Light Show or River Cruise?

[MSPCUBS]

I will be in Cairo for an overnight in Jan. There are 6 of us, including 3 seniors. I know we will all be tired after the long drive from Alexandria and touring all day. Which would be better to do in the evening, the sound and light show or the Nile river cruise? I know you can do both, but I think that may be too much. For those of you who have done both, which was the better?

Thanks for the information.

[MSPCUBS]

Sorry. Just read a post title "Cairo" over on page three that was the same question. The consensus was the light show.

[WeBeGone]

We did both and enjoyed the Light Show much better. It's only 45 minutes.

 

The dinner cruise was unremarkable - the food was nothing special, the entertainment was certainly geared for the tourists, and you could see nothing of Cairo from the river except lights. We were on the barge 3 hours and I was over the experience in 1.

[lambs2]

Definitely find out from your tour guide the time for the English version of the Sound & Light Show to make sure it will not be too late for your group. If you need to go to an earlier time, then they do have headsets available at the show to translate into English which your guide should arrange for you. Our group ended up at a German language show due to time restraints and because we also wanted to do the Nile dinner cruise (well worth our time as we figured we could get lots of sleep AFTER our once-in-a-lifetime-trip). The headsets worked fine and we could hear everything in English through them but the voices coming from the Sphinx and pyramids were definitly in German! I know because there was a slight time lag in the translation and I could hear the booming German.

[dorijo]

Hi Lambs2

[dorijo]

Hi Lambs2

 

Sorry hit the return button.

Since you did both what did you think of the dinner cruise. We are booked on maximus in Nov. chose it over the light show but now wonder if we should change.

[simonv]

I didn't do light show, but did river cruise. What a waste of time!!

Food was steam table affair, dancing mediocre and room smoky. I had every reason to believe we were on the top of the line river cruise ship. I would shudder to think how others would have been. Going out to a nice dinner in a local restaurant would have been a better use of the limitted time in Cairo.

[lambs2]

Hi Lambs2

 

Sorry hit the return button.

Since you did both what did you think of the dinner cruise. We are booked on maximus in Nov. chose it over the light show but now wonder if we should change.

 

Guess there are lots of opinions because we absolutely LOVED our Nile dinner cruise on the Nile Crystal! The entertainment - belly dancer, Whirling dervish (I know there is another local name for it...), stick dancing and two different bands - especially the one that played all Egyptian style music - were incredible! They got the audience involved too and that was lots of fun!! We enjoyed the buffet too, but were very careful to eat only cooked food and drink only bottled water. Some in our group had wine and enjoyed that. The experience of just being on the Nile River is one I will never forget, even though all you can see are the lit buildings of the city and some passing river traffic and bridges. But I have a vivid imagination and could imagine back to what the river would have been like in ancient times!

I really can't decide which experience I would choose over the other as both the Nile Dinner Cruise and the Sound & Light Show were wonderful for us and will provide us fabulous memories ALWAYS!

[MSPCUBS]

Thank you for all of the opinions.

[SteveS]

We did both last year with Nile Blue. The light show is OK but not a must see. The dinner cruise was very interesting. The food was fair but the entertainment was very good. As we were the only western tourist on he boat watching the audience, some clad in Burkas was the best part.

[dorijo]

SteveS

 

Were you on Maximus? If so, can you tell me more about the buffet food? Was there any Western food or mostly Egyptian? Were you able to leave the table and go up on deck to take night pictures of the city?

Now I am thinking of taking both. Do the light show at 6:30 and the dinner cruise at 8:15. There is no English show on Sundays so we will have to use the head phones. Any comments on that?

Thank you