Most of the hotels on the southern side of Luxor front onto the main road. This sites them conveniently for local shops and restaurants. However, it also means that road traffic noise is hard to escape and that you are bombarded by people asking you to take a taxi or caleche the moment you leave the front door of the hotel. The Sheraton is a little further away, at the end of a cul-de-sac, so there is no passing traffic. Noise is therefore much less intrusive. It is also possible to walk immediately in front of the hotel, within the grounds, before you start to meet local people keen to offer you their services.

The respite is short-lived if you want to walk to town because you are approached as soon as you leave the gate and then you have to pass all the other hotels and their attached service-sellers anyway. However, you do have the chance to take the hotel's free shuttle bus, which runs 7 times a day each way, or a taxi into Luxor centre from inside the hotel grounds, and avoid that attention, at least until you get into town.

There is even more isolation from local attention at the more remote hotels, the Sofitel Karnak and the Jolie Ville (Mövenpick), but those hotels are outside realistic walking distance from town. At the Sheraton you have the best mix: the chance to be a little quieter than if you were closer to town and the option to take a half-hour walk into Luxor if you want to.

There are many types of room at the Sheraton. They fall into three main categories. There is a main building in which some rooms have a Nile view and some do not. The third category are called 'bungalows'. These are separate from the main building. Most of them are not actually bungalows but clusters of two-story buildings, some surrounding a small pool, others facing gardens.

The Sheraton has a reasonable variety of restaurants including a well-reputed Italian one, La Mama, in the gardens at the front. Reports on the other restaurants are mixed, but the majority opinion is that the food is not as good here as it is in other hotels in the same price band. It is rather expensive, too. In La Mama a steak will cost around LE95 and a pizza from around LE50. This is more than twice the cost of similar meals in the best restaurants outside.

If you go half-board, the supplement you pay does not cover the full cost of a meal in all the restaurants: it entitles you to a credit and you pay the difference. The difference between the half-board cost and the bed & breakfast cost varies depending on the agent you use when you book the holiday and when you book it. Some people have found that the half-board supplement is less than the credit it gives you against a meal. By and large the popular suggestion is that you stick with b&b and decide for yourself where you want to take lunch and dinner.

You have the choice of paying cash for food and drink bought around the hotel, or charging it to your room account for settlement later. If you choose to charge it to your room, a 2% supplement is added. This is unusual and can mount up.

The reception area has been upgraded and is now very spacious, light and airy. The rooms are fine, if not special, and well equipped, with hair driers as well as the usual fridge and satellite TV. Wireless internet is also available. It covers the rooms and the grounds, including the restaurants, but the price is very high at €20 per day, €10 per hour or €5 per half hour. The upgraded rooms are much improved, lighter and more airy, as are the corridors in the upgraded sections of the hotel.

The grounds on the Nile side are on several levels with a generous Nile frontage and the usual outdoor eating and refreshment facilities although, like the main restaurants, prices are on the high side. At the front there are a number of shops selling the typical tourist wares and also a beauty saloon where the services such as hairdressing, manicure and pedicure have a good reputation. Amongst the shops there is also an ATM that takes Diners as well as the usual Visa, Maestro, Mastercard and Cirrus; and a bank note changer.