Hi
I'm planning a 12 night trip to Egypt in Nov. Cairo 4 nights, Nile Cruise Aswan - Luxor 4 nights, Sharm 3 nights + ONE OTHER TO BE DECIDED?

My question is whether I should add another night to Cairo (total 5) or spend one night instead in Luxor (Sontesa St George Hotel) before the nile cruise.

My tour company says the 1 & 1/2 days in Luxor as part of the cruise will be sufficient to see what I need, whereas the Lonely Planet says many find they need to spend an extra day or two in Luxor.

I'd appreciate your opinion on whether an extra night in Cairo or Luxor would be best?

Many thanks :-)

Hi,

to my personal opinion 4 nights in Cairo are enough; you will be able to see all the important places in and around town, like National Museum,the Pyramids, Sphinx, Sakkara-paramid and Memphis easily in 3 days.
I would add the extra day to your Luxor stay, as there are some special tours and additional sights available, depending on your preferences.
Have a good trip !

As you aware when cruise starts at Luxor it ends at Aswan, and vice versa.
When in Aswan I advise you not to miss Abu Simbel visit.
Welcome to Egypt!
Best of luck!
Sayed

Usually a Luxor stay contents:

Valley of Kings, Colossi of Memnon and Hatshepsut's Tempel: 1/2 day
Tempel of Karnak: 1/2 day
Tempel of Luxor: 2 hours (during sunset)

When on a cruise you will spend extra time on the ship for lunch and such.

There is more to do in Luxor. Luxor Museum!! Excellent museum, very neat and clean. Good display of some very beautiful artefacts.
Medinet Habu (Burial Tempel of Rameses III), Deir el Medina (workers village with some small tombs with excellent murals depicting daily life in Ancient Egypt), the Ramesseum (burial tempel of Rameses II), a balloon flight over the West Bank, Day tour to Denderra and Abydos.

But after 4 days Cairo and 4 days cruise you might want to go for an extra day in Sharm. Egypt can be very tiring! So much impressions......

Hi
Thanks for your reply. There is an option in the tour to do a by air excursion to Abu Simbel for about $260. I've been wondering if this is worth the extra $. You would obviously think so?
Cheers, Anita

Thank you for your advice, I originally thought an extra day in Sharm to allow a day for diving. But then I realised we're thinking about getting pregnant around that time so I won't be able to do scuba diving, so it's just snorkelling. We're doing the dawn Mt Sinai & St Catherine's tour one morning in Sharm.

One of our Cairo Days includes a day trip to Alexandria.

We have a Pyramids Full day tour.
Egyptian Museum half day

One evening visit the Khan Al-Khalili bazaar

I guess if we had the extra night we'd visit some of the city sights in Coptic/Islamic Cairo

Extra night in Luxor for sure.

Extra week in cairo is my vote. I's dump the day trip to Alex: it's a lot of travel time and while I like Alex very much the day-trip tourist sites are somewhat underwhelming.