This 4 night New Year’s Eve Nile cruise sails from Luxor to Aswan over five days, timed so that midnight on 31 December finds you on the river rather than in a hotel ballroom. Full board, guided touring at every site, and entrance fees to all the temples on the itinerary are included.
The route opens on Luxor‘s east bank with Karnak and Luxor Temple, then gives the west bank a full unhurried morning – the Valley of the Kings, Hatshepsut’s terraced temple at Deir el-Bahari, the Colossi of Memnon. From there the ship works south through the Esna Lock to Edfu and Kom Ombo, reaching Aswan for the High Dam, the Unfinished Obelisk and Philae, with a free afternoon before you disembark.
Where you actually are when the year turns depends on which departure you book, and it is worth choosing deliberately rather than by accident. The table below sets out the options.
Late December is the right time to be here. Days in Upper Egypt sit around 22-25C, warm enough for the long walk through Karnak and comfortable in the Valley of the Kings at midday. Evenings on deck drop to roughly 10-12C, so bring a layer. And because Egypt keeps Coptic Christmas on January 7th as well, the festive season along the Nile runs from mid-December well into the new year – sail in the first week of January and you are travelling through Egypt’s own Christmas.
You choose the ship. The same itinerary runs across four classes – Standard, Deluxe, Ultra Deluxe and Luxury – so the temples, the guiding and the sailing days stay identical while the cabin, the dining and the deck space change with your budget.
Egypt Best Vacations is a licensed Egyptian tour operator based in Luxor, where this cruise begins. Every departure is led by a licensed Egyptologist, and TripAdvisor has named us a Travelers’ Choice winner three years running – 2024, 2025 and 2026. Children under 6 travel free and ages 6 to 11 pay half the adult rate.
Shorter trip? See our 3 Night New Year Nile Cruise.
Sailing at Christmas instead? See our 4 Night Christmas Nile Cruise.
Meet your Egyptologist guide at Luxor International Airport and cross straight to the east bank. Karnak first – not one temple but a complex that thirty dynasties kept adding to across roughly two thousand years, each pharaoh building on what the last had left. The hypostyle hall alone holds 134 columns.
Then Luxor Temple, a 3 kilometer and a half south, once joined to Karnak by an avenue of sphinxes now excavated along its full length. Both were dedicated to the Theban triad: Amun, Mut and Khonsu.
Board your ship in the late afternoon and stay overnight in Luxor.
Meals: lunch, dinner
Cross to the west bank after breakfast, with the whole morning for it. The Valley of the Kings holds 65 known tombs, cut deep into the rock once the New Kingdom pharaohs abandoned pyramids and started hiding their burials instead. Your ticket covers three; your guide picks the best open on the day, since both decoration and crowding vary. Tutankhamun’s tomb and those of Seti I and Ramses V need separate tickets and can be added on request.
On to Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari, built in terraces straight into the cliff face – she ruled as sole pharaoh for around twenty years. A final stop at the Colossi of Memnon, two seated statues of Amenhotep III and all that survives of what was once the largest temple complex in Egypt.
Back aboard to sail south through the Esna Lock, where the ship is raised to the next stretch of river. Overnight in Edfu.
Optional: sunrise hot air balloon over the west bank
Meals: breakfast, lunch, dinner
Horse and carriage to Edfu before the day heats up. The Temple of Horus is the most complete temple standing in Egypt, and the reason is unglamorous: it spent centuries buried under sand and silt, which protected the roof and the reliefs until excavation in the 1860s. The inscriptions here are the fullest surviving record of how an Egyptian temple actually worked.
Sail on to Kom Ombo, a double temple split precisely down its centre line – one half for Horus the falcon, the other for Sobek the crocodile. Two sanctuaries, two sets of everything, mirrored. The Crocodile Museum alongside holds the mummified animals recovered from the site.
Continue to Aswan. Overnight on board.
Meals: breakfast, lunch, dinner
The High Dam first – two kilometres of rockfill that ended the Nile’s annual flood in 1970 and created Lake Nasser behind it. Then the Unfinished Obelisk, still lying in the granite quarry where it cracked; had it been raised it would have stood 42 metres and weighed over 1,000 tonnes, the largest ever attempted.
Philae last, reached by boat. The temple of Isis is not where it was built – when the water rose, the whole complex was cut into some forty thousand blocks and reassembled on higher ground at Agilkia island.
Your afternoon is free: stay aboard, or explore Aswan on your own. Final night on the ship.
Optional: Nubian village tour
Meals: breakfast, lunch, dinner
Disembark after breakfast and transfer to Aswan airport or the railway station.
Optional: Abu Simbel by road from Aswan – an early start and a long day out, charged separately. Ask us to arrange it around your departure.
Meals: breakfast
