Typical cruise route (3/4Nights)
Choosing between cruise vs flights Most people traverse egypt via cruise as its convenient. Most temples or towns are along the nile river . 97% of egypt is desert and hence ~95% of people live along the river. Given we were in egypt for about 9/10 nights, we contemplated spending more time in towns and staying via hotels instead of living on boat. Finally we chose to go the cruise route and i'm glad we did. The room was only for few hours of sleeping and the time on sundeck was an amazing experience by itself as we kept seeing all the small towns and villages tnat come along.
Added benefit is that most of farming, wildlife is along the river too. You can see full herds of camels, birds, cows and so on..
There are plenty of great options Historia cruise, SS Sudan and Movenpick, we booked our cruise 1 day before we left india and these were sold out. We finally chose Le Fayan and total enjoyed the experience.
Le Fayan
Scenes along the aswan bank
Kom Ombo Temple
One of the first stops on boats starting from aswan, its deidcated to crocodile god sobek. Until the high dam was built, this apparently was swarming with crocodiles. Visit late in the evening or early morning for best views
First temple stop, Kom Ombo
Edfu Temple(Temple of Horus)
Stop just before we get in to luxor. While there are buses, take the 15min horse ride from jetty to temple complex
Hawkers trailing the ship to sell goods!
It's quite a scene to hook their small boats to the bigger ships and send products up and down the ship by throwing
Karnak & Luxor Temple
Sound and Light show
Hot Air Baloon ride
Make sure to choose one of the more reputed ones even if they are 2X the cost
Valley of the kings & temple of hatshepsut
A good 45 min ride from luxor but the architecture just stands out carved from a huge side of the mountain and absolutely colorful full of stories inside the tombs
