Tuesday, November 4th, 2025. That’s the newest and latest full grand opening date of the Grand Egyptian Museum. A few weeks ago, November 1st was thrown out, but as I warned in the last update video I released about that announcement, there was a high likelihood that yet more timing adjustments would soon follow… yet again. And they did.
BUT, there is one huge problem with this new timing – it’s right in the middle of the upcoming tourism high season in the fourth quarter of 2025, and before they do the grand opening, they’re going to be doing what I’m going to call a grand closing of the GEM… for over two weeks leading up to the grand opening – from October 15th through November 3rd.
This will not only cause significant disruption to the GEM’s operations during the busiest part of the year, but the severe delay in the announcement of the long-awaited details surrounding the new inconvenient grand opening and grand closing now means that hundreds of thousands of tourists who already had pre-planned trips to Egypt during the second half of October are either going to have to cancel and postpone their trips, or just not get to see the GEM at all.
This is a huge failure of planning, of strategic thinking, and especially of communication and public relations on the part of the Grand Egyptian Museum, but it’s what we’ve come to expect from the government, the ministry, and from the tourism industry generally here in Egypt.
So let’s dive into what they have now announced, what we now know from that, and what it means for you and the global traveling public.
If you saw my last video update about the GEM following the government’s announcement of a November first “grand opening,” I advised caution in believing this new date. In fact, although I made a video about it for The Egypt Travel Channel, I didn’t even bother sending it out to the 110,000 people on our GEM email list around the world yet because, as I predicted, that date would likely change by a day or few before too long, just as happened with the July grand opening date that was at first announced to be July 3rd then 5th then 6th.
In that same vein, the recently announced November 1st grand opening date has now been moved to November 4th. This is because the Egyptian government has been failing to distinguish between the full opening date to the public and the grand opening ceremony in the little communications they’ve been putting out, and no one in Egypt has been questioning – or perhaps they didn’t even know how to distinguish – that important difference.
This should be the job of the public relations office for the GEM’s management company, which is called Legacy, but they continue to be asleep on the job and are instead forcing the global public to rely on more experienced and motivated players in the tourism industry in Egypt and the wider region, like us, to do the real job of global public relations for them.
So here we are yet again doing their job for them and breaking down for you what you can expect in less than 60 days when the impact of all of this will begin to take place.
What do I mean by impact? Well, remember how I told you in previous videos that the GEM was scheduled to close for over 2 weeks in late-June in order to get ready for its July 3/5/6th grand opening? And in the last video I shared that we should expect a similar pre-opening full closure period for the GEM in advance of this new November 1st-now-4th grand opening?
Well, the official word now is that they are still going to take a full 2.5 weeks to fully close down the GEM to the public prior to its full grand opening, and this time that 2.5 weeks happens to unfortunately – and I’d even say stupidly – fall during the tourism high season in Egypt.
Tends of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people have already booked trips to Egypt for October, having fully expected the GEM to be fully open for several months already at the time that they made their travel plans. But now, those who are coming for the last two weeks of October and the first few days of November will not only not get to see the fully open GEM, but they won’t get to see the GEM at all as a result of this ill-planned 2.5 week closure during high season.
But, it is what it is. Welcome to the wonderful world of trying to do business in Egypt. We deal with this all the time, and it’s just par for the course for us. However, for those visiting Egypt only once – as most foreign tourists do, it’s a huge let-down. But it’s one that everyone will now have to work with and plan around, so let’s talk specifics.
The new currently announced full closure period for the GEM is set for October 15th through November 3rd. That means that no one visiting Egypt during this time will be able to enter the GEM or see anything inside of the GEM during these dates.
On November 1st, we expect the government to put on a huge lavish grand opening ceremony at the GEM that will be attended by the president of Egypt, most or all of the country’s cabinet ministers, and likely also many foreign ambassadors, dignitaries, and celebrities from around the region.
However, we know that Egypt’s most famous global celebrity, Liverpool football MVP Mo Salah, likely won’t be there for that November 1st ceremony because the powers that be within Egypt scheduled the ceremony on the one day around that time that Liverpool plays a match. Another not-so-smart or well-thought-out decision that will likely prevent their biggest goal asset from being present on the big day.
But again it is what it is.
If you currently have a trip planned to Egypt in late-October or early-November, my best honest advice to you would be to postpone it until later… a few weeks later, or better a few months later, if you’re able to.
And if you’re planning future travel to Egypt in the next few months and haven’t made solid plans yet, I’d strongly suggest waiting until the first few weeks, with the inevitable hiccups, have a chance to pass. Come when the kinks are smoothed out so that you have a better and more predictable experience.
February, March, and April will still have good weather, and enough time will have passed so that they’ll have things running smoother. And that will also give you enough buffer time so that if for some reason they miss this new target grand opening date yet again, you’ll have time to reschedule.
Egypt and the GEM are still absolutely worth seeing. The tourism industry here just suffers from a lot of pathologies that make planning a trip here without expert help – especially a trusted person on the ground here – a little difficult.
But as long as you’re subscribed to The Egypt Travel Channel here on YouTube, you’ll always be plugged into the best sources of information about travel to and around Egypt, no matter when you want to visit.
