3 nights 4 days Luxor and Aswan Nile Cruise From Aswan

Short Summary: The cruising part of the trip on the nile was great, the staff were nice. However, organisation, communication, and the quality of the guides was terrible. It made the trip stressful when it didn't need to be, I highly recommended that Viator reconsider how they are working in Egypt, who they are working with and their lines of communication. As what we experienced was unacceptable and I wouldn't reccommend anyone use Viator in the future for such a trip. Longer Summary: Third Parties Firstly, I am sure that Viator don't know the companies that they are working with......So Viator partners with Middle Eastern tours, who partners with local agents in both Aswan and Luxor one of which was called 'On the go' who then contract freelancers to do the tours, so there is 4 layers of communication, commissions and 4 layers of issues. This communication impossible, which I will go into later. To make it clear, for our trip it was: Viator - Middle Eastern Tours - On the Go - Micheal Freelancing guide. I'll try and make this as brief as possible. Communication - Before Tour I rung Viator a couple of week before my booking to request to know which boat we were on, they told me that I would know as soon as I booked, so I did. My confirmation told me I was with Middle Eastern Tours, and not the name of the boat and when I again rung I was instructed to call Middle Eastern Tours, which I did and they told me that they would get back to me a week before my tour, which I was pretty unhappy about. A week before came, and I wrote to Viator about the boat I was with as MET hadn't contacted me, they were able to tell me that we were going to be on the Semiramis and that it is best, again to contact them....which I did only to get a flat line. I tried multiple more times when I got a hold of a MET representative who told me to text them our hotel address for pick up. We then arrived into Aswan, with no contact from MET, no itinerary and no idea of what was going to happen. We also understand that we could add tours such as Abu Simbel and Hot air balloon rides with this company as mentioned on your site. However, with no communication not one call or email we didn't have this option, which left us to make our own arrangements to go the day before the tour. On that trip to Abu Simbel we were told by our guide Micheal that he knew of our bookings as the local agent had spoken about us which is interesting, as they never spoke with us. He went onto tell us that it was impossible for us to be on the Semiramis as it sailed the day earlier. He then tried to figure out which boat we were on with the local company, which he couldn't. The next day which was the day of the tour we are picked up by Micheal again who was contracted by this local company to take us to the boat and this is when, on the way to the boat, what our boat was called Grand Sun not Semiramis. Communication - During Tour We had absolutely no idea what was happening on each day, there was no plan, no times nothing and the staff on the boat had no idea who our company was, only that they had to provide us meals. Each location we went to everyone on the boats had guides structured for them. For the first stop at Kom Ombo we had a guide the turned up late, and didn't speak much english, so he couldn't explain anything to us, so we spent time listening to the French tour, as at least we could understand it better. The next day, as 5am we arrived at Edfu, where our guide from the previous day told us the day before that there would be a guide for us, there wasn't, as noone showed up and we had to join another random group not arranged by your agents. The following day we arrived in Luxor, still with no idea what was happening, when we arrived everyone left for their tours and we had noone again. We got the number of MET, who gave us the number of 'On the go tours' and the boat manager called him, where we were told that he would come at 4pm an hour later, of course he didn't arrive and ended up coming around 5pm to rush through the two temples in town. At least this guide was good, he spoke english and was very informative and luckily we had him for our final day of the tour. I just want to add that Micheal from the first day mentioned that for tipping we had to put money in an envelope at the end of the tour for all of the boat staff, porters, guides and drivers. We were to find out that this wasn't the case and the drivers and guides were very mad when they weren't tipped. The Boat We knew 5 star, wasn't 5 star, and to be honest we were too unhappy with the boat itself. While it wasn't very clean and facilities were old and deteriorating, we knew that it wasn't going to be a premium boat so we weren't too unhappy. However, the food was an issue, we both got very sick after the first 3 meals, and we weren't the only ones on the boat. We suspect it to be the re-heated/cooked food as we ate variations of the same things

This cruise was by far the best deal I've ever come across. My boyfriend and I were a little bit hesitant to book it as the price was so cheap and there were only 2 reviews at the time but I am so glad we did. This cruise was 100 the highlight of our Egypt vacation. Included in the price is all meals, tours to the sites with tour guide entrance not included and transportation. I wish I could give this 10 stars. We traveled on the Grand Sun boat--it was clean, spacious, and the staff was incredible. The buffet was delicious everyday and the deck with the pool was superb. Taking this cruise from Aswan to Luxor seems to be the better choice as we basically had the boat to ourselves it seems the Luxor to Aswan route is much more popular. It was definitely difficult to get in touch with the company after booking and it did seem a little unorganized with all the sites and timing of tours but all in all it was an amazing opportunity and we'd do it again a thousand times. Also a special mention to Mac-our tour guide for the Philae and Aswan dam section and the drop off at the cruise ship- because he was incredible. He was so knowledgable and went out of his way for us at every turn. He was also a great buffer between us and the relentless salesmen at the sights which we were extremely thankful for! He even texted us later in the cruise to be sure everything was up to par and there was nothing that we needed!

This was by far one of the best deals I have received in my life. I honestly have no idea how they were able to pull off such an amazing trips in terms of price, value, and experience. We took the riverboat the Semiramis I. Whenever I looked it up on TripAdvisor I became very nervous with the reviews. The boat did seem a little older but it was in no way about to breakdown and no one guilted us about tips, etc. I honestly wish we would have left more gratuity for what was included in this amazing experience. One complaint that I had was that it was hard to communicate with the company once I made the booking but it really wasn't an issue for me it was their loss. I had wanted to inquire about Abu Simbel and the hot air balloon ride but was unable to get in touch with them so I booked it through another company. Other than that we had a trip of a lifetime on our first river cruise on the Nile River. The tours were all included as well just not the admissions to the monuments and temples which was not an issue as everything was fairly inexpensive in Egypt in general. I would definitely recommend this experience for everyone and would definitely do it again in a heartbeat hoping to travel to Egypt again this summer.