Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Cawley.

My guest today is someone who, if you've been a loyal listener, you will recognise Philip

Breckner of Discover Egypt. The great thing, Philip, is that we're finally talking on a day

when we can say the Grand Egyptian Museum

is actually open, and it appears to be doing pretty well. Absolutely. It's a museum that has,

we've been waiting for in anticipation for many years, and it's been delayed over COVID and

the Middle East scenarios, but it finally opened fully

in November 2025. I had the pleasure of visiting in early December. It is fully open. One needs

several hours, even several days to visit the grass expanse, the whole Tutankhamun exhibition

and collection, and now a separate museum for the solar

boat which has been reconstructed and fresh off the fresh news is the second solar boat is being

reconstructed within the museum and you can actually see people working on the reconstruction of the

boat it is an astonishing structure it's close to within the museum and you could actually see people working on the reconstruction of the boat.

It is an astonishing structure. It's close to the pyramids of Giza. But what are the actual

kind of technicalities? What do you need to do in terms of getting in? How can you get tickets,

for instance? And here we are, what, three months on from from the opening is it just too crowded for its own good

well at the very beginning it was absolutely crowded and they had to stop entries and stop people coming in

tickets were difficult to buy they closed the kiosks completely at the front of the museum and now

if you're going independently you can only buy a ticket online,

which you need to do well in advance. As a tour operator, we have stocks of tickets in advance

that we keep and we have slots with guides to go in on a daily basis. So it is much easier

buying a tour through a recognised tour operator like ourselves.

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