Nile Cruise Aswan to Luxor: 5 Days, 4 Nights Downstream
This trip is for you if you have five days, want the great temples of southern Egypt, and would rather unpack once than change hotels four times. It is not a Cairo trip. There are no pyramids on this route and no Egyptian Museum.
What you get instead is the stretch of river most people are actually picturing when they picture Egypt: Philae on its island, Abu Simbel cut into a cliff face, Kom Ombo at the water's edge, Edfu with its roof still on, then both banks of Luxor. You board in Aswan and get off in Luxor, so the ship runs downstream with the current doing the work. It sails at night and during meals, so you are not spending daylight in transit.
Four nights on board, full board, a private Egyptologist with you at every site, and all eight gate fees paid before you land. This page is written for travelers coming from the United States, so the flight, visa, water, tipping and money questions are answered here rather than buried in a PDF.
Trip at a glance
| Length | 5 days, 4 nights |
|---|---|
| Route | Aswan to Luxor, downstream, roughly 130 miles of river |
| Where you sleep | All 4 nights aboard the ship, same cabin throughout |
| Meals | Full board on board. Drinks are not included |
| Guide | Private English-speaking Egyptologist at every site |
| Group | Private. No fixed departure dates, no strangers on your bus |
| Sites | Philae, Abu Simbel, Kom Ombo, Edfu, Valley of the Kings, Hatshepsut, Colossi of Memnon, Karnak, Luxor Temple, Nubian village |
| Gate fees | All 8 ticketed gates prepaid. Nothing to buy at a window |
| Starts and ends | Starts on arrival in Aswan, ends after Luxor Temple on day 5 |
| Not included | Any flight, the visa, travel insurance, tips, drinks |
The direction is the point. Downstream means shorter sailing legs and slack in the schedule when the Esna lock backs up. It also puts the two heaviest days at the end, after three nights of sleep, instead of throwing the Valley of the Kings at you on day one while you are still seven hours out of sync. If your flights land you in Luxor instead, take the mirror image: the Luxor to Aswan Nile cruise covers the same sites in reverse.
One cabin, one unpack. The same route by road means three check-ins and a bag in a van every morning. Some travelers prefer that because it bends around awkward flight times, and we sell it as the Aswan and Luxor land itinerary.
Getting to Aswan is not covered. Aswan sits about 400 miles south of Cairo, reached on a 90-minute domestic flight or the overnight sleeper train, and neither is in this price.
What is included, and what is not
What is included
Transfers
- Private air-conditioned vehicle for every transfer and excursion in Aswan and Luxor
- Meet and assist at Aswan airport or railway station, and the transfer to the ship
- Round-trip road transfer Aswan to Abu Simbel and back on day 2
- Motorboat crossing to the Nubian village on day 1
- Final transfer on day 5 to Luxor airport, the station or a Luxor hotel
Accommodation
- 4 nights aboard the Nile cruise ship, same cabin for the whole sailing
- Night 1 moored at Aswan, night 2 toward Kom Ombo, night 3 sailing to Luxor, night 4 moored at Luxor
Meals
- Full board on board: breakfast, lunch and dinner on every full day
- Breakfast on day 5 before you go ashore for Karnak
Guide
- A licensed English-speaking Egyptologist at every site, not an audio device and not a driver doubling as a guide
- All gate formalities handled for you
- WhatsApp support from our office before you travel and every day you are in Egypt
Monument entries, one line per gate, all prepaid
- Philae Temple, on Agilkia Island at Aswan
- Abu Simbel, both the Great Temple of Ramses II and the Temple of Nefertari
- Kom Ombo Temple
- Temple of Horus at Edfu
- Valley of the Kings, 3 tombs, from those open on the day
- Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari
- Karnak Temple complex
- Luxor Temple
- Colossi of Memnon, an open roadside site with no gate fee
- Nubian village visit
Extras
- All port and mooring charges on the sailing
- Rest stops built into the Abu Simbel road run
- Taxes and service charges on everything above
What is not included
- Your international flight. We do not sell, book, hold, coordinate or quote international air. Book it first, so we can build the program around the times you actually have.
- Domestic flights inside Egypt. This cruise excludes internal air. Cairo to Aswan at the start and Luxor to Cairo at the end are not in the price, though we can add either to your quote as a separate line.
- The Egyptian entry visa. The official e-Visa is 30 USD single entry, 65 USD multiple entry, applied for at visa2egypt.gov.eg. Ignore the 25 USD figure still circulating on older pages.
- Travel insurance. We do not sell it and it is not in the price. What a policy should cover for Egypt is in the FAQ.
- Tips for the guide, the driver and the ship's crew. Customary and expected. Role-by-role guidance below.
- Drinks. Bottled water, sodas, coffee outside meal service and anything from the bar are charged on board.
- Extra tombs at the Valley of the Kings. Tutankhamun, Seti I and Nefertari each sit behind a separate ticket beyond the three included. Extra cost, paid at the ticket office.
- A hot-air balloon flight over the Luxor West Bank. Optional, arranged locally, paid on the spot.
- The single supplement if you travel alone and are not sharing a cabin.
- Personal spending: laundry, phone and data, souvenirs.
If something is not on either list, it is included. There is no small print on this program and nothing gets added at the desk when you arrive.
Day by day
Day 1: Aswan, Philae Temple and the Nubian village
We meet you at Aswan airport or the railway station and take you to the ship for check-in. Once your bags are in the cabin, your guide takes you out to Philae, the temple of Isis, which sits on an island and is reached by motorboat. Worth knowing first: the complex was cut into more than 40,000 pieces in the 1970s and rebuilt on higher ground at Agilkia, because the original island now lies underwater behind the Aswan dams. The joins are visible if you know where to look.
A second boat crosses to a Nubian village on the west bank, where the houses are painted indigo and ochre and Nubian is spoken as its own language, distinct from the rest of Egypt.
Meals: dinner on board, plus lunch if your flight lands early enough. Night: aboard, moored at Aswan.
Day 2: Abu Simbel, then sailing to Kom Ombo
Early start, and there is no way around it. The road run south takes roughly three hours each way across open desert, and leaving early puts you at the temples ahead of the heat and the Aswan coaches. What you came for is the facade: four seated figures of Ramses II, each around 65 feet tall, cut straight into the sandstone. Beside it stands the smaller temple he built for Nefertari, one of very few in Egypt where the queen is carved the same height as the king.
Both were sawn apart and lifted more than 200 feet up the cliff in the 1960s, before Lake Nasser filled. Back in Aswan you eat on board while the ship casts off.
Meals: breakfast, lunch and dinner on board. Night: aboard, on the river toward Kom Ombo.
Day 3: Kom Ombo and Edfu, then the run to Luxor
Kom Ombo is a short walk from where the ship ties up, which is unusual and welcome. It is Egypt's only major double temple, split down the middle: the right half for Sobek the crocodile god, the left for Horus the Elder. A wall of surgical instruments carved in relief gets photographed more than the sanctuaries do.
The ship moves on to Edfu and the Temple of Horus, the best preserved temple in the country by a wide margin. It still has its roof, its pylon and its enclosure wall, because it spent centuries buried in silt. It is late work, built by the Ptolemies, so the carving is crisper and the wall texts more complete than anything else you see this week.
The afternoon is the long leg north. Tea on the sun deck, green banks, water buffalo, the Esna lock.
Meals: breakfast, lunch and dinner on board. Night: aboard, sailing toward Luxor.
Day 4: The West Bank of Luxor and the Valley of the Kings
The biggest day. You cross to the West Bank for the Valley of the Kings, where New Kingdom pharaohs were buried in cut-rock tombs instead of pyramids, precisely because a pyramid advertises where the treasure is. Your ticket covers three tombs, and your guide picks from what is open that morning and least crowded at the hour you arrive. Nobody is prepared for the color: three thousand years old and still saturated.
Next is the temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari, three terraces set flat against the cliff for the woman who ruled Egypt as pharaoh for two decades and whose successor tried to chisel her out of the record. You finish at the Colossi of Memnon, two seated statues of Amenhotep III, all that stands of what was once Egypt's largest temple complex. The afternoon is free.
Meals: breakfast, lunch and dinner on board. Night: aboard, moored at Luxor.
Day 5: Karnak, Luxor Temple and departure
After breakfast you go ashore for the East Bank. Karnak is the largest religious complex of the ancient world, built and rebuilt across two thousand years by pharaohs who each wanted their name on it. The Great Hypostyle Hall is 134 columns, the tallest around 70 feet, and it does the thing where the group goes quiet.
A couple of miles south, Luxor Temple closes the circle. The two were joined by an avenue of sphinxes running the whole distance between them, since excavated and reopened, so you can finally read the relationship the builders intended. Luxor Temple is also where the layers stack up: a pharaonic temple, a Roman chapel painted over the reliefs, and a working mosque on top.
Then we drive you to Luxor airport, the station or a hotel, depending on what comes next. Services end there.
Meals: breakfast on board. Night: not included. If you are staying on in Luxor we will book a hotel on request.
What the entrance tickets are worth
Egyptian gate fees are published by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and sold in Egyptian pounds. Every one below is paid on your behalf before you arrive, per person.
| Gate | Official fee | Approx. USD |
|---|---|---|
| Philae Temple, Aswan | 550 EGP | ~$11 |
| Abu Simbel, both temples | 822 EGP | ~$17 |
| Kom Ombo Temple | 450 EGP | ~$9 |
| Temple of Horus, Edfu | 550 EGP | ~$11 |
| Valley of the Kings, 3 tombs | 750 EGP | ~$15 |
| Temple of Hatshepsut | 440 EGP | ~$9 |
| Karnak Temple complex | 600 EGP | ~$12 |
| Luxor Temple | 500 EGP | ~$10 |
| Total already paid for you | 4,662 EGP | ~$94 |
The Colossi of Memnon is an open site with no gate fee, and the Nubian village visit is arranged and paid by us. The dollar column is approximate, converted at 1 USD = 49.79 EGP, the rate in force when we last checked these fees in August 2026. Treat the pound figure as the real number, because the exchange rate moves and the pound price does not. Ministry fees are reviewed periodically.
We print this table because almost nobody else does. When a competing itinerary says entrance fees are not included, this is the money it means, and 94 dollars a head is not a rounding error.
How much this trip costs
From US$755 per person, double occupancy.
That is the real starting number for two sharing a cabin, and it covers the whole included list above, the Abu Simbel excursion and all 4,662 EGP of gate fees. Depending on season and ship, the same program runs up to around US$1,190 per person.
What moves the price:
- Season. October through April is high season and sits at the top of the range. June through August is genuinely hot in Aswan and prices drop for it. Christmas, New Year and Easter are their own peak.
- The ship. Vessels here are graded, and the gap between a solid mid-range ship and a top-category one shows up in cabin size, deck space and food, never in the itinerary.
- The cabin. A lower-deck standard against an upper-deck suite is the biggest lever inside one ship.
- Traveling alone. Cabins are priced for two, so a solo traveler pays a single supplement, quoted as a specific figure.
- Party size. Three or four sharing transfers and one guide costs less per head than two.
- Add-ons. The Cairo to Aswan sector, extra tombs, a balloon flight, extra nights in Luxor.
Nothing is payable on this page and there is no cart. Send your dates and traveler count on WhatsApp, we come back the same day with a written quote in US dollars, and if it works you hold the dates with a deposit and settle the balance in Egypt.
Frequently asked questions
How do I get to Aswan from the United States?
There is no nonstop from the US to Aswan. You fly into Cairo, then take a domestic flight of about 90 minutes or the overnight sleeper train, roughly 13 hours and a pleasant way to do it. Neither leg is included. We will tell you which departures land in time to join the ship and can add that sector to your quote as a separate line. We never touch your international ticket.
How long is the flight, and how bad is the jet lag?
Nonstop New York to Cairo runs about 10 hours 15 minutes, Washington DC about 10 hours 30. From the West Coast you are connecting and looking at 20-plus hours door to door. Cairo is 7 hours ahead of US Eastern year round. Take a night in Cairo before flying down to Aswan. If you want Cairo built in properly, the 10-day Egypt itinerary covers Giza and this cruise in one program.
Is Egypt safe for American travelers?
Check travel.state.gov yourself before booking and again before you fly, because advisories change and any level we printed here would go stale. What does not change is geography. The Do Not Travel carve-out in the US advisory applies to North and Middle Sinai, and no part of this itinerary goes near it. Luxor, the northernmost point on the route, is roughly 380 miles from Sinai.
Do I need a visa, and how much is it?
Yes, and your passport needs six months of validity. The official e-Visa is 30 USD single entry and 65 USD multiple entry, applied for at visa2egypt.gov.eg before you fly. The 25 USD figure quoted on many sites, some of them operator pages, is out of date. If you take the visa on arrival at Cairo instead, it is paid in US dollars cash, so carry crisp, unmarked bills. Worn notes and pre-2009 series bills get refused.
Is this "all inclusive" the way Americans use the phrase?
No, and we would rather say so than let you find out at the bar. In US English "all inclusive" usually means a resort with unlimited food and drink. This is land-inclusive: every meal on board, all transfers, the guide and every gate fee are in the price. Drinks are not. Water, sodas, beer and wine are billed to your cabin, and tips are separate. Everything else on the program is in.
Is Abu Simbel really included, or is it an optional extra?
Fully included: the round-trip road transfer from Aswan, your guide, and both temple entrances at 822 EGP a head. Plenty of programs quote a low headline price and then sell Abu Simbel separately once you are committed. It is the most impressive thing in southern Egypt, and putting it behind an upsell is a pricing tactic, not an itinerary decision. It sits on day 2, the only day it fits.
Can I drink the water, and what about ice and salad?
Do not drink the tap water and do not brush your teeth with it. Sealed bottled water is sold on board and at every stop for very little, so buy several bottles a day and check the seal. On a reputable ship the ice and washed salad use treated water and are generally fine, but if your stomach is cautious, skip raw salad and stick to fruit you peel. Bring tissues: restrooms at Karnak and the Valley of the Kings rarely have paper.
What should I wear, and does it differ for women?
Shoulders and knees covered is the safe default at temples, for everyone. Women do not need to cover their hair anywhere except inside a mosque, where a scarf is required and usually offered at the door. Shorts are tolerated at open sites, but loose linen pants draw less attention. On the sun deck, swimwear is normal. Bring shoes with grip: tomb ramps and temple stone are slick.
How much should I tip, and in what currency?
Tip in Egyptian pounds where you can, and keep small bills separate from your main cash. Your Egyptologist takes the largest tip, usually reckoned per day for the whole party. The driver takes rather less. Ship crew is normally pooled in one envelope at the end of the sailing, housekeeping gets a small daily amount left in the cabin, and restroom attendants get a handful of pounds. Small dollar bills are welcome but harder to change than pounds.
Do I need travel insurance?
We think so, and we do not sell it, so we gain nothing by saying it. Most US health plans and Medicare do not cover care outside the country, and there is no reciprocal arrangement of the kind European travelers rely on. Look for overseas medical, medical evacuation and trip cancellation. Evacuation matters more than people expect: Aswan and Luxor have hospitals, but anything serious means a flight to Cairo.
I am traveling solo. What changes?
Nothing in the itinerary, because this is a private program rather than a group departure. What changes is the cabin: prices are per person based on two sharing, so a solo traveler pays a supplement for sole use, quoted as an actual number. Solo travelers, women included, do this route regularly, with their own guide at every site and the ship as a controlled environment at night.
Why book with an Egypt-based operator
We are in Egypt. The guide who meets you at Aswan airport works with us, the driver works with us, and the relationship with the ship is ours. When a gate closes for restoration or a sandstorm shuts the Abu Simbel road, we fix it that morning from here. A company selling this same cruise from an office in the US or the UK is buying it from an operator like us and adding a margin, and when it goes sideways at 6 a.m. Cairo time, their office is shut.
The way we work is plain. Message +20 10 3229 5513 on WhatsApp with your dates and party size. A person answers in English, usually the same day, with a written quote in US dollars, the ship named and the inclusions itemized exactly as on this page. Nothing is charged until you say yes, you hold the dates with a deposit, and the balance is settled in Egypt once you have met us. Wiring thousands of dollars overseas to a company you found on Google is an act of faith, so we built it so you do not have to.
On reviews we will be blunt. There is no star rating on this page for this cruise, because we have no verified reviews tied to this one product and inventing them is dishonest and illegal. What we do have is 12 published reviews from real travelers about our agency and our guide Shady Said, names attached. Most are about the guiding, which is the part of an Egypt trip that decides how much you enjoy it.
We also do not sell your international flight, will not pretend to, and say so on every page. Every itinerary we run is private, so there is no minimum group to fill and no departure date to bend your vacation around. If five days is not enough, the same river sits inside the 8-day Egypt itinerary and the 12-day Egypt program, both of which include the domestic flights. To compare them all, start from our Egypt tour packages.