Where to start!
The hotel looks nice and modern as you are driven up to it, the airport style metal detector at the entrance is a novel touch as are the armed guards. (The only Egyptians at the Hotel who will not constantly hassle you for "Baksheesh")

The rooms although small are reasonably clean, they are "serviced" daily, ours was certainly visited by the staff as the fresh cigarette ash on the floor could testify. Not all that pleasant for a non smoking couple. I could not find a plug socket anywhere unless you pulled the TV / Fridge housing away from the wall and unplugged either appliance (which we had to do nightly).

The food was sufficient to sustain life but no more, I have still to discover what the difference was on a theme night - same buffet style fodder.
You will have to buy water to have with your evening meal £1.60 for 2 litres, anything else is so prohibitively expensive you risk bankruptcy, small glass of wine £4, Gin & Tonic £6, bottle of wine £16.50, I could go on but you get the picture.
Just to spice things up the one member of the waiting staff took payment in cash for our drinks and then got us to sign the bill for dinner, pocketed the cash and put the whole lot on our room bill, we did manage to sort that out but it took two days and a lot of effort.

There is a constant shortage of change so you will end up overpaying your already expensive bill and if this is multiplied by the number of guests each night is another nice little earner for the Hotel.

The Hotel did run a shuttle bus and a boat into Luxor - however the timings were a little strange and you had to be back and ready for roll call by 5pm no transport either way after that.

The pool was very nice and there was no problem getting a sun lounger - something positive at last!

Another positive was that we were only there for one week, It felt a lot longer. I could not have stayed for a second.

I would not reccomend this Hotel to anyone and I will most certainly never be going there again.

We stayed at the Sofitel Karnak end May/beginning of June. Its one of the nicest hotels we have ever stayed in. Lovely, clean rooms, polite and very helpful staff and good food. It is slightly out of Luxor, however there is a shuttle bus and boat that go at regular intervals foc to Luxor. We visited Karnak and Luxor temples, and the mummification museum - which I found a little disappointing - and Luxor museum which was much better. We also went to the 'souk' - the local market in Luxor. Not a good idea, loads of hassle in the 'tourist' part of the market, but we carried on into the part the locals use, and found chickens in crates, and joints of meat (complete with flies) hanging up, piles of veg, and some very odd smells too. I wanted authentic Egypt, but not THAT authentic!! We also visited 'Yorkshire Bob' for two cartouche necklaces for our children, which we had for a good price. Nice Chap, I would recommend him, no hassle in his shop. The gardens of this hotel are absolutely spectacular, and the wild birds wonderful and very colourful. We had a banana tree complete with tiny bananas growing outside our room! The pool was crystal clear every day, none of that murkiness that you sometimes get. Even the pool attendant, after a few days when he got to know where you liked your sun bed, would put the towels out for you, for a small tip and the end of the holiday, so no getting up at the crack of dawn to do it!! My son had his 14th birthday while we were out there, and the chef made him an enormous cake, decorated with fresh fruit, and the waiters sang 'Happy Birthday' in Egyptian to him. Then, in Carters Bar in the evening, the singer sang it in English. They really made a fuss of him, although, being 14, not sure he appreciated it. The chaps that cleaned the rooms made our bedding and towels into monkeys, octopus, men, crocodiles etc, each morning, all for a tip at the end of the holiday, but it was lovely.

Cannot wait to go back.

It was immense relief to arrive at this hotel after catching the 11 hour local day train from Cairo. At the same time, it was a Las Vegas feeling - so weird after traveling independently in Egypt through poverty stricken dusty towns where women have to jostle for enough bread, to arrive here where people fly straight in from Europe wearing little clothing (odd in the culture), to gorge themselves every morning on massive banquet tables of breakfast buffet and thousands of bread rolls.

That said, sometimes you need a break. I got a great internet deal on the hotel, and I admit to feeling sublime pleasure after spending a hot, dusty, dirty day visiting Luxor and Karnak entirely on foot and walking all the way back to the hotel through fields (it's quite a ways), at jumping into the pool and swimming up to the bar for an ice cold beer, and taking a little time off from Egypt.

The boat into town is convenient and it seemed you could tip the attendant to let you off on the other bank. The trip's not exactly beautiful because of all the garbage. Visit Medinat Habu while you're here. The rooms were comfortable. We preferred staying outside of the city of Luxor (on our way back we stayed at the Morris in town) even if you may miss the food.

If you get a good deal, I'd bump this up to 4/5.

This review is a little late (only because i;ve just found out how to do all this; im new to tripadviser!) but still valid i hope!

Sofital Karnak - great hotel. good facilities, fabulously welcoming staff. We made friends with everyone and were even given typical egyptian names they would call us. The road leading to the hotel may have scared you but you were soon in the compounds and all is well. Having said that, the work they were doing was pretty quick - we stayed for 5 days or so and the progress they had made was pretty good (a lot to be said of our builders here who take tea breaks every 5 mins!!) However, the area was under going some major restoration and construction to liven up for the tourism industry heading their way. Rooms are a good size and the python made out of the bed cover that the clearners left on our beds were a nice touch.

food was a little disappointing in the main dining hall with buffet each night. Though the club house near the pool served nicer food at extra cost. Evening hotel entertainment - some shows each evening to keep us entertained as opposed to venturing out into the street - not quite sure about the safety of that!! good family hotel, providing good family facilities.

free shuttle service into town too every half hour, bonus!