8 Day Egypt Tour with Dahabiya Nile Cruise

Your Egypt Best Vacations representative meets you inside the arrivals hall at Cairo International Airport, holding a signboard with your name, and stays with you through the visa-on-arrival desk and passport control. Private transfer to your Cairo hotel. The rest of the day is yours, and your representative confirms tomorrow’s pick-up time before leaving you.

Overnight: Cairo  |  Meals: No meals included

Your guide collects you from the hotel for the Giza Plateau: the pyramids of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure from close up and again from the panoramic viewpoint that takes in all three, then down to the Great Sphinx and the valley temple of Khafre. Going inside a pyramid chamber is possible but needs a separate ticket bought at the gate.

Lunch at a local restaurant, then the Grand Egyptian Museum, which opened to the public on 4 November 2025. The grand staircase carries monumental statuary up towards the main galleries, and the Tutankhamun wing shows the tomb’s contents together for the first time. Allow about three hours. Transfer back to your hotel afterwards.

Overnight: Cairo  |  Meals: Breakfast and lunch

Breakfast at the hotel, then transfer to Cairo Airport for the flight to Aswan, about an hour and twenty minutes. Your Aswan guide meets you in the arrivals hall.

You begin at the High Dam, built through the 1960s to end the annual flood and power the country — and in doing so creating Lake Nasser and forcing the rescue of Philae and Abu Simbel. From there to the Unfinished Obelisk, still lying where it cracked in the granite quarry; at nearly 42 metres it would have been the largest ever cut. You finish at the Temple of Isis, reached by a short boat ride across to Agilkia Island, where it was rebuilt from more than 40,000 blocks between 1972 and 1980 after the old Aswan Dam left its original site submerged for most of each year.

Transfer to your dahabiya and settle in. She stays moored at Aswan tonight, so your first evening on board is a quiet one, with dinner served on deck.

Overnight: Aboard the dahabiya, moored at Aswan  |  Meals: Breakfast, lunch and dinner

A slow morning on board at Aswan — the one genuinely unhurried stretch of the whole eight days. The dahabiya casts off around two in the afternoon.

You sail north to Kom Ombo, which sits right on the bank, so you step off the boat and into the temple. It is the only temple in Egypt built as a true double: two entrances, two hypostyle halls and two sanctuaries, one side for Sobek the crocodile god and one for Haroeris, Horus the Elder. The main structure dates to Ptolemy VI, with Roman emperors including Tiberius, Domitian and Caracalla adding to it across roughly four centuries. Look for the relief of surgical instruments, among the earliest medical images to survive from the ancient world. The Crocodile Museum alongside holds the mummified crocodiles recovered from the site.

Back aboard for a short sail to Al Ramady Island, where you moor for the night well away from the cruise quays.

Optional add-on: Abu Simbel by road from Aswan, taken in the morning and back before the dahabiya sails — it needs a pre-dawn start, so ask us in advance

Overnight: Aboard the dahabiya, moored at Al Ramady Island  |  Meals: Breakfast, lunch and dinner

A short walk from the mooring brings you to the Temple of Khnum at Esna — the ram-headed creator god who was said to have shaped human beings on a potter’s wheel. Most cruise ships queue for the lock and never stop here at all. The temple sits below the level of the modern town, and its astronomical ceiling has been under conservation for several years now, emerging from two thousand years of soot in its original colours. It is one of the few places in Egypt where you can see how vividly these buildings were painted.

You then transit the Esna Lock and sail on to Luxor, arriving that evening. Karnak first — roughly 100 hectares, thirty pharaohs building on one site across some 2,000 years — then Luxor Temple, joined to it by the Avenue of Sphinxes. Both were dedicated to Amun, Mut and their son Khonsu, the Theban triad.

Your final night aboard is spent moored in Luxor itself, with the temple lit up on the bank.

Overnight: Aboard the dahabiya, moored at Luxor  |  Meals: Breakfast, lunch and dinner

Disembark after breakfast — no transfer needed, because the boat has brought you the whole way — and cross to the west bank.

In the Valley of the Kings, 65 numbered tombs and chambers are cut into the limestone and a rotating selection is open at any time, so your guide picks the three strongest on the day. Then Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple, rising in three terraces against the cliff at Deir el-Bahari; she ruled for about twenty years as senior co-ruler alongside her stepson Thutmose III. The Colossi of Memnon on the way back, two quartzite statues of Amenhotep III around 18 metres high.

Lunch at a local restaurant, then transfer to Luxor Airport for the evening flight to Cairo, where you are met and taken to your hotel.

Optional add-on: Sunrise hot air balloon over the west bank, if you add a night in Luxor

Overnight: Cairo  |  Meals: Breakfast and lunch

Start at the Citadel of Saladin, begun in 1176 to defend Cairo against the Crusaders and expanded by successive rulers for the next 700 years. Inside stands the Mosque of Muhammad Ali, built between 1830 and 1848 and faced in alabaster, which is why Cairo calls it the Alabaster Mosque. The terrace outside gives one of the best views over the city.

Continue to Coptic Cairo, built inside and around the walls of the Roman fortress of Babylon. You visit the Hanging Church, suspended above the fortress gatehouse; Abu Serga, traditionally held to stand where the Holy Family sheltered; and the Ben Ezra Synagogue, whose storeroom yielded around 300,000 medieval manuscript fragments now known as the Cairo Geniza.

Finish at Khan el-Khalili, a working market since 1382, for lanterns, spices, silver and coffee at El Fishawy. Transfer back to your hotel for the final night.

Overnight: Cairo  |  Meals: Breakfast

Breakfast at the hotel, then transfer to Cairo International Airport for your departure flight. If your flight is late in the day, ask us about a late check-out or a day-use room, and we can add a few hours of sightseeing rather than leaving you at the airport.

Meals: Breakfast