This 7 day Egypt Christmas tour blends Cairo’s iconic landmarks with a relaxing Nile cruise, delivering an unforgettable Christmas holiday package for history lovers and first-time visitors alike. Start your journey in Cairo, where you’ll explore its iconic landmarks. The Cairo pyramids tour takes you to the Great Pyramids of Giza and the enigmatic Sphinx. At the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), marvel at the complete Tutankhamun collection and more than 100,000 other ancient Egyptian treasures.
Next, fly to Aswan to embark on a 3-night Christmas Nile cruise vacation from Aswan to Luxor. Visit the majestic Philae Temple on Agilkia Island, a beautiful tribute to the goddess Isis. As the cruise sails north, explore the grandeur of the Karnak Temple, the largest religious complex ever built, and the awe-inspiring Valley of the Kings, home to royal tombs. Before you fly home, spend a final day discovering Coptic and Islamic Cairo and shopping in the historic Khan El-Khalili bazaar.
This Cairo and Nile cruise package combines Egypt’s most iconic destinations into a single seamless experience. From Cairo’s bustling streets to the serene beauty of the Nile, this tour provides insights into Egypt’s fascinating history and culture. Book your spot on one of our Egypt Christmas tours today. With our expertly planned 7 days Egypt itineraries, your Christmas holiday will be as magical as Egypt’s timeless wonders.
Touch down in the land of the pharaohs. Your representative from Egypt Best Vacations will be waiting inside the arrivals terminal at Cairo International Airport with a signboard bearing your name, ready to guide you through visa and passport formalities. From there, a comfortable air-conditioned transfer takes you straight to your hotel — no queues, no confusion, just a smooth start to your 7 day Egypt Christmas tour. Settle in, get your bearings, and rest up for the adventure ahead.
Meals Plan: No Meals Included
Your Cairo and Nile cruise Christmas holiday properly begins as your expert tour guide picks you up from your hotel for a day at the Giza Plateau. Today’s tour includes the Great Pyramids of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure alongside the Great Sphinx — the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing. You’ll learn about the history of the pyramids, how they were constructed, and why. (Optional: step inside Khufu’s pyramid.)
Enjoy lunch at a local restaurant, then continue to the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), the new purpose-built home for more than 100,000 ancient Egyptian artefacts, including the complete Tutankhamun collection displayed together for the first time. Transfer back to your hotel to enjoy your Christmas evening.
Meals Plan: Breakfast & Lunch
Get ready for four unforgettable days aboard your Nile cruise ship! Transfer from your Cairo hotel to the airport for your flight to Aswan, where the Nile cruise leg of your 7 day Egypt Christmas tour begins. Your guide will be waiting inside the arrivals terminal to start your Aswan city tour.
First stop is the Aswan High Dam, one of the largest embankment dams in the world, built between 1960 and 1970 to tame the Nile’s annual flood and generate electricity for modern Egypt. From there, continue to the Temple of Isis at Philae — moved stone by stone to Agilkia Island in a UNESCO rescue operation after the original island was threatened by the dam’s rising waters. Your tour ends at the granite quarry of the Unfinished Obelisk, abandoned mid-carving after a crack appeared in the stone — had it been completed, it would have been the largest obelisk ever raised in Egypt.
Board your Nile cruise ship, settle into your cabin, and enjoy an overnight in Aswan.
Optional tour: Nubian Village in Aswan
Meals Plan: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Spend a free morning aboard your ship, or join the optional excursion to Abu Simbel: the twin rock-cut temples Ramses II carved into a mountainside around 1264 BC, relocated block by block in the 1960s to escape the rising waters of Lake Nasser, and famous for the sun’s alignment through the inner sanctuary on two mornings each year.
Around midday, your ship sails for Kom Ombo. Disembark to visit the unique double Temple of Sobek and Horus — a rare symmetrical design with mirrored halls and sanctuaries dedicated to the crocodile god Sobek on one side and the falcon god Horus on the other. Construction began under Ptolemy V and continued for roughly 400 years, with later Roman emperors adding their own reliefs. Next door, the site’s Crocodile Museum displays mummified crocodiles recovered from the temple grounds, once revered here as sacred animals. Return to your ship as it sails on to Edfu, where you’ll spend the night.
Meals Plan: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Before breakfast, take a horse-drawn carriage into Edfu to visit the Temple of Horus — the best-preserved temple in all of Egypt, thanks to centuries buried under desert sand that shielded it from weathering until 19th-century excavation uncovered it whole. Built during the Ptolemaic period (237–57 BC), its walls remain almost entirely covered in their original reliefs and hieroglyphic inscriptions.
Return to your ship for the sail north to Luxor via the Esna Lock, a highlight in itself as your vessel is raised and lowered to meet the river’s level. On arrival in Luxor, visit the Temple of Karnak — at roughly 100 hectares, the largest religious complex ever built, expanded by generation after generation of pharaohs over some 2,000 years — and the Temple of Luxor, largely the work of Amenhotep III and Ramses II. Both were dedicated to the Theban Triad of Amun, Mut and Khonsu, and were once linked by a nearly two-mile Avenue of Sphinxes.
Meals Plan: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Disembark and cross the Nile to the West Bank, the necropolis of ancient Thebes. In the Valley of the Kings, New Kingdom pharaohs were buried in tombs cut deep into the limestone hills to keep them hidden from robbers — more than 60 tombs have been found here, including that of Tutankhamun, discovered intact by Howard Carter in 1922.
Continue to the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari, its three terraces rising dramatically against the cliff face — designed by her chief architect and steward Senenmut. Hatshepsut began as regent for Thutmose III and went on to rule as a crowned king in full pharaonic regalia, with his regnal years still running alongside hers. End at the Colossi of Memnon, two 18-metre statues of Amenhotep III that once guarded his vanished mortuary temple — ancient Greek and Roman visitors reported one statue “singing” at dawn, a sound produced by cracks in the stone after a 27 BC earthquake.
Enjoy lunch at a local restaurant before transferring to Luxor Airport for your flight back to Cairo, followed by a transfer to your hotel.
Optional tour: Sunrise Hot Air Ballooning over Luxor
Meals Plan: Breakfast & Lunch
Spend your last morning tracing Cairo’s layered history. In Coptic Cairo, visit the Hanging Church — built atop the gatehouse towers of the old Roman fortress of Babylon and dating back to the 3rd or 4th century AD, making it one of Egypt’s oldest churches. Nearby, the Ben Ezra Synagogue began life as a Christian church before being acquired by Cairo’s Jewish community in the 9th century; it later yielded the Cairo Geniza, a trove of nearly 300,000 medieval documents that reshaped historians’ understanding of the era.
Continue into Islamic Cairo to the Citadel of Saladin, built in 1176 to defend the city against the Crusaders, and the Alabaster Mosque of Muhammad Ali within its walls — raised between 1830 and 1848 and named for the alabaster cladding on its exterior walls, its Ottoman-style dome and twin minarets still define the Cairo skyline.
Enjoy lunch at a local restaurant before heading to Khan El-Khalili, a bazaar trading continuously since it was founded as a caravanserai in 1382, for some final souvenir shopping. Then it’s time for your transfer to Cairo Airport for departure — wrapping up your 7 day Egypt Christmas tour. Safe travels, and we hope to welcome you back for your next adventure in Egypt.
Meals Plan: Breakfast & Lunch
