This 9 day Egypt tour with Nile cruise is built around one decision most shorter packages cannot afford: the full four night sailing from Luxor to Aswan. You spend four nights in Cairo for the Pyramids, Saqqara, the Egyptian Museum and Islamic Cairo, then fly south and board a Nile cruise ship at Luxor for four nights that carry you past Esna, Edfu and Kom Ombo to Aswan. A short flight brings you back to Cairo for the final two nights. From $1,225 per person, with domestic flights, entrance fees and 16 meals included.
The difference between this tour and our 8 day version is the cruise itself. The 8 day package sails three nights from Aswan to Luxor; here you get the longer Luxor to Aswan direction, which adds a full day on the river and puts the Valley of the Kings, Karnak and Luxor Temple at the start of the cruise rather than the end. If the Nile is the reason you are coming to Egypt, this is the itinerary that gives it the most time.
Every visit is led by a licensed Egyptologist guide, and the tour runs as a small group of no more than 16 travellers, or privately on request. Cairo nights are in a Gold (5-star standard) hotel and the cruise is aboard a Gold (5-star standard) Nile cruise ship, with a Platinum (5-star deluxe) upgrade available for both.
Nile cruise ships run two standard routes: three nights northbound from Aswan to Luxor, or four nights southbound from Luxor to Aswan. The four night route is the one we chose for this 9 day Egypt tour with Nile cruise, and it changes the rhythm of the whole trip. You board at Luxor on day 3 and see Karnak and Luxor Temple the same afternoon. Day 4 is the West Bank, with the Valley of the Kings, the temple of Hatshepsut and the Colossi of Memnon, before the ship casts off and passes through the Esna lock. Day 5 gives you Edfu in the morning and Kom Ombo in the afternoon, both from the ship, and day 6 is a full day in Aswan with the High Dam, the Unfinished Obelisk and Philae.
On the three night route those same sites are compressed into fewer stops and the Luxor West Bank is squeezed into the disembarkation morning. Here nothing is rushed, and you still have two nights in Cairo at the end for the Egyptian Museum, the Citadel and Khan el-Khalili. The 4 night Luxor to Aswan cruise sails every Monday, Thursday and Saturday, so this tour starts in Cairo every Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday.
When you land at Cairo International Airport, your Egypt Best Vacations representative meets you inside the arrivals terminal and assists with visa and immigration formalities. From there it’s a comfortable private transfer to your hotel, with the rest of the day free to rest and settle in before your first full day of sightseeing.
Meals Plan: No Meals Included
Your Egyptologist guide collects you from your Cairo hotel and heads for the Giza Plateau, where the pyramids of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure rise above the desert alongside the Great Sphinx. Khufu’s pyramid is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing. Your guide explains how the pyramids were built, why they were built, and which questions archaeologists are still arguing about.
After lunch at a local restaurant, continue to the Grand Egyptian Museum, home to the largest collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities anywhere in the world. Here you’ll see the complete Tutankhamun collection displayed together for the first time, along with the Grand Staircase and the immersive galleries that trace Egypt from prehistory to the Roman period. Transfer back to your hotel afterwards.
Meals Plan: Breakfast & Lunch
Morning transfer to Cairo Airport for your flight to Luxor, where your guide meets you inside the arrivals terminal.
Begin at Karnak Temple — the largest religious complex ever built, covering around 100 hectares and added to by successive pharaohs across roughly 2,000 years. Its Great Hypostyle Hall, obelisks and sacred lake speak to the wealth of Thebes at its height. Continue to the Temple of Luxor, built chiefly by Amenhotep III and Ramses II and linked to Karnak by the ceremonial Avenue of the Sphinxes. Both temples honoured the Theban Triad: Amun, Mut and Khonsu.
Board your ship in the afternoon. Overnight in Luxor.
Meals Plan: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
After breakfast on board, cross to Luxor’s west bank for the Valley of the Kings, where New Kingdom pharaohs were buried in tombs cut deep into the rock to hide them from robbers. Of the 65 tombs recorded in the valley, a rotating selection is open to visitors; your guide will recommend the best three on the day.
Continue to the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari. 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. Her mortuary temple rises in three colonnaded terraces against the cliffs, one of the most striking pieces of architecture to survive from the ancient world. End the morning at the Colossi of Memnon, two seated statues of Amenhotep III that once flanked the gateway of his vast mortuary temple.
Return to your ship and sail south towards Edfu through the Esna lock. Overnight in Edfu.
Optional tour: Sunrise Hot Air Ballooning over Luxor
Meals Plan: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
After breakfast, take a horse-drawn carriage to the Temple of Horus at Edfu, built between 237 and 57 BC under the Ptolemies and the best-preserved temple in Egypt — its walls carry a complete programme of reliefs and inscriptions inside and out, including the founding texts that tell us how Egyptian temples were meant to work.
Back on board, sail on to Kom Ombo for the unusual twin temple begun under Ptolemy VI and dedicated in two mirrored halves to Sobek the crocodile god and Haroeris, Horus the Elder. Its riverside setting makes it one of the most photogenic stops on the Nile. Alongside it, the small Crocodile Museum displays mummified crocodiles and votive objects recovered nearby. The ship then continues south. Overnight in Aswan.
Meals Plan: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
After breakfast, begin at the Aswan High Dam, completed in 1970 to control the Nile flood and generate hydroelectric power — the project that created Lake Nasser and triggered the great UNESCO rescue of Nubia’s temples. Drive on to the granite quarry that holds the Unfinished Obelisk, abandoned mid-cut and still the clearest evidence we have of how obelisks were quarried.
Then take a motorboat to the Temple of Philae, dedicated to Isis and built largely under the Ptolemies and Roman emperors. Threatened by the rising water, it was dismantled and rebuilt block by block on neighbouring Agilkia Island. Return to your ship for a final night on the river.
Optional tour: Nubian Village Tour
Meals Plan: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
After breakfast, disembark. If you’d like to add the grand finale of Nubia, join our optional early-morning excursion to the Abu Simbel Temples of Ramses II and Queen Nefertari, carved into the mountainside and — like Philae — relocated by UNESCO ahead of the rising lake. The road trip leaves before dawn and returns in good time for your flight.
Fly from Aswan back to Cairo and transfer to your hotel.
Meals Plan: Breakfast Only
After breakfast, visit the Citadel of Saladin, founded in 1176 on the Mokattam spur to defend Cairo, and admire the Alabaster Mosque of Muhammad Ali that crowns it — the silhouette on Cairo’s skyline for nearly two centuries.
Continue to Coptic Cairo for the Hanging Church, suspended above a Roman gate tower and famous for its carved wooden ceiling and early icons. Then the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, Abu Serga, revered because tradition holds that the Holy Family sheltered in the crypt beneath it. End at the Ben Ezra Synagogue, where the Cairo Geniza — a hoard of medieval manuscripts that transformed our understanding of Mediterranean Jewish life — was discovered in the nineteenth century.
Finish the day at Khan El-Khalili bazaar, a working market since the fourteenth century: a maze of lanes selling spices, lamps, silver and cotton, with coffee houses that have been serving since long before tourism arrived. Return to your hotel for your final night.
Meals Plan: Breakfast Only
After breakfast, transfer to Cairo Airport for your onward flight, with nine days of pyramids, temples and river behind you. When you’re ready to plan the next trip — Abu Simbel properly, the Red Sea, the Western Desert oases — we’re here.
Meals Plan: Breakfast Only
This is our main 9 day Egypt tour with Nile cruise. If you want the same nine days at a lower price, see the 9 day Egypt budget tour; for Diamond and Elite hotels and a luxury ship, the 9 day luxury Egypt tour with Nile cruise; for a sailing dahabiya instead of a cruise ship, the 9 day Egypt dahabiya tour; for Alexandria in place of the second Cairo block, the 9 day Cairo Alexandria and Nile cruise tour; and for the holidays, the 9 day Egypt Christmas tour.
