This 6 day Cairo and Nile cruise package gives you the two halves of Egypt that matter most, and wastes no time getting between them. Two nights in Cairo for Giza and the Grand Egyptian Museum, then a flight south and three nights sailing the Nile from Aswan down to Luxor.
The route north follows the river the way the temples were built along it: the High Dam and Philae on Agilkia Island at Aswan, the twin sanctuaries of Kom Ombo, the Temple of Horus at Edfu, then through the Esna Lock to Luxor for Karnak, the Valley of the Kings and Deir el-Bahari. You unpack once on the ship and the country comes to you.
Everything on land runs privately — your own Egyptologist guide and air-conditioned vehicle at every stop, with only the cruise ship itself shared. Domestic flights, entrance fees and thirteen meals are included. Six days, no filler mornings.
Your Egypt Best Vacations representative meets you inside the arrivals hall at Cairo International Airport holding a signboard, walks you through the visa and passport formalities, and hands you to your private vehicle and driver.
After checking in, your Egyptologist guide takes you to the Giza Plateau. You will see the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the last of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing, alongside the pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure. Then to the Great Sphinx and the Valley Temple, where the granite blocks still carry the tool marks of the Old Kingdom masons who set them.
Lunch at a local restaurant. Overnight in Cairo.
Meals Plan: Lunch Only
After breakfast, transfer to the airport for the short flight to Aswan. Your tour guide meets you inside the arrivals hall at Aswan Airport with a signboard and walks you out to your guide and vehicle.
First the High Dam, built through the 1960s, which ended the Nile’s annual flood after several thousand years and created Lake Nasser behind it. Then a motorboat to the Temple of Philae, which now stands on Agilkia Island. Built largely in the Ptolemaic period, it was cut into more than forty thousand blocks and rebuilt stone by stone on higher ground when the dams threatened to drown its original island. It was the last place in Egypt where the old religion was still practised, centuries after the temples further north had closed. End your Aswan tour at the granite quarry of the Unfinished Obelisk.
Board your Nile cruise ship for lunch. Dinner and overnight moored at Aswan.
Optional tour: Nubian Village in Aswan
Meals Plan: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
An early optional excursion to Abu Simbel, either by road across the desert or by short flight, to see the two rock-cut temples of Ramesses II and Nefertari — themselves lifted and reassembled above the waterline in the 1960s. Ask us to price this into your quote before you book and it will be arranged in advance.
Back aboard for lunch as the ship casts off. In the afternoon, Kom Ombo: the only temple in Egypt built as two mirrored halves, one dedicated to Sobek the crocodile god and one to Haroeris, with twin entrances, twin sanctuaries and a perfectly symmetrical plan. Begun under Ptolemy VI. The adjacent Crocodile Museum holds mummified crocodiles recovered from the surrounding sands.
Dinner and overnight moored at Edfu.
Meals Plan: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Before breakfast a horse-drawn carriage takes you through Edfu to the Temple of Horus. Built between 237 and 57 BC under the Ptolemies, it is the most completely preserved temple in Egypt — roof intact, walls intact, its sanctuary still holding the granite shrine that once housed the god’s statue.
Back aboard, the ship sails north and transits the Esna Lock, the single narrow gate through which every vessel on this stretch of the Nile must pass. It is worth being on deck for.
On arrival in Luxor you visit Karnak, the largest religious complex ever built — around 100 hectares, raised and re-raised across some two thousand years. Its hypostyle hall alone holds 134 columns. Then Luxor Temple, built mainly by Amenhotep III and Ramesses II and connected to Karnak by an avenue of sphinxes nearly three kilometres long.
Dinner and overnight moored at Luxor.
Meals Plan: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Breakfast aboard, then disembark for the west bank.
The Valley of the Kings holds more than sixty tombs cut into the rock beneath the pyramid-shaped peak of el-Qurn. Your ticket admits you to three; your guide will tell you which are open and which are worth your time on the day, because the rotation changes.
Then the Temple of Hatshepsut, set against the cliffs of Deir el-Bahari in three great terraces. Hatshepsut began as regent for the child Thutmose III and went on to rule as a crowned king in full pharaonic regalia — with his regnal years still running alongside hers. Immediately to the south lie the remains of the much older mortuary temple of Mentuhotep II, the model her architects were answering.
End at the Colossi of Memnon, two seated statues of Amenhotep III that once flanked the entrance to his mortuary temple — in its day the largest on the west bank, though little of it now survives above ground.
Transfer to Luxor Airport for the flight to Cairo. Overnight in Cairo.
Optional tour: Sunrise Hot Air Ballooning Over Luxor
Meals Plan: Breakfast Only
After breakfast, the Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza, the largest archaeological museum in the world, where the complete Tutankhamun collection is displayed together for the first time — more than five thousand objects, most of which had never been shown publicly before the museum opened.
Then, the Citadel of Saladin, the fortress begun in 1176 to defend Cairo against the Crusaders. Its most prominent feature is the Alabaster Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha, its Ottoman domes and twin minarets visible from most of the city.
Lunch, then time in the Khan el-Khalili bazaar before your transfer to Cairo International Airport for departure.
Meals Plan: Breakfast & Lunch
