Imhotep Alabaster Luxor, Luxor

Terrible experience!! They show you the good and expensive products to convince you to buy, after a long time bargain the start wrapping the products but you you don't look, they change the good product for products with defects!! It's very disappointing arriving back home expecting very nice souvenirs that you payed a good money, and realized that you were deceived and you can do nothing about that.

The funniest and friendliest bunch ever. Big shout to Karim and his crew on a coordinated demonstration. I am pretty sure I overpaid for my beautiful white alabaster vase, but the company more than made up for it. Go visit! They are the best!

Amazing collection. One should definitely come here and see their collection. A person fond of arts should definitely visit here.

Beautiful place. The vases and it’s art caught my eyes. Beautiful stuff! Karim was very lovely! Thank you!

Overall, we had a great experience at Imhotep Alabaster Factory in Luxor. I read a lot of reviews on the Internet about them and we decided to go there on our own. As most people, we slept on the east side of the Nile in Luxor, we took a ferry across and then a combination of walking and taking a local minibus for two Egyptian pounds/person and we got there on our own. It wasn’t about saving money, but seeing real Egyptian life. In the end, it was fun - provided you have a day for shopping in Luxor. Regardless, how you are going to get there - get there on your own, as most tour guides or people who take you to stores in Egypt insist on kickbacks from the owners, which increases price for you and ruins the fun of shopping. Also, when we first walked into the store, the first question was: “who brought you here”. Once we said “nobody”, the answer was: ”Smart – this is much better”. The store has larger selection (multiple, large rooms) and better quality of merchandise and any other alabaster store we entered in Luxor, and we entered plenty of them. The only exception can be a few stores next to Winter Palace, but their selection was smaller. As mentioned by other people, they have a section in the store (they call it “museum”) with really high-quality stuff, that you cannot normally purchase anywhere else. You are obviously going to pay more for it, but in the end, if you want high-quality, memorable stuff from Egypt, I think it’s money well spent. It is always a good idea to visit a few other stores before going there, so you have a rough idea about prices in Egypt. The guys who work there are pros, you are not going to outsmart them (and that is not the point of shopping there), so you have to bargain hard. Just be polite and have fun in the process. They do not hustle you. The shopping experience is very easy and absolutely not hostile, like it tends to be in other stores. Once you decide on how much you want to pay in your mind – stick to it and see what happens. Long story short - it was a good, pleasant experience. They left us alone in the store to do our search, they helped us when requested, served good cold herbal tea, answered multiple questions, the washroom was clean, and there was no hassle. I would go back there in a heartbeat, knowing what we know now, after spending a month in Egypt. In the end we bought a tone of “stones” that we had to haul with us around Egypt for another 3 weeks of this trip. After we finished shopping, the owner took us in his car to the Nile ferry, an unexpected and much ch appreciated gesture. Have fun.