BillPizzaiolo

We got home last night from the long flights from Cairo. It was well worth the effort. Our Uniworld Nile River Cruise experience in Egypt was as if we were on a 5 star VIP private tour with an expert Egyptologist. Hatem was very knowledgeable and led our group through the historical sites holding our attention every minute of the trip. He watched out for us and we felt very safe and secure throughout.

Before and after the cruise we stayed overnight in the Four Seasons Cairo at Nile Plaza. It was part of the cruise package. We had room service dinner on our balcony overlooking the Nile and Cairo both evenings. Upon visiting the sights the only thing we experienced that was uncomfortable was desperate attempts of the souvenir vendors selling their wares. Our guide insulated us from the hassle. As we were transported, in AC comfort, from site to site people and children waved friendly waves. Everything was excellent. The chef on board met every request. The staff was friendly, efficient and very competent. The food and presentation was perfect. The chef even made a near eastern cooking demonstration on deck one afternoon.

Seeing the infrastructure designed for the huge tourist industry sit idle was bad for Egypt but a big advantage for us. There were no lines, no waiting anywhere. I would do it again it was a bargain and a once in a lifetime experience. Not very ADA accessible at the sites if you have walking issues, lots of stairs and rough paths along with the heat of Egypt. After all, the sights were built and designed thousands of years ago. It is one of the must see places in the world if you are willing to make the effort.

Included Ports and key tour locations all accompanied by a (college professor Egyptologist) Hatem Abdel Aziz and an armed security guard (thankfully needed only for peace of mind).

Day 1 & 2, Cairo = Hotel stay Four Seasons Cairo Nile Plaza

Tour of Cairo's Old Citadel of Salah al-Din with Alabaster Mosque and Egyptian Museum.

Day 3, Flight to Luxor, Temple of Karnak & Embark on River Tosca, evening visit to Luxor Temple

Day 4 AM visit to Temple of Hathor at Dendera, Light show at Luxor Temple

Day 5 AM visit to Valley of the Kings, Hatsheput Temple and Colossi of Memnon, Galabeya party in evening

Day 6 visit Kom Ombo Temple, cruise towards Aswan, bird-watching boat ride & visit to an island Nubian Village. Evening Belly Dancer & Whirling Dervish dancer exhibition on board.

Day 7 visit unfinished obelisk, Philae Temple then Aswan High Dam, Afternoon visit Felucca boat ride to have high tea at Old Cataract Hotel. Evening Nubian show.

Day 8 early AM Took optional visit to Abu Simbel PM cruised to Edfu via Kom Ombo

Day 9 Visit Temple of Horus cruised back to Luxor

Day 10 Disembark at Luxor flew back to Cairo, Evening Sound and light show at the Pyramids of Giza. Ovenight in Four Seasons Hotel Cairo Nile Plaza.

Day 11Visit Memphis & Sakkara then Great Sphinx and camel ride around Pyramid in Giza entered either Khafre or Menkaure.

Day 12 Fly home - Thankfully we didn't get a final exam before leaving. We thoroughly enjoyed learning all about Egypt and the Nile with Hatem.

Tripit.com + common sense research and custom xl spreadsheet as backup travel summary on single printed page.

We do something similar. We keep an eye on our Roll Call and Ports on CC for ideas, go to the public library and local book store as well as check Trip Advisor to research what each port has to offer. We make a SpreadSheet in calendar mode outlining each day with a rough idea as to what we will do, wear and budget. When it is all filled in we print a full copy on one page per month and one copy of just the itinerary to post with a magnet on our cabin wall as a daily reminder. This way we can control our budget of what was paid in advance and what we need in daily fees for private guides etc. Sometimes we get colorful and put in color columns. We learned this through the years from dear friends we met on board when they gave us a copy of their format. It was a little cumbersome at first but once organized it provided an easy to look at schedule. You can also put in what you may think you would wear, & which days you have reservations for dinner etc.

Maybe we do it this way because we both were always organized in our work life planning activities for many teachers, staff members, and students. It minimizes uncomfortable surprises but allows for pleasant ones to appear in serendipitous ways.

Hi Brittany, thanks for taking the time to explain the process to us. Also thanks for the interest you've taken lately in the Oceania forum.

 

What I'd like to know, to put this into perspective is;

 

How many CC editors participate in this exercise?

 

Out of that number how many of them had cruised on Oceania in the last couple of years?

 

What ships did they cruise on?

 

I appreciate the information. I have to agree with the people that think Celebrity is one of the better mass market ships, with Oceania a cut above them in many things, but not all. Food would definitely be one of them, probably the biggest. But I think the Celebrity food is very good.

I would also add were any of them comp'ed or treated differently from the other passengers? Up grades, drinks, dinners, flights, etc?

With all due respect, I believe that Bill was closer to the truth than Brittany.

 

Being Editors, the voting group at Cruise Critic have a vested interest in the winners of their Contest having some newsworthy aspect to them, preferably of the happy-clappy variety.

 

Elegant surroundings, great food and wonderful service may be paramount to most real life passengers, but listing those qualities continuously may result in repetitious copy.

 

Thus the "Best Inside Cabin" goes to Disney because they feature (I kid you not) an oversized LCD "porthole" broadcasting a feed from the bridge-cam and occasionally enhanced by random acts of Disney animation!

 

While Celebrity wins best Dining on the merits of their adding a new gourmet Restaurant exclusive to Suite Passengers....while the addition of a late night Room Service Fee for anyone not in a Suite goes unmentioned.

 

+1 we must remember that $$$$ is a very sneaky outside influence on statistics and complete honesty on how the data is collected must be present. One cannot indicate something is best from limited data collection and possible advertising $$$$$. Editorial info is very different from scientific data collection and statistics. Been there and done that both ways in my past work life.

Don

I discovered that there had been a blurring of the lines between editorial content and advertising in many major publications..

Most folks don't realize how controlled information is by those that provide it. Just follow the money and influence. In government, politics, or life in general. We must be informed readers of information from many varied sources in all areas, print, internet, cable, TV, radio, podcasts, personal experiences, education, etc. Don't make up your mind from just one source. Gather them all glean out the speck of truth in each and then make up your mind. We are being controlled by nefarious purveyors of information trying to win hearts and minds.

A very brief review of our recent Aug 2nd Baltic cruise is at: http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=511085&et_cid=2394580&et_rid=10435950&et_referrer=Boards

Wii do, thanks!

If it does happen it will not happen on a day that the ship is underway. It will be a port day that they are not taking on water, fuel, or supplies.

Thanks for your sage advice.

No flame thrower here. We are going and will enjoy the thrill of being where folks are afraid to go. You never know what the future will bring. Life is too short to fight for nothing. Hope to see all of our fellow travelers wherever they may be. New friends we haven't met yet.

We carefully read the State Department notices and get updates whenever they send them out.

What does it matter where Uniworld HQ is based?? And how sure can you be that a company that like most others that is in the business of making money won't do something unsafe? Willing to bet your life on it??

 

Am truly amazed at the number of people who will put their lives in the hands of companies blindly trusting the companies to protect them and do nothing unsafe.

Opinions are like belly buttons everyone has one. Thanks for telling us yours.

Like hotels and transfers, anything you book through he cruise line will be way more expensive than you can find on your own.

One would expect a higher quality or uniqueness for the premium price point the cruise line offers on those services. Which is really a commission for organizing the tour/experience/class. Some programs are worth it for the convenience of not having to do the research. No point in complaining, there is a market for it. So we have to be informed consumers.

I think it's the right of US citizens to travel where they want, after all we are a free country. However when they chose to go to a place that is in political turmoil with all sort of warning from the state dept and then get in trouble they expect people to go to their rescue. It's not fair to the US service personal.

Please post where the State Department has posted a warning that states we should not go there. It only says avoid crowds and that is something I do in the States as well. If they say don't go there, we won't and the ship's company will cancel the cruise. Uniworld HQ are in California. I am sure they won't do something unsafe.

I don't know, we enjoy the classes on the ship. However we did one in Venice that was "O"'s and it was off ship---it wasn't good at all and cost about 3 times what we could have done finding it our self (like we did in Rome).

Rick

We only did one with Oceania when we were in New Zealand. It was okay but not hands on. We made the best of it. You realize Venice is beautiful but...

The schools we did everywhere else ranged from good to excellent. None however compared with a baking courses we took in NYS at the CIA or the Annual Kneading Conference and the Stone Turtle Wood-fired Oven School in Maine.

I will post our experiences and hope that more people can then enjoy Egypt and its wonderful history by going there themselves. The hotels etc look very promising.

I believe that Oceania sensed the fact that many of us have, on our own booked culinary experiences in stead of taking tourist tours. We have in Vietnam, Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Italy, Chile, Lyons France, Hungary, Australia and New Zealand and soon in China. They all made our trips wonderful and the hands on learning lots of fun. Visiting the food markets helped us get local packaged ingredients that were difficult or expensive here in the States. So the marketing will attract business to Oceania for a more serious group of people that like to cook.

Actually, the crime rate in Cairo is lower than in most large American cities.

 

I checked the State Department website for travel advisories and warnings regarding travel to Egypt. Currently there are none. The SD does advise Americans in Egypt not to get involved in street demonstrations, labor actions or any other protest actions because these can turn violent.. Otherwise, you should observe the normal cautions you would when travelling abroad. Searching a little deeper, I found that US government employees stationed in Cairo may travel freely in all areas except for the Sinai, where special permission is required. Two Americans were kidnapped in the Sinai in 2012 and eventually released to their families.

 

I also checked the statistics on tourist deaths in various countries over the past 10 years and found that you are much more likely to die or be kidnapped in places like Mexico, Thailand, Brazil, Dominican Republic, etc. than in Egypt. In addition, I specifically looked for Americans killed in Egypt in recent years and found the following:

 

1993 -- five people, including two Americans, shot to death by what was described as a "madman," who may or may not have had connections to militants

 

2005 -- three people, including one American, killed in an historic marketplace by a bomb detonated by a suicide motorcyclist bomber

 

2010 -- eight American killed in a fatal collision near Aswan between a tour bus and a truck. This appears to have been a traffic accident and not related to terrorism

 

That's the extent of what I could find. So I will leave it to you to decide how safe Egypt is for American tourists compared with other tourist destinations, both inside and outside the US. As for me, I am currently planning to travel to Egypt next year, something I and my spouse have wanted to do for many years. The level of actual risk (very small) shown by the statistics doesn't seem to me to justify the reputation for extreme danger portrayed in the media in recent years.

+2 votes from us. Recent current statistics about NYC indicate that it is the safest large city in the country if not the world. So for all the bad mouthing of NYC due to its past history is currently out of date. We are due to cruise the Nile soon and are looking forward to it.

Confused Bill, you say you are enrolled in a US State Dept. program yet the link you provided is an Egyptian Tourism website. Don't believe anyone is naive enough to believe what they read on a tourism website. From your opening sentence thought you were enrolled is something coming directly from the Government?????

 

Perhaps you provide the wrong links as they are identical??

OOps I screwed up. The other link is:

http://photos.state.gov/libraries/egypt/19452/pdfs/ACS_Newsletter_1_3En.pdf

and the STEP program is quoted here from the State Department website:

TRAVEL TO EGYPT

Before travelling to Egypt, you should enroll in STEP and visit the Department of State's international travel website to learn steps you can take for a safe and healthy trip.

We also encourage you to visit U.S. Embassy Cairo’s Message for U.S. Citizens webpage to read the latest travel advisory for Egypt.

We are committed to go unless Uniworld stops the cruise. Their trip insurance and commitment to safety and the fact that many Americans live and work in Egypt are enough for us to realize that the sky is not falling. We don't take unnecessary chances but we do travel safely.

We enrolled in the US Dept. of State STEP program

(http://en.egypt.travel/region/index/nile-valley)

and we get announcements from the countries we are about to visit.

Attached to one we got today was a link http://en.egypt.travel/region/index/nile-valley that looked very helpful.

There are many American ex-pats living in Egypt. It doesn't look as bad as some posters are indicating. That is a shame. Hope to see you soon.

Bill

I totally agree

Plus 2 from here in NJ

We use a small device to do that instead of having to carry our laptop. It is an iogear media share hub unit that accepts wifi, USB, SDXC cards and cat 5 connections in and out. It also has enough battery power to recharge our iPad if needed you can put a huge memory card in it too. It is small enough to fit into a man's shirt pocket. You may wish to check it out. Various units range in price from $35 to $150 depending on features. A very good one would cost around $50. Search for "media share hub."

I am a numbers type person, there were 32,719 traffic deaths in the USA according to recent statistics, 4,735 pedestrian deaths in similar statistics in the USA, firearms killed 32,251 people in recent statistics in the USA. The resent attack in Egypt a few members protecting the people in Luxor were attacked and killed. Do I still drive on some of the most dangerous highways in the USA? Do I go to NYC, the Bronx, Harlem, Newark, Trenton, Patterson, Camden NJ Lakewood, & Asbury Park? You bet. You have to live and enjoy life. You can't hole up in the Pine Barrens or rural Montana or North Dakota.

I live in NYC and must say I feel safer walking the streets here than I would walking around Cairo

 

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That is because you are familiar with the City. You know where and when to go to places. When you know a city and are street wise you will never have a problem. It is when you let your guard down and do something foolish or at a foolish time. You know what to wear, how to walk, and how to avoid trouble.

I went to school (138th & Convent Ave) all through the Harlem riots. Took the 125th St. Crosstown bus from the Pelham Bay/Lexington Ave Subway station. Never had a bad day then or today in NYC. Yet there are places I wouldn't go alone at the wrong time of day or night. Please don't scare folks into not going to NYC or any other city. There are safe ways to travel. You can't draw attention to yourself and act obviously out of place.

Always be very observant and respectful when visiting other cultures. Dress like the locals, walk like the locals and hire good guides if you need one. Avoid, white sneakers, white belts, shirts and jackets with logo's that aren't internationally accepted, shorts where long pants are usually worn, obvious bling, too much gold or Rolex's, never hold an iPad over head to take a picture. In other words low key. And soak it all in and enjoy the culture.

Right now is the best time to go to the Nile in small groups or river cruises because the crowds are not going. Best of luck in your travels.

I realize the most probable reason for Oceania skipping the port for Cairo. It has to do with logistics. Transporting the very large group of passengers once on land in a place where those very obvious large groups will be moving in convoy to the various sites would be an attractive nuisance to any terrorist looking for a headline.

I feel the same way every time we go into Times Square. Maybe it is my hyper vigilant mode learned from my tour of duty in Saigon and Danang. Large groups of people in one small place make me nervous. Yet as the Duprees sing, I want to see the Pyramids along the Nile.

Well thank goodness there has not been a repeat of 9-1-1 in NYC or anywhere in N.A.

So Boston bomber, doesn't count? Come on folks its is all over the world. There are folks that do terrorist things everywhere. You have to be hyper vigilant wherever you go. It is something that keeps us alive everyday, in NYC, Boston, or Bear country in the woods of North NJ or the wilds of Alaska or Glacier National Park. We are going to Egypt this fall. I will post about our river cruise when we get back.

I must agree with Dom and Don whole heartedly. We were in a cooking class with Chef Kelly one morning and JP's suite was down the hall from the culinary center. He walked in wearing his bathrobe, to see what we were doing and asked chef Kelly if he could make himself a breakfast omelet. Sure enough Kelly said "yes chef by all means." So we had a "guest instructor" that morning. He was so delightful whenever we saw him the entire trip. He would approach us pleasantly. We tried not to interfere with his "vacation time." No one on board mobbed him and he was very approachable. You should have a great trip.