Travel Tips

We booked our holiday to Egypt with Thomson and when we arrived we arranged to go on the 2 night Nile cruise that they offered. I think the cost was about £150 and it included trips in Luxor itself which would normally have cost about £50 so I think it was well worth it. We sailed from Luxor to Isna, then Kom Ombo and to Aswan. Then we got a coach back to Luxor which was accompanied by armed guards. Apparently tourists are not allowed outside of the tourists areas in Egypt without guards. It is nothing to worry about and was carried out quite routinely. I think the presence of guards had more to do with finding something to do for all the young soldiers who have to do National Service, than any security risk. I guess it is better to be careful.

Once on board the ship you'll be grouped into tour groups depending on the language you want to listen to and assigned a tour guide. Our guide was a very serious man and taught us ever such a lot about what we saw. In Egypt in order to be a tour guide you have to take a degree in it at one of the Universities and I can understand why - there is so much history and so many places to know about.

The English speaking group was very popular and consisted of some people for whom English wasn't their first language. About half were English familes but we also had some Australians, Americans, two dutch girls from Cyprus and a Bulgarian popstar with her husband!