They certainly are not. I speak Levantine Arabic and learned MSA in school. I could understand Egyptian Arabic and Khaliji Arabic, but I have no chance understanding anything west of Egypt. There's a lot of extra words, even the simple words are different a lot of the time.
I traveled once to Egypt and the tour guide was delighted that I spoke Arabic. We started speaking in Arabic, but after a few minutes we switched back to English because we couldn't form complete sentences without any of us saying "What?".
I traveled once to Egypt and the tour guide was delighted that I spoke Arabic. We started speaking in Arabic, but after a few minutes we switched back to English because we couldn't form complete sentences without any of us saying "What?".