Temples by water

Cairo, then Luxor to Aswan The Nile

A Nile cruise is a temple trip with a ship in the middle of it. The sailing runs between Luxor and Aswan, and Cairo's Pyramids come before it — from a hotel, not a cabin.

Plan my Nile cruise See the five itineraries

52 to 82 guestson Viking's Nile ships, from Viking Ra to the new Viking Sekhmet
2 locksside by side at the Esna barrage, south of Luxor
Level 2State Department advisory for Egypt, dated 15 Jul 2025
$5,099 ppUniworld's 12-day offer (regular $6,099), based on the 24 Apr 2027 itinerary, as published 22 Oct 2026

Independent · no paid placementFacts checked October 22, 2026Sources listed belowCLIA-affiliated advisors

The verdict

Sail the Nile when the temples are the reason

Pharaonic temples
Cairo hotel nights
Small ships
Abu Simbel option

Choose it if

Travellers who want Karnak, the Valley of the Kings and Philae with a guide
Couples content to trade a long sail for Cairo hotel nights and short flights
Early risers: the tours start in the cool of the morning

Look elsewhere if

Anyone wanting the ship to carry them city to city: the Danube does that
Travellers after a long time afloat; four to seven nights is the usual
July and August travellers: highs can pass 40 °C, and Uniworld doesn't sail

On the Nile the ship is the quiet part of the trip — the temples set the alarm, and Cairo waits at either end.

Seabound Journeys on the Nile

Overview

What a Nile cruise actually is

On most rivers the towns are the point. On the Nile it's what stands behind them — Karnak, the Valley of the Kings, Edfu, Philae.

The ship rarely sees Cairo. Viking, AmaWaterways, Uniworld, Avalon and Tauck all open with hotel nights there, then fly you south to board in Luxor.

Time aboard is short: roughly four to seven nights, round trip from Luxor or one way to Aswan. The rest is hotels and flights.

If our Danube guide was your starting point, expect a different rhythm. The days start early, because the temples are hot by noon — Uniworld times its tours for the cooler morning hours.

The river comes first below, running south from Cairo; the packages, the season, the advisory, visas and fares follow.

The river

Five reaches, north to south

01
Cairo and Giza: the land part
The package starts here, the ship doesn't. Viking gives three days to Saqqara's Step Pyramid, the Citadel, the Great Pyramid, the Sphinx and the Grand Egyptian Museum. AmaWaterways has three nights before the cruise and one after. Uniworld uses the Four Seasons at Nile Plaza or the Nile Ritz-Carlton, or similar, for two nights at each end, and Tauck starts at the Marriott Mena House.
02
Luxor and the West Bank
The boarding city for every line we cover. Karnak and Luxor Temple usually come on boarding day. A later day crosses to the West Bank for the Valley of the Kings and Hatshepsut's temple — Uniworld adds the Colossi of Memnon, and AmaWaterways the Valley of the Queens. Tauck describes a private visit to Tutankhamun's tomb after hours.
03
North of Luxor: Dendera and Abydos
Several lines sail a short loop north to Qena for the Temple of Hathor at Dendera, then come back: Viking on day 5, Uniworld on day 4, AmaWaterways near the end. Abydos is rarer. Viking's 19-day Grand Nile Journey I calls at El Balyana for it.
04
Esna to Edfu
South of Luxor, ships pass the Esna barrage through its navigation locks. Viking stops at Esna for the hypostyle hall of the Temple of Khnum, and Uniworld calls there on the way back north. Edfu's Temple of Horus comes next — Viking reaches it by horse-drawn calèche.
05
Kom Ombo and Aswan
Kom Ombo's double temple, to Sobek and Horus, is a call for every line we cover. Aswan is the turnaround, usually with two days: the dam, the souk, a felucca, a Nubian village and Philae. Uniworld adds tea at the Old Cataract. Beyond Aswan the dams close the river to these ships, so Abu Simbel is reached by flight or by road — Uniworld sells it as an option, and Tauck charters a plane.

All 8 Nile places on our atlas, embarkation cities named. Open the Nile on the river map.

Itineraries

Twelve days, ten or nineteen

Every line visits much the same temples. What separates them is the trip length, the Cairo hotels and who books the flights inside Egypt.

Cairo nights plus a Luxor round trip, 12 days

The core product. Viking's Pharaohs & Pyramids has three Cairo days, a flight to Luxor, an eight-day round trip to Aswan with Dendera and Esna, then a flight back. AmaWaterways' Secrets of Egypt & the Nile runs three Cairo nights, seven aboard and a last Cairo night; its intra-Egypt air is sold separately, from $620 pp in 2026 and $640 in 2027, as published 22 Oct 2026. Uniworld's Splendors of Egypt & the Nile puts seven nights aboard S.S. Sphinx or River Tosca between two Cairo nights at each end.

Viking AmaWaterways Uniworld

One way with air, 10 days

Avalon's Taste of Egypt boards MS Farah in Luxor, sails to Aswan and ends there, then flies you back to Cairo for a last night; its intra-vacation air is included. Tauck's Egypt: Jewels of the Nile runs October to December — two nights at Mena House, nights 3 to 6 aboard the Oberoi Philae or Oberoi Zahra, a charter flight to Abu Simbel, then three nights at The St. Regis Cairo.

Avalon Tauck

Middle Egypt as well, 19 days

Viking's new Grand Nile Journey I and II, round trip from Cairo. Journey I sails Middle Egypt, which almost nobody else does — Beni Suef for the Meidum Pyramid, Al-Minya, Tell el-Amarna, Asyut, Sohag and Abydos — before the usual loop south.

Viking

The eclipse sailing, August 2027

Viking's 12-day Total Eclipse on the Nile follows the Pharaohs & Pyramids route and is built around the total solar eclipse of 2 August 2027, seen from the river between Luxor and Esna. Viking hasn't released departure dates yet. Ask us to watch for them.

Viking

Egypt with Jordan, Dubai or Alexandria

AmaWaterways sells extensions to Jordan (from $2,199 pp), Dubai (from $1,749 pp) and Alexandria (from $1,499 pp), as published 22 Oct 2026, and says they're running as scheduled. Avalon sells a Taste of Egypt with Jordan.

AmaWaterways Avalon

Which line?

5 lines sail this river. Find your two.

Four quick questions, answered as fully as you like. The shortlist only includes lines with published sailings here, and it updates as you tap.

01What matters most on this trip?

02Who is coming?

03How do you like to spend a port day?

04Have you been on a river cruise before?

Scores come from the same checked facts as our line reviews. It shortlists; an advisor confirms the fit for your dates.

Season

Autumn to spring, and the heat

Where else sails in January →

Prime monthsSailingFew or no sailings

Year-round · peak December–February. Tap a month for what a sailing then is like.

The Nile sails most of the year, and summer is the thin season — December to February is the high one.

AmaWaterways' 2026 departures run to 9 December, and Uniworld's 2027 calendar skips July and August entirely.

Tauck puts summer highs in Luxor and Aswan above 40 °C (104 °F). That's why the sightseeing starts early.

Water is a different story here. The Aswan dams control the level — not snowmelt, not rain — so no line publishes Nile low-water warnings the way they do for the Rhine and Danube.

It isn't risk-free. In the winter of 2017–18, Egypt's Ministry of Tourism confirmed a mass grounding of cruise boats in the Luxor–Aswan channel, blamed on low water and a channel left undredged for about nine years; a side channel was opened and each boat given a pilot, an engineer and a police officer.

Dams, not rain: what the lines say

UniworldIts Egypt itinerary 'may change due to water levels, closures, public holidays or other factors', with tours possibly switched to motorcoach.Source
AmaWaterwaysIts 2026 low-water notices cover the Rhine, Main and Danube, not the Nile.Source

Small ships, and a pool on top

Nile ships are small. Viking Sekhmet, delivered in Cairo on 29 September 2026, carries 82 guests in 41 outside staterooms, while Viking Ra carries 52. AmaWaterways runs AmaDahlia (72 guests), AmaLilia and AmaCleo (82 each) and the new AmaNubia (76, from November 2026); Uniworld's S.S. Sphinx has 42 suites, and Tauck's Oberoi Philae and Oberoi Zahra have 22 and 27 cabins. There's no better bank to book: the temples are ashore, not along the river.

Safety and entry

Is Egypt safe? The State Department's view

The State Department rates Egypt 'Level 2 - Exercise increased caution', in an advisory dated July 15, 2025. It cites terrorism, crime and health, and says some areas carry increased risk.

The Do Not Travel areas are the Northern and Middle Sinai, the Western Desert, and the military border zones with Libya and Sudan and in Sinai. The Nile Valley isn't among them — and nor are Luxor, Aswan or Abu Simbel.

The advisory notes that security is generally present at tourist sites, and calls the hospitals in Luxor and Aswan good.

Most Nile cruise boats carry no doctor, it adds, though some have a medical practitioner. Our advice for a river cruiser: bring every medication you need from home, and buy travel insurance that covers medical evacuation.

The State Department advisory

Visas and entry for US passports

You need a visa, and there are two ways to get one. The State Department says US citizens can buy a 30-day tourist visa on arrival, paid in US dollars cash, or use Egypt's official e-visa website — the only official source, in its words.

It quotes $36 for a single-entry e-visa on arrival at Cairo International Airport, $30 in exact change at other entry points, and about $65 for multiple entry.

Your passport needs six months' validity and at least one blank page. If an extension takes you out of Egypt and back in, ask us about the multiple-entry visa before you fly.

State Department: Egypt The line’s visa note

What it costs

The Nile's published fares

Lead fares a person, as each line published them on 22 October 2026 — AmaWaterways shows no cruise fare for its Nile trip, so it isn't listed. What's bundled differs — Avalon and Viking both include the flights inside Egypt (Viking's 'cruise-only' figure excludes only your flights to Egypt), while AmaWaterways sells its Cairo–Luxor air separately — so compare like with like, not the headline.

Sort

UniworldSplendors of Egypt & the Nile, 12 days Cairo–Cairo (S.S. Sphinx or River Tosca)
$5,099≈ $464 a night
$5,099 pp offer (regular $6,099), based on the 24 Apr 2027 itinerary, as published 22 Oct 2026
Avalon WaterwaysTaste of Egypt, 10 days Cairo–Cairo (MS Farah), intra-vacation air included
$5,199≈ $578 a night
$5,199 pp; $4,949 for the 6 May 2027 departure, as published 22 Oct 2026
VikingPharaohs & Pyramids, 12 days round trip Cairo (2027)
$6,999≈ $636 a night
$6,999 pp cruise-only, US residents, double occupancy, Fall Sale ends 31 Oct 2026, as published 22 Oct 2026

Lead fares per person as each line published them; the line under each bar keeps the line’s own wording. “A night” is our arithmetic: the lead fare divided by the trip’s nights (days minus one, hotel nights included where the package has them), before taxes and port charges. Your dates will price differently. That’s the job we do for free.

Seven rivers, side by side

Is this the right river? Compare before you choose.

The seven rivers we cover in full, five in Europe and two in Africa and Asia. Each name opens its guide; the fare row is the lowest lead fare in each guide’s fare table, as the lines published them in October 2026.

	Danube	Rhine	Seine	Rhône & Saône	Douro	You are hereNile	Mekong
Best for	First-timers and capital-city travellers	Scenery, castles and wine towns	Paris lovers and D-Day history	Wine lovers and Roman history	Port wine and small-ship intimacy	Temple lovers and ancient history	Angkor, delta villages and tiny ships
The feel	Big cities, music, one vineyard valley in daylight	One dramatic gorge morning, then vineyards and cathedrals	Gentle river, Impressionist villages, Gothic Rouen	Vineyard valleys, big locks, papal and Roman towns	Terraced vineyards, deep dam locks, quiet quintas	Early temple mornings, Cairo hotels, few nights aboard	Sampan landings, markets, temples, a border crossed by river
Season	Mar–Dec	Mar–Dec	Mar–Dec	Mar–Dec	Mar–Nov	Jan–Dec	Jan–Dec
Start cities we cover	Budapest, Vienna, Passau, Nuremberg, Regensburg, Bucharest	Amsterdam, Basel, Frankfurt am Main, Trier & Remich	Paris	Lyon, Avignon	Porto	Cairo, Luxor	Ho Chi Minh City, Siem Reap
Lowest published lead fare	$1,999	$2,599	$2,899	$2,899	$4,426	$5,099	$3,279
The catch	Late-summer low water and overnight lock bumps	August shallows at Kaub; Moselle single-chamber locks	Giverny's season and high water at Paris	The March lock closure below Lyon	Summer heat and a shorter season	Summer heat above 40 °C; flights inside Egypt	Two visas, year-round heat, the lake's low water

Start cities

Where the trip begins: Cairo and Luxor

Two cities, two jobs: our Cairo guide covers the hotel nights, the Grand Egyptian Museum and the flight south; our Luxor guide covers boarding day and the temples either side of the river. Each has a hotel hub alongside.

Embarkation cityCairoYour Nile cruise starts in Cairo, but your ship doesn't — none of the lines we cover boards a river ship here. Cairo is two or three hotel nights for the Pyramids and the museums, then a flight to Luxor.The embarkation guide Embarkation cityLuxorLuxor is where you finally meet the ship. You arrive by air, not by water — and a night here on your own, before the line's programme takes over, buys you a sunrise over the West Bank.The embarkation guide

The night-before hotels, city by city: Cairo · Luxor

Ports of call

The calls south of Luxor

Two pages cover the rest of the sailing. Edfu & Kom Ombo takes the temple pair between Luxor and Aswan, and Aswan covers Philae, the felucca and the long day out to Abu Simbel.

Port of callAswanAswan is as far south as the river ships go. The dams close the way on, so the lines turn here — and most give it two days, not one.The port day Port of callEdfu & Kom OmboTwo temples, one stretch of river, and often one day. Edfu is the better preserved; Kom Ombo stays open into the evening.The port day

Before you book

Five questions worth asking about the Nile

The answers separate two sailings that look the same in a brochure. Tick the ones you care about and we’ll answer them for your dates.

How many nights are on the ship, and how many in hotels?A 12-day Nile trip often means seven nights aboard, and the 10-day versions give the ship about four.
Are the flights inside Egypt in the fare, or extra?Viking, Avalon and Tauck include them; AmaWaterways sells its Cairo–Luxor air separately.
Is Abu Simbel included, optional, or a charter flight?It lies beyond the Aswan dams, so it is a flight or a 10–12 hour road day, never a river call.
Which Cairo hotel do we use, and can we add a night there?Viking, AmaWaterways and Avalon don't name theirs, and matching it saves a move on the first morning.
Does our ship have a pool, and is there medical cover aboard?Afternoons in Luxor and Aswan can pass 40 °C, and most Nile boats carry no doctor.

Why trust this page

The Seabound standard

Sources, read at the source

Every fare, berth and timetable here was checked on October 22, 2026, at the line, port or hotel wherever they publish it. Where they don’t, we name the source we used, or say nothing is published.

Paid placements

No line or hotel pays to appear here or to rank higher. Affiliate links are labelled, and they never decide what we recommend.

1:1

Advisors, not a booking engine

A Seabound Journeys advisor reads your brief, compares the lines for your dates and answers you personally. CLIA-affiliated, Florida Seller of Travel ST15578.

Have us plan it

Find the Nile sailing built for you

Tell us the month, who is sailing and what you want from the week. We price the lines against each other, hotel nights and transfers included.

Usually the same fare as booking direct, and our advice costs you nothing.
We compare the lines on the Nile for your dates, not one brochure.
Hotel nights, flights and transfers can go into the same plan.

Your river brief

Tell us the trip. We’ll find the sailing.

Prefer to browse fares yourself? Compare river cruise fares Via CruiseDirect · Affiliate link

Quick answers

Nile river cruise questions

Can I see Abu Simbel from the river ship?

No. It sits on Lake Nasser, beyond the Aswan dams, about 280 km from Aswan — 3 to 4 hours each way by road, or by air. Foreign adults pay EGP 750 to enter, rising to EGP 1,200 on 22 February and 22 October, the sun-festival days. Book it before you sail if your line sells it as an option.

How many nights are spent on the ship?

Fewer than the trip length suggests. On Viking's 12-day trip it's seven, and on AmaWaterways' and Uniworld's it's seven too. Tauck's and Avalon's 10-day trips give the ship about four.

Can the ship take me north of Luxor?

Only on Viking's 19-day Grand Nile Journey, which sails the Middle Egypt stretch after its Cairo days. Viking doesn't say where that ship is boarded, so ask before you book flights.

Do the locks slow the sailing?

Esna is the lock you'll pass, and it's worth watching from the deck. Its newer chamber, 156 m long and 17 m wide, sits beside an older one and takes two large ships at a time.

Do Nile ships have pools?

Several do. Viking Ra has a pool and two Jacuzzis, S.S. Sphinx has a pool, and River Tosca's is on the Sun Deck. Ask about yours, because on a hot Aswan afternoon it matters.

Which line flies me home from Aswan?

Avalon. Its sailing ends in Aswan and flies you back to Cairo for a last night, and Tauck flies you to Cairo after its Abu Simbel charter. Viking, AmaWaterways and Uniworld sail back to Luxor before the flight north.

How we checked this page 20 sources

Every fact above comes from a source listed here, checked on October 22, 2026: port and city authorities, the lines’ own pages, the hotels and the rating guides. Where nothing official is published, the page says so rather than filling the gap.

Keep comparing

The lines and the map

River cruising, decodedEvery line and every river, compared in one place The Nile on the river map8 places with seasons, lines and hotel picks