Inshallah I will be in Luxor permanently by October Rik, and would love to see you both again.

Mushtaq. We just did a 3 night cruise Luxor to Aswan on the Royal Ruby, a beautiful boat. There were 4 of us and we got our own guide. We paid £35 sterling per night, full board, including all excursions, Edfu, Kom Ombo and Philae, booked direct through the boat company Nile Sun in Luxor.

::: Welcome to Nile Sun Travel & Nile Cruises :::

Thanks for links, they look really great.

The pictures of interior of these cruise ships look great, but from the outside they don't look so good, there are so many parked in Luxor when I was there.

I suppose when they say a cruise ship I expected a 'normal' type of cruise ship, which is not possible on a river anyway.

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I think that maybe we shouldn't call them ships...... they are cruise boats. They are basically a small floating hotel, flat bottomed so that they can easily sail in shallow waters. On all of the boats, all accommodations are in outside cabins, so there is always a view from the window. Some of the newer boat are "suites only", which is all very nice, but who spends that much time in a hotel room when there is so much to see when sitting on the deck?

Mushtaq, you mentioned the number of boats docked in Luxor which reminded me that through the sheer number of boats waiting to go through the lock at Esna..... we were held up there for over 10 hours. I don't know if Rik had the same sort of delay when his boat went through the lock.

Is there a time when the Nile water level is low and the cruises don't visit some area? I have heard about this but not sure what time of year this is a which areas are effected.

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Hi Mushtaq. Never heard of Low Water before and we have been many times.There are two times a year when they do maintainance on the lock at Esna and you can't sail through it .Maybe it was this that was being referred to.

Hi Isis. Came straight through this time, took about 30 minutes.Bought a beer and we were through before I drank it.Have waited ages in the past but lucky this time.

Ian

Mushtaq. The water levels are usually lower around December and January, and it usually means the boats cannot sail to Dendarah from Luxor, so if that is included as part of your cruise (and not all boats cover Dendarah) then you have to go by coach.

Rik, you lucky thing!! After the initial fun of the gallibya throwing boat boys, we all got a bit bored just sitting around in the queue at the lock. It was too hot to stay on deck for more than half an hour, the boat was full and the pool was pretty crowded, so we found ourselves spending much of the afternoon in the bar. Hmmmmmmm

Well Hazel, if you are in a queue and it's very hot, then there is only one logical place to go.Can't fault your thinking.

Ian

Well it's that time of year again and we are going to Egypt again. We leave Istanbul March 17th for Cairo.We arrive in Luxor on the 20 after a wonderful Nile Cruise and leave on the 22nd for Cairo. So two nights in Luxor to see our friends. Got to have the Egypt fix at least once every year.

Ian

Have a good holiday and take some pictures to share with us on your return.

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