Kemet House^★★★

Kemet House

Seven of the ten featured reviews for Kemet House talk about how the place looks. Guests call it beautifully decorated, stylish, curated, in line with the local aesthetic. That is unusual in Booking reviews, where people normally write about staff and cleanliness.

They write about those here too. Staff scores a full 10 out of 10, and the overall is 9.9 from 380 reviews. Cleanliness, comfort, facilities and value for money all sit at 9.9.

There are five room types and they genuinely differ in size, which is rare at this scale. The Family Room is 34 m2 with a large double bed and a futon, sleeping three. The Deluxe Double with Balcony is also 34 m2, the Deluxe Room 33 m2, and two smaller doubles come in at 22 and 20 m2, the second with its own terrace. All are air conditioned and soundproofed, with a tile or marble floor and a private bathroom.

The address is Al Qarna Road on the West Bank, and this is the closest of the West Bank houses to the city. Luxor Museum is 1.4 km away and Luxor Temple 2 km. On this side the Colossi of Memnon are 3 km, Medinet Habu 4.1 km and the Valley of the Kings 5 km. Three restaurants stand within 500 metres, the nearest at 100. Location scores 9.7.

The house is family run and the host, Laurice, is named in the reviews. Breakfast and dinner are cooked for guests and both come up again and again, though there is no restaurant as such and no bar. Special diets are arranged in advance and the kitchen puts on themed dinner nights. Reception handles the tour desk, currency exchange and airport transfers, and there is a shared lounge, a garden, a patio and a roof terrace.

One category sits more than a point below the rest: the WiFi at 8.5. Coverage is not the issue, since it reaches the whole property and costs nothing. A guest wrote simply that the internet was not working, which points at reliability instead. There is no swimming pool. The roof terrace has seating but nothing to drink, which a guest put in writing as the one thing he would add.