Nile Cruise

My wife and I are signed up for the Uniworld Nile cruise next April, it was rated highly in their reviews. We looked at Viking (very expensive) at the top end to Friendly Planet tours on the lower end and Uniworld was our choice. Make sure you check to see if tips are included and if excursions are included because this can affect the price of the entire trip significantly.

I would not go to Egypt on my own like I do all over Europe, I would only go with a tour group because of the prior experiences of others who have gone to Egypt. Be sure to remember that you need a Visa to enter Egypt (and Europe in 2024) .

Another factor is the flights into and out of Cario are often in the middle of the night, with most flights being on Egyptair (which doesn't have the best reviews). We are flying to Milan and taking a 3 hour flight on Egyptair to Cairo so we can cross the Atlantic on Delta. There are direct flights on Egyptair from JFK to Cairo but again the reviews are not the best.

I am going in September on an OAT trip. This will be my third OAT trip, and I've had a very positive experience on my previous travels with them.

https://www.oattravel.com/trips/small-ship-adventures/middle-east/egypt-and-the-eternal-nile-by-private-classic-river-yacht/2021/itineraries

Let me know if you decide to travel with OAT, because I can give you a referral for a discount.

Lane brings up a good question. Do you just want a Nile Cruise, or do you want a tour of Egypt that includes a Nile cruise? We will be doing the latter, with Odyssey Unlimited, but there are several others that are also recommended.. If you do a search here, you'll see several excellent previous threads on Egypt travel. October through April have better temperatures for most people, with January being the coolest. Note that Ramadan begins in early March next year and lasts a month.

There are quite a few threads on this forum about Egypt tours and cruises, so you might want to look through them as well. Here is one that I just started that has a lot of information, including the best months to travel to Egypt. https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/beyond-europe/logistical-questions-about-egypt-tours-and-o-a-t

Also, here are results from a search of Egypt tours from the last 6 months: https://search.ricksteves.com/?button=&date_range=6m&filter=Travel+Forum&query=egypt+tours&utf8=%E2%9C%93

Gazillions of boats cruising the Nile, many of them looked quite awful to us. Decide what kind of boat you want to be on. Dahabiya, larger boat that holds 100+, or a even larger Viking cruise boat.

And we loved the cruise on Lake Nasser in addition to the Nile cruise with Odysseys Unlimited.
We pulled right up to Abu Simbel on Lake Nasser, breathtaking.