Nile Cruise & Cairo : Questions??

ferret

Myself, My Wife and my 19-year old son are planning a Nile Cruise with Cairo stop for the start of September this year.

We plan to do a 7 night nile cruise with a 2 or 3 night Cairo stay tacked on to either end.

We will need two cabins on board, ideally a single cabin or a minimal single ooccupancy supplement for my son.

Looking for a 5* boat as wary of going less than this. Not quite so bothered about the Cairo end as Hotels are much of a muchness to me, especially if only staying for a couple of nights.

Any ideas of appropriate vendors/websites to check out?

None of the main travel agents really seem to cater for us (with exception of Kuoni) as all seem geared for a 7 day cruise + 7 nights somewhere else. Tried high street visits to Thomsons and Thomas Cook.

there seem plenty of smaller operators online, but very few have any prices or any kind of online booking system where you can take it to the point of confirmation and see the total price. I don;t really want to get into the process of ringing up 10-15 separate companies and having prolonged discussions with each,

Am currently "in liaision with nile-cruises-4u.co.uk who seem very knowledgeable but I don't know what value they represent - they could be spot on ir they could be very pricey - anyone got any experience of this company? Would rather have a couple more options to consider before I commit.

Currently it would seem that for a 7 night cruise (incl std excursions) + 2 night Cairo would be around £1200 per head, plus any single cabin/room supplement.

Does this sound right or does it sound pricey? Would be departing on/around 28th Aug and returning on/around 9th Sept.

any advice from anyone who has done somehting like this in the past would be much appreciated!

HXDave

The trouble you have with a 7 night cruise and then 2/3 nights in cairo is the flights. nile cruises usually use Luxor flights which operate on a weekly basis, and therefore only do 7 or 14 night durations. Do do anything other generally requires the use of scheduled flights with the likes of Egyptair, and it is there where you are pushing the costs up.

So other than 'tailor making' the holidays, if you can extend / shorten your duration, there are 2 options that i know of straight away.

1. Cosmos Tourama do a 14 night holiday offering a 7 night nile cruise tied up with the remaining 7 nights split between staying land based in Luxor and Cairo (cant quite remember order or specifically the nights in each place).

2. Both Cosmos Tourama & Thomas Cook offer a 7 night stay where you will have a short 4 night nile cruise, and then 3 nights in Cairo. Cosmos tourama call it the 'discover cairo & the ancient nile', and Thomas Cook call it 'The Egyptian Highlights'. Both very similar tours, but will just use different Nile boats and different hotels on land, however both include shed loads of excursions.

Hope this helps.

HXDave