel’s character rather than a menu for your holiday. If dining matters to you, ask us about the restaurants at the Giza hotels we currently sell; both of our recommended alternatives carry several venues of their own.
The garden grounds were the reason this felt like a resort rather than a city hotel. Two large free form outdoor pools sat among the lawns and palms with waterfalls, hydro massage jets and broad sun terraces, and the pools were advertised as heated in the cooler months. In winter, when Cairo sightseeing is at its best, that heating genuinely mattered: you could climb around Saqqara all morning and still enjoy a comfortable swim in the afternoon, with the Pyramids as the backdrop from the loungers on the plateau side.
The spa carried the brand’s own Explore Spa name and was reached by a skylit spiral staircase. Inside were massage and facial treatment rooms, a sauna, a steam room and a whirlpool, alongside a fully equipped fitness centre with personal training available and a beauty salon in the hotel’s shopping arcade. In our view it was one of the more serious hotel spas on the Giza strip, and a sensible way to sit out the hottest hours of the day.
As with every other part of the property, expect the pools and spa to be rebuilt or reworked before any reopening. The details above describe the hotel as it last operated, and we will refresh them if Marriott publishes new plans.
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