Long Nile cruise ...

Just starting to plan for 2017, yes a bit later than we usually plan but so be it...

Has anyone found any good companies offering the traditional 'Long Nile cruise' - Cairo to Aswan, rather than the more common 'few days in a hotel in Cairo then fly to Luxor/Aswan for a few days on the Nile.'?

I know there are not many ships operating the full length of the Nile these days, but I've found a couple of options and I'm wondering if I've missed any... :)

Hi Mark,

I had seen that Pandaw had a partner agreement with Misr, but on checking just now it is saying all dates sold out.

I see Noble Caledonia has a couple of dates for 2017. I am interested in this for 2018.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll take a look at Noble Caledonian.

You know, there are also cruises on Lake Nasser, above the Aswan Dam. We did the "few days on the Nile" last year, Luxor to Aswan and return. It was actually 7-days and it was fabulous. If I'd wanted to add on, it would have been a further cruise further upstream. But I'm curious to see what you find. It's a long way, but there would be lots of archaeological sites to see I think.

Well, that was an interesting exercise in research and discovery :)

It would appear that if you want the 'Long Nile' or as it is sometimes referred to, the '600 mile Nile' then you need to decide which ship you want then go looking for the best deal as none of the specialist river cruise companies seem to offer this option.

There are 3 ships that seem to be used for this route, but there are only a very small number of dates each year when they do the long cruise, spending the rest of the time on the more common short cruises between Luxor and Aswan.

The ships are the MS Misr, MS Darakum and MS Hamees.

As far as I can tell, it really doesn't make much of a difference which company you book the cruise with as all services between the initial boarding and the final departure are handled by the owners of the ship, which is Mövenpick for all three ships. Your chosen cruise company will be taking care of your flights and transfer but that is all.

As a result you will find the same ship and dates being offered by several different companies with often very different prices, but buried in the details you'll see words like 'When on board the Nile cruise, the transfers and excursions relevant to that cruise are operated as a group with other passengers who may or may not be xxxxx clients.'.

Choice of ship is quite polarized. For 2017 the majority of the cruises seem to be on MS Misr and MS Darakum.

So that leaves you with a small ship choice, MS Misr, which is a restored and refurbished steam ship, originally built by the British Royal Navy in 1918 and later converted into a luxury Nile steamer for King Farouk. With 24 cabins and 8 suites it will only ever have at most 48 guests on board.

Then there is the larger choice of the MS Darakum, a much more modern ship, recently refurbished and with 44 cabins and 8 suites, it is still going to hold at most 104 guests.

So when you hunt around do dig deep as there are some quite large vairations in cost between the high-end private travel companies and the rest, offering essentially an identical experience.

I'll start a thread shortly covering the particular choice we have made, which is on MS Darakum, and I'll leave this thread as a more general one covering what is available for this relatively unusual itinerary...

... or I can just continue here...

There may not be a huge interest in this itinerary so I may as well keep it all in one place.

We have opted for the upstream cruise, from Cairo to Aswan. This will be a 14 night trip, if you opt to go downstream from Aswan to Cairo it is a 12 night cruise. Same stops each way just a bit faster travel when you are sailing with the current...

Regarding flights, you may need to be a little more creative in your routing, especially if you are starting in Aswan as you will need to get to Cairo first and then take an Egyptair flight from Cairo to Aswan.

A lot of the flights will get you into Cairo quite late in the day so your 'day 1' will be quite short, more so if you are connecting on to Aswan. Egyptair offers some of the best international routing, as you might expect, including direct flights from JFK, LHR and other major airports.

We will be starting this trip from the UK and we've opted to fly via Amman, Jordan, as this gives us better options to arrive early in the day, with an overnight in Amman on the way out and Cairo on the way back.

Whichever direction you travel in, you'll have to deal with the transfer between Cairo and Aswan at some point. If you opt for the 12 night downstream route starting in Aswan you'll have a late arrival on day 1 but no further issues as the flights out of Cairo are relatively easy and well timed for your return.

When you do the 14 night upstream route it can leave you with a somewhat rushed and long final day, as if you want to visit Abu Simbal (who wouldn't?) it will be on the final day with a very early start (around 3-4am) then a reasonably tight connection to a 1:30pm flight connecting from Aswan to Cairo and on to your international flight.

We elected to take the stress out of that day by taking a much later flight from Aswan at around 6:00pm and spending a night in Cairo before flying home early the following day.

I'll keep this thread updated with other details and oddities as we encounter them :)

Thanks for this information. The long Nile cruise sounds very interesting. Those Abu Simbel flights do leave crazy early! I remember leaving our Cairo hotel around 3AM to fly there. What a long day!

I hope you do a review and some pictures when the cruise is done. The Nile between Luxor and Cairo is so rarely visited. I hope you have a great trip.

Thanks, we'll certainly document this trip and report on what we find, as few people seem to be doing it these days.

Plenty of photos of course.

You know, there are also cruises on Lake Nasser, above the Aswan Dam. We did the "few days on the Nile" last year, Luxor to Aswan and return. It was actually 7-days and it was fabulous. If I'd wanted to add on, it would have been a further cruise further upstream. But I'm curious to see what you find. It's a long way, but there would be lots of archaeological sites to see I think.

We did the Lake Nasser cruise when we went too, and believe me Abu Simbel is not to be missed. Luckily for us, Vantage was one of the very few companies that included Abu Simbel and the Lake Nasser cruise....everyone else we looked at offered it as an optional for several hundred dollars or not at all. That's the main reason we chose Vantage...and there were quite a few archaeological sites that we stopped at, all of them different and worth seeing.

Time flies...

It is now less than two weeks until our adventure begins.

Everything is booked, planned and arranged, all that remains is the packing.

The Mövenpick MS Darakum awaits our arrival for the 14 night cruise onboard and we look forward to whatever that may bring.

I suspect that internet quality will prevent us from doing much in the way of 'live' updates but I'll certainly post again with photos upon our return.

I am among those looking forward to your trip report. Bon voyage!

Have a great trip. Looking forward to your report!

Enjoy, Long Nile Cruise is on my bucket list.

Heading off to the airport shortly, flying from Heathrow to Amman, Jordan.

We'll stay over night there then a short flight into Cairo just after lunch.

A lot more civilized than the direct BA flight which doesn't get into Cairo until around midnight, or even the Egyptair flight that arrived just before 9pm.

I'll post again as I can over the days ahead, then catch up on anything I've missed when we get back.

Have a great trip! Looking forward to hearing about it.

Internet is a little variable so I'll post in short bursts :)

Flights to Amman, Jordan went smoothly. Bags checked through to Cairo so didn't need to collect them in Amman.

A hotel representative met us at the plane door and went off to obtain free transit visas for us, before escorting us through the Jordanian only path through to land-side.

Whole process took about 15 mins from the plane door.

Short drive in hotel bus and we were checked in and on our way to the room 10 mins later.

Very smooth and pain free process over all.

The room at the Amman Airport Hotel was basic but clean and the included breakfast the following morning was good as well.

The hotel bus returned us to the airport a couple of hours before our flight and as transit passengers we again bypassed the main lines and took a shortcut to air-side.

Relaxed in the Royal Jordanian lounge before take-off on the short flight to Cairo...

... landed in Cairo mid-afternoon and we were met shortly after leaving the plane by our TA's local rep.

He went and got the visa stamps for us and then expedited our passage through the immigration process avoiding any lines.

Bags arrived very quickly and we were once again outside the airport and onboard our transport for the trip to the boat in no time at all.

From here it slowed down a bit due to Egyptian traffic :)

Our driver kept in contact with the ship as it was moving around a bit at that time and after about 90 mins we were greeted kerbside by the ships Hotel Manager with about 4 porters who insisted on carrying everything they could as we were led from the kerb across one other ship and on to our ship.

Checking was conducted informally in the lounge by the Front Of House manager while we were served a cool welcome drink.

Our cabin was ready immediately and we soon saw that we were probable one of, if not the first to arrive.

Others slowly arrived all the way up until around midnight.

The evening meal was available from 6:30pm and the tables were assigned by tour group.

There are guests from about 6 or so different tour companies here, the largest group being from Voyages Jules Verne. They are sharing a guide with another group from Regent Travel.

We have 13 people in our group which is a very comfortable size, some of the others looked somewhat larger.

The meal was buffet style with a manned carvery station, serving lamb on the first night.

The soup and salad options were good with plenty of choices.

I would have to say that this is not going to be a cruise for the 'foodies' but we have been happy with the quality and choice so far.

The staff and for that matter everyone we have met in Egypt so far are friendly and extremely happy to see us.

internet was not available on the first evening, but by the second evening it was working pretty well.

We went to bed relatively early the first night as we needed to be ready to leave the ship by 7am the following morning for the visit to the Giza pyramids.

I'll post more about that after lunch. Currently relaxing in a cabana on the sundeck watching the Nile pass by :)

Hard to overstate just how welcoming everyone is, if we pass any adult or child on the bank they wave and call out 'welcome' or whatever other English they know, if we pass under a road bridge the trucks passing by sound their horns and wave. I don't think they have seen many ships on this part of the Nile recently...

So breakfast available from 6am and ready to leave the ship by 7am for the drive to the pyramids and the Sphinx through the morning Cairo traffic.

It took about 45 mins by the time we got started and we reached the entrance just as it was opening at 8am.

We were probably the 2nd or 3rd coach through the gates and there wasn't much behind us.

Very peaceful at first although it did get busier through the morning.

There were two options on this part of the tour, you could pay extra to go inside the Great Piramid ($10) or visit the Solar Boat ($3 +$2.50 for camera use).

There were of course sellers of all the usual things like wood carvings, postcards etc. but they were not persistent and not that many of them either.

We spent the morning there and returned to the ship for lunch.

All in all a great start to the day.

After lunch it was the museum trip...

The museum is only about 10 mins from where the ship docks but that became 30 mins through traffic.

The new museum is still very much under construction and I'd be very surprised if was actually ready for visitors within the next couple of years.

The current museum is still very interesting to visit but is certainly not best equipped for preservation of the exhibits, hence the new one being built.

Our guide provided the little radio receivers and earpieces that will be familiar to Viking and other cruisers, so we could hear him once inside the museum.

He then took us through each of the main exhibits before letting us loose for the last hour to wander on our own. In total we spent about 3 hours there and there was plenty to see. Once on our own there was an option to visit the 'Royal Mummy Room' ($5). We took the option and found it interesting.

Back to the ship and a little time to relax before dinner.

The following day would be a 'sea day' so plenty of time catch up on missing sleep.

Thanks for taking the time to post. We're enjoying your description of the trip!

I'll see if I can get a few photos up tomorrow and fill in some more general details.

Always happy to take questions as well of course.

I am so happy I found this thread Mark. We are celebrating our 35th anniversary in Nov. of this year. We had this trip booked back when the uprising started and had to cancel and have been waiting to do it again. I just said to my husband yesterday, "Want to do Egypt for our anniversary?" So I looked here on CC and here is your live post. YAY!!! How is security Mark? That is the one thing that is tops on our list. From reading your posts it doesn't seem like it is an issue which is wonderful. I am reading this with so much interest. Thanks for posting and look forward to the rest of your trip!!!