13 Days in Egypt

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13 day itinerary for Egypt

We are independent travellers. This 13 day itinerary was designed by myself and we booked everything ourselves. That way we saved ourselves loads of money and it couldn't really have been easier. We flew with British Airways to Cairo International from Edinburgh via London on 16th March 2025 and left Egypt on an EasyJet flight from Hurghada to Edinburgh on 28th March. Below is our itinerary for the 13 days we spent in Egypt.

Our 12 days itinerary in Egypt
(Image Generated using the Stippl app)

Our itinerary for the 13 days was the following:

• Cairo (2 nights) to see the Pyramids, the Sphinx and the Grand Egyptian Museum, staying first night at Elite Pyramids Boutique Hotel in Giza and second night in Kove Hotel By The Pyramids

• Aswan (1 night) to see the Unfinished Obelisk, Aswan Granite Quarry, the Nubian Village and the Souq, staying in Kato Waidi Nubian House

• River Nile Cruise (3 nights) visiting Philae Temple, Aswan Spice Market, Abu Simbel, Aswan High Dam, Kom Ombo, Temple of Horus, Valley of the Kings, Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, Alabaster factory, Colossi of Memnon, Karnak and Luxor Temple, a cruise which we booked through Viator

• Luxor (2 nights) staying in Steigenberger Resort Achti

• Dendera Temple in Qena (independent half-day tour from Luxor)

• Makadi Bay in Hurghada area (4 nights) staying in Prima Life Makadi Bay all inclusive resort

You can click each individual destination above to skip to that part of the content.

If you want to learn about our total cost of travelling around Egypt, you can skip to that section here.

Before you go

LANGUAGE

What I would recommend before you travel to Egypt is to learn a little bit at least of Egyptian Arabic (it differs from normal Arabic). A few words go a long way!!! I'm not talking about booking yourself into an expensive and time consuming classroom course. There is a language course I found many many years ago which has been incredibly helpful for myself learning the survival skills in a new language, as well as several of my friends after I've recommended the course to them. Nevermind Duolingo or Rosetta Stone, they're useless. However, Pimsleur is an absolutely incredible language learning course that is primarily audio-based, with each lessong 30 minute long, so perfect for listening to on your headphones on your commute to and from work or while you walk the dog. No writing or engaging with an app required, just passively listen and you learn even the most complicated languages (like Arabic!!!) surprisingly fast. It certainly surprised me, cause I thought I'd never remember a single word in Arabic cause the language has absolutely zero in common with any of the several languages I already speak and/or understand. My ONLY regret is not having started the course sooner, as there was only so much time I had until it was time to go to Egypt, but with the limited Egyptian Arabic I learned in the first 16 lessons, I definitely felt I could understand bits of what people were talking about and I was surprised by how incredibly impressed the Egyptians were at hearing the few words I COULD speak in Egyptian Arabic. Apparently only a teeny tiny percentage of travellers know even the absolute basics like "Hello" or "Thank you".

Please do take my advice and try out Pimsleur (they also do lots of other languages too besides Egyptian Arabic at no extra charge!), especially as they often have a free taster week, so you lose nothing by trying it out. But I am sure you will, as I did, keep the subscription until at least after your trip (it's only £19 for the month). Make it a habit to listen to at least 1 lesson every single day (you need to do that to retain memory from previous lessons and build on it) and you'll surprise yourself by how much of a very difficult language you have actually learned. My only regret is to not have started the course a bit earlier and learned a bit more, because it really does work!! Try Pimsleur out here.

VISAS

Many nationalities can get a visa on arrival at Giza and Cairo International airports, including us on our Irish and Icelandic passports. However, we opted for the eVisa option (the official Egyptian government site can be found here) so that a) we could carry less cash as this could be paid with for card online, and b) to avoid the queues of people getting the VOA. Avoiding queues is always a good thing.

I had previously tried to get an eVisa, applying for the two of us as a "family" but I had zero success with the portal. It must be said, it is incredibly buggy!! My advice for you is:

1. Apply for each individual separately,

2. Make sure you don't use ANY special characters in your address or elsewhere on the entire portal, and

3. There's some sort of weird coloured applicant box/form at the bottom of one of the pages which will likely be empty. Don't try to fill that in, that cost me a world of pain and confusion when I did the first time!

When I followed these three recommendations, I successfully managed to submit the application for an eVisa and pay the $25 USD with a card (only Visa or MasterCard). This saves you standing in a queue at the airport for a Visa on Arrival (and by the way, if you do end up having to get that, make sure you have a spare pen with you as they won't supply enough!).

NOTE! Allow the Egyptian authorities enough time to produce your eVisa - I left it a bit too late, applying on a Thursday night when we were due to travel on the Sunday (though originally it was supposed to be the following Monday as our original plan had been to stay 2 nights in Dubai!). I was sure we were going to end up having to stand in the queue for the Visa On Arrival (VOA), as I sat on the plane in London headed for Cairo waiting for us to taxi away from the gate, still not having received the eVisa. But low and behold! While the crew was doing the safety brief, an email was dropped with the eVisa in a PDF attachment! Phew! Talk about last minute.... Also, be sure to take screenshots of the visas in the event your PDF viewer on your phone plays up or doesn't want to find your download or requires you to download again, in case you got connectivity issues.

Remember to take a pen with you in hand luggage, as you will be required to fill in a landing card prior to going through passport control (even if you have a visa). Same applies when you leave the country, you need to fill in a departure form.

MONEY

Egypt uses Egyptian Pounds, or "ginee" as they say in Egyptian Arabic and written on price labels as "L.E". When we were there in March 2025, $1 USD was worth £50 Egyptian Pounds. The Egyptian pound has been taking a bit of a beating lately, devaluing very fast against foreign currency. While they accept Euros, especially in the Red Sea resorts, the Egyptians LOVE US dollars. I guess it's a sort of an insurance policy for them, as if they hold on to savings in dollars, they will over time get more Egyptian pounds for them, due to the current trend of the pound falling. So rather than trying to get Egyptian Pounds at your local exchange booth, travel with dollars. When you pay for things in dollars in Egypt (EVERYBODY accepts them) you can choose to get your change in dollars or in Egyptian pounds. Egyptian pounds are handy, as you can use the small notes for tips.

THINGS TO BRING FROM HOME

MEDICAL KIT
People often get a tummy upset, or even food poisoning, when travelling in Egypt, so it's advisable to take along the necessary emergency supply of:

• Imodium (to stop diarrhea)

• Electrolyte tablets that dissolve in water (to prevent dehydration)

• Buscopan peppermint capsules (helps with stomach / bowel cramps)

• Ciprofloxacin antibiotic (for food poisoning) if you live in a country where you can get this readily from a pharmacy or by a doctor's prescription. The UK is REALLY REALLY bad when it comes to getting these, the doctors will just not prescribe them at all because they are fearful of them becoming ineffective (which is a valid concern), however we went to Cuba where these drugs don't actually exist and if we had serious infection we would have need to be flown out of the country to get treatment, but the doctor in the UK still wouldn't prescribe it! Meanwhile, when we were at Punta Cana airport, they sell it freely on the shelves in the airport pharmacy!!

Aside from considering possible tummy upsets, Joe gets incredibly bad reactions to insect bites where they flare up and get infected, so for us it was key to take antihistamines that prevent this from happening (we have learned through trial and error that they help A LOT!!!). We found that the antihistamine Cetirizine works well for him. Then aside from those, we always take Rennies antiacids, Ibuprofen and Paracetamol and hand sanitiser (to use after that breakfast buffet!) with us in the kit as well. We ended up using every single one of those at some point during our trip to Egypt.

EARPLUGS
Egypt can be really noisy, especially Cairo, as the towns and cities are alive both day and night with car horns, people shouting (or just talking really loud), trucks and cars flying past outside your hotel window and the buildings generally have poor sound insulation. We discovered these amazing earplugs that you shape into your ear and blocks almost all disturbing noise! It is particularly good at blocking uncomfortable frequencies of noise. They are incredibly effective and we both highly recommend them. We wish we had them when we were in Cuba, it would have saved us so many sleepless nights!!

MILK FOR COFFEE (+ COFFEE)
This part is pretty personal for each individual traveller. For us, it was super important to be able to have coffee in our rooms before going out for breakfast, preferably 2 cups of strong coffee each and it has to have milk in it. We have learned from our many travels that while hotels may supply coffee, it's rarely enough and some hotels won't give you more sachets even if you ask for them. Many don't include creamer at all but we can't drink black coffee (only do that in dire emergencies). We have started bringing our own milk sachets since we brought a pile of 10ml Lakeland Daries UHT semi-skimmed milk sachets with us to Cuba, as we knew there was very little chance we'd get milk there due to general shortages of just about everything. We discovered that it is actually extremely handy to keep some in our luggage always, both on travel abroad but also when Tentbox camping. Check them out here. The coffee is a lot easier to find in your standard supermarket (though we stupidly forgot to buy some before we left! So had to buy in Egypt).

INSULATED TRAVEL MUGS
Regardless of what resort you choose, we highly highly hiiiiighly recommend bringing your own insulated cup for drinks. We learned this when researching for our all inclusve resort holiday to the Dominican Republic, where many travellers were recommending bringing one of those mugs with you as they hold a lot more volume than the diddy little glasses they give you at the resort, but they also keep the drinks cold when you're chilling at the beach. We purchased one based on a recommendation from one of the Dominican Republic travellers and bought this travel mug. It works exactly the same way as a Yeti mug but for half the price. I wasn't entirely convinced about the functionality of the mug, because there were some pretty big bold statements about it going around - until we got a cocktail from the cocktail bar at our Melia Punta Cana adults only resort for a nightcap which we drank in our room while playing the Nintendo Switch. We then went to bed and woke up 8 hours later and the ice in the mugs was still almost entirely intact!! That was incredibly impressive. Myself, Joe and Joe's mum who was also on our trip and had bought the same mug were instant converts and we now take them with us wherever we go! It keeps hot drinks hot, and cold drinks cold.

STAYING CONNECTED
If you plan to use an eSIM, I would suggest purchasing it and installing before leaving your reliable home WiFi. We found WiFi connections in Egypt to be generally very poor at hotels as well as during our cruise, the only places we had reliable WiFi was at our Hurghada resort and at the Steigenberger Achti resort in Luxor and that's pretty much it. Mobile internet isn't all that reliable either but it's better than nothing. We tend to use Airalo eSIM which has worked great for us in the past, travelling through Japan, Southeast Asia and Colombia. However, for the Egypt trip I had purchased a Middle East regional eSIM from them, which didn't work great, likely because of the regions it covers, many of which were active war zones at the time we were in Egypt. Because it is a regional card, my location IP was all over the place and my Facebook, Google and other accounts did not like it at all. The reson why I bought it in the first place was because we were due to travel to both Dubai and Egypt, but in the end British Airways cancelled our Dubai flight rendering the regional card pretty pointless. So I would suggest if you're just travelling in Egypt, just get the country-specific eSIM on Airalo.

If you think of anything else, please feel free to drop us a message on our socials!

Arriving in Egypt

We flew to Cairo International from Edinburgh via London but you can get to Cairo from lots of places, either landing in Giza Sphinx airport which is located near the pyramids and primarily serviced by Edelweiss, Norwegian, Wizz Air and other budget airlines, or Cairo International which is on the other side of the city. If you're planning a trip to Cairo that primarily involves the Pyramids, Sphinx and the Grand Egyptian Museum which is now in Giza, you may want to consider flying into Giza Sphinx (SPX) instead, to save yourself time, hassle, and probably money too.

Below you can see the available flight routes into Cairo/Giza:

Flight routes going to Cairo International (left) and Cairo Sphinx airport in Giza near the pyramids (right) (Extract from Flightconnections.com)

DAY 1: Arriving in Cairo

We arrived in Cairo after midnight due to delay to our flight from London. We walked off the plane and showed our passports and visas to the officials there, gave them our landing card and our passports were stamped. They weren't even bothered looking at the eVisa, just a glance of the screenshots was enough for them. Our checked-in bag also made it to Cairo, so far, so good.

I had been warned about taxi drivers swarming people at the airport, so I was going to try and use Uber instead. However, every single Uber driver that picked up our trip request would message us on the app asking for cash payment of much more than what Uber was suggesting as fare (2-3x more). After several failed attempts, with every single ride request ending the same way, I decided I'd try the taxi drivers at the airport itself. To be honest, it wasn't as bad as had been described by others. These people had clearly never been to Punta Cana airport in the Dominican Republic, where the swarming and shouting taxi drivers are absolutely mental, like paparazzis chasing after celebrities. The Egyptian ones were very civilised in comparison but did try to ask for a ridiculous price for the ride (again 2-3x more than the Uber fare), so some bartering was needed.

We ended up getting the 40km ride from Cairo International to our Giza hotel for $15 USD. The hustler that got us into the taxi said he'd go with us.... weird. Alledgedly so that we'd feel "safer". The hustler was well-presented and spoke decent English while the driver did not, which I guess accounted for something but then the guy just abandoned the car half the way to Giza and left us with the taxi driver. Taxis in Egypt are absolutely mental. There is ZERO lane discipline, I kid you not. The lanes aren't even indicative. The drivers also drive incredibly fast, swooshing between cars, trucks and motorbikes at racing speeds, constantly beeping their horn as they approach a vehicle from the back or the side. It's also a 50/50 chance your vehicle doesn't have any seatbelts. We ended up arriving, still alive but shaken, at our hotel Elite Pyramids Boutique Hotel in Giza located just 700m from the Pyramids of Giza. The hustler had said they'd be able to give us change from our bigger US dollar bills, so I gave the driver $20 USD for the $15 USD and requested the change but he said he didn't have any change. In the end a staff member from the hotel gave him change but the driver asked them for more money that had been previously asked for. This was our first encounter with the typical scams you see a lot of in Egypt.

We were absolutely shattered when we arrived, I think it was like 2am in the morning or even later, so we checked into our hotel and straight to bed. The room was big, the bed was comfortable and we paid £81.90 GBP per night including breakfast. It is actually a very nice hotel and we would have stayed there for the second night if we hadn't already booked a different hotel for the next night (we needed an additional night in Cairo after our Dubai flight was cancelled as we arrived 1 day early but our original hotel, the Kove Hotel by The Pyramids, was fully booked for the Sunday night so we ended up in the Elite Pyramids Boutique Hotel for one night).

We woke up the next morning, still pretty tired as we had arrived late and had to get up early to catch the pyramids early. We also saw our hotel in daylight and had breakfast on their rooftop terrace - and what a view!!!!

DAY 2: Giza / Cairo sightseeing

Elite Pyramids Boutique Hotel in Giza. Egyptian style breakfast with an incredible view from their rooftop terrace.

We had Egyptian style breakfast on their roofterrace, which tasted good, with high quality ingredients. Their roof terrace doubles as a restaurant as well called Zeeyara Pyramids Elite, so even if you're not staying at the hotel, you can go for lunch or dinner there and enjoy the views.

Once breakfast was over, it was time to back our bags, leave them in the hotel reception and head out to explore the Pyramids!

The Pyramids of Giza and The Sphinx

When you stay in Giza, the hotels are generally in two main areas: by the main entry gate of the Pyramids (which is where our hotels were) or at the Sphinx entry gate. The main gate for the Pyramids is also closer to the Grand Egyptian Museum, as well as closer to Giza Sphinx airport, so it makes sense to stay there (aside from the obvious stunning views!). We literally just walked 10 minutes from our hotel and we were at the entrance gate to the Great Pyramids of Giza. How incredible is that?!

When you're ahead of the tour groups, it's easy enough to buy a ticket for the pyramids at the gate. However, to prevent falling victim to any sort of scam we purchased our Pyramids tickets ahead from the official Egyptian Monuments website for EGP 700 (£11 GBP), which provided us with a QR code that was scanned at the gate and off we went. We also purchased an entry ticket for going inside the Menkaure Pyramid for an additional EGP 280 (£4.30 GBP). The prices are the same at the gate.

We arrived in Egypt during a heatwave, with the forecast showing temperatures to rise almost into 40 degrees celcius for the first 3 days of our trip, over 10-15 degrees warmer than normal and we were definitely feeling it as we walked around the pyramids. At least on the positive side, the heat in Egypt is dry so it feels more like being slow-roasted in an oven compared to boiled in a sauna. Distances fortunately aren't very long but we knew we wouldn't last tremendously long out in this crazy heat, even though it was just the morning! There are people with horse carriages as well as camels, if you feel like being transported between the sights, but you definitely have to be prepared to barter A LOT or else be completely ripped off (like being asked for $25 USD for 5 minutes on a horse carriage). Ask for the price, be very clear what you're asking for and what you want included (because they will try to scam you if you're not 100% clear and even then they'll try to scam you sometimes), then never accept the first price. To be honest, if you just walk away, much of the time, anywhere in Egypt, they'll drop to 25% of the original price (which will still be way higher than what they'd ask a local Egyptian for).

A few snapshots from walking around the Giza Plateau

The main structure of the pyramids is built from the local limestone, but you can see where it has been cut and quarried in many places across the Giza Plateau.

The casing stone was typically a Tura Limestone, a high-quality white limestone quarried from Tura to the south of Cairo, east of the Nile. These smooth, polished stones reflected sunlight, giving the pyramids a radiant appearance, some of which still remains at the top of the Pyramid of Khafre. Over time, many of these casing stones were stripped away and reused in later buildings.

You can also see a lot of pink granite littered about that was in some cases used in the lower part of the pyramid casing. Pink granite was also used for key internal structures like the King’s Chamber in the Great Pyramid, sourced from Aswan quarries, located some 800 km south of Giza and was transported along the Nile River on large boats. Basalt was also used for flooring and causeways, sourced from quarries near Fayoum and Aswan, also transported via the Nile and laid in thick slabs.

Some of the building materials were sourced locally (Limestone). other materials were brought in from elsewhere in Egypt.

We then went to the Menkaure Pyramid, where we had tickets to go inside. We were pleasantly surprised by just how incredibly quiet the pyramids were in the mid-morning. We had expected it to be flooded with tourists by this point but we just walked straight into the pyramid, no queue and it wasn't even cramped inside the pyramid, even though the passageway to get in is extremely low and narrow.

Inside the Menkaure Pyramid

The Grand Egyptian Museum

The Egyptian Museum was being relocated to Giza, where a brand new absolutely stunning building is called the Grand Egyptian Museum, often shorthanded as "GEM". We tried our luck calling an Uber again, and again the Uber drivers were wanting payment in cash multiple times higher than what the app was actually suggesting. We tried Careem and it was the same story. The GEM is not far from the pyramids, about half an hour's walk but it was just too hot in the midday sun. The drivers were asking for crazy money like $15 USD for a 9 minute drive (that is A LOT in Egypt), claiming that they had to take a long route because of road works (so 9 minutes instead of 5 minutes). We abandoned the Uber and Careem idea and just found a driver on the street and bartered. He ended up accepting to take us for EGY 200 (£3 GBP / $4 USD).

The Grand Egyptian Museum is the ideal place to visit during the heat of the midday, as it's nicely air conditioned. There are also restaurants there. The entrance fee can be purchased on their official website (GEM), but just be sure to pick "Arabs or Other Nationalities" option, which is EGY 1270 (£19.40 GBP) per person. If you try to pick anything else (which are the cheaper options), they won't let you in. The fee is pretty steep, but when you go inside the building you'll realise it cannot be cheap for them to have built and maintain this incredible structure, which opened to the public just in October 2024. When we visited, admission was limited to the Main Galleries, Grand Hall, Grand Staircase, commercial area, and exterior gardens. Access to the Tutankhamun galleries and Khufu's Boats Museum is restricted until the official opening.

As a whole, the museum contains more than 100,000 objects, including the world’s only Hanging Obelisk, which has been relocated from Tanis, an archaeological site in the north eastern Nile Delta, to the Grand Egyptian Museum’s entrance. Along the Grand Staircase Gallery, there are more than 60 statues and objects across a number of themes, including Royal Image, Divine Houses, Gods & Kings, and Journey to Eternity.

The 12 main galleries are split chronologically, and then into three themes: Society, Kingship, and Beliefs. The first section covers from the Prehistoric Period up until the First Intermediate Period; the second, the Middle Kingdom and the Second Intermediate Period; the third, the New Kingdom; and the fourth, the Third Intermediate Period, the Late Period and the Graeco-Roman Period.

The Tutankhamun Galleries will contain the full collection of artefacts found within the boy king’s near-intact tomb, which was famously rediscovered by British Egyptologist Howard Carter in 1922. That amounts to more than 5,000 objects. Within the Khufu’s Boats Museum, visitors will also be able to see one of the two ships found sealed in a pit part of the Great Pyramid of Giza, the largest of the three major pyramids in the area, which served as the tomb for Pharaoh Khufu. A solar barque, it is believed the vessel was created to carry Khufu into the afterlife alongside the sun god Ra, and dates back to around 2500 BC, over 4500 years ago!

The hanging obelisk outside the GEM and the general architecture of the museum, overlooking the pyramids from the upper level.

I was absolutely fascinated by the museum's artefacts, as I have always been by ancient Egyptian artefacts I have seen in museums across Europe, but clearly the Grand Egyptian Museum was on a whole other level!

The many incredible artefacts found at the Grand Egyptian Museum

Aside from marvelling at these incredibly old artefacts, some of which are up to around 5000 years old and in incredibly good condition (which we could build things to last nowadays instead of the horrid throwaway culture!), I was also really intrigued to see the many different building materials used, some of which were polished to such incredible precision and smoothness, even very hard igneous rocks, I couldn't believe it. So much skill and engineering appears to have been lost since the time of the ancient Egyptians. Their craft is genuinely awe-inspiring.

The Ancient Egyptians used a variety of building materials, including sandstone, limestone, granite, basalt, alabaster, gneiss, unidentified plutonic (igneous) rock containing what appears like maybe a lot of feldspar and amphibole (hard to see) as well as rarities like anorthosite.

We had some time to kill after going through the museum until we could check into our other Giza hotel, so we took advantage of the lovely air conditioning within the museum building and went to one of their restaurants, Zooba. There we ordered an Egyptian dish called Feteer, which really resembles pizza to be honest.

Chicken Shawerma feteer (flaky Egyptian layered pastry

The feteer, a portion of fries and four soft drinks set us back EGY 665 (£10 GBP) including tips. Once we had had our lunch, it was more or less time to get checked into our other hotel, so we went to our previous hotel (Elite Pyramids Boutique Hotel), got our bags from the lobby and scrolled them 5 minutes to the Kove Hotel by the Pyramids. The Kove was a good chunk cheaper than the Elite Pyramids, at £58.59 GBP per night including breakfast (instead of £82) and the room was about as nice, except it didn't have a lounge area for sitting and it was a fair bit noisier, as it faced the main street. They also have a rooftop terrace with incredible view of the pyramids, where we sat and watched the sunset.

Watching the sunset from the rooftop terrace at Kove by the Pyramids hotel

The Kove alledgedly has a restaurant that operates on the roof terrace but looking at the menu, it didn't look appetising at all. It sounded like a random selection of frozen microwave meals charged at restaurant prices. We knew that the restaurant at our previous hotel serves good food (lots of reviews and their breakfast was very good!), so we decided we'd go there for our dinner instead.

When we got to the Zeeyara Elite restaurant, we got a bit of a scare when they asked us if we had a reservation. We didn't and didn't know we'd need one. They asked us where we were staying and then they showed us to a table. Phew. It was a bit weird though, as they gave different menus to people staying at different hotels. The menu we were handed was the "Iftar" menu. Iftar is the meal that Muslims eat to break their fast at sunset during Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. It marks the end of the daily fast, which begins at dawn (Suhoor) and lasts until sunset (Maghrib prayer). Just looking at the set menu, I knew there was absolutely no chance we could eat one of these each. We asked if there was any other menu, and we were told no. So we asked if we could share just one Iftar feast, which they were absolutely fine with. And what a feast it was! It reminded me of going out to a traditional taverna in Cyprus asking for the Meze menu - the food just kept coming, and coming, and coming. I lost count of how many dishes there were! I took a couple of photos but definitely missed out on taking pictures of a few dishes, there was just so much! It came with water as well as a hibiscus drink, traditional Ramadan drink, as well as a dessert that consisted of coconutty milky bread pudding sort of thing. I can't remember the name of it, but suspect it is what is called "Umm Ali".

Some of the items on the Iftar menu at Zeeyara Elite Restaurant, meant for one person! We couldn't even finish the feast between the two of us.

And of course we knew from having breakfast there in the morning, the views would be stellar, except now after dark with the pyramids lit up! The food tasted great, the staff was lovely and you can pay your bill with a Mastercard (Yay! Avios on my Barclaycard!), Visa or cash. We highly recommend this place for eating. Top marks.

The view from Zeeyara Elite Restaurant after dark overlooking the PYramids of Giza

By the end of our meal at Zeeyara, our flying visit to Cairo was over. We had a 7am flight to Aswan in south of Egypt the next day, so it was an early bed.

Do you only want to see the Pyramids, the Sphinx and the Grand Egyptian Museum in Egypt?

While we did an extended visit of Egypt that lasted 13 days and included all of Egypt's greatest hits, some people only really dream about seeing the pyramids. What we discovered when in Egypt is that there are super cheap, super short (1hr 25min) flights with Wizz Air from Larnaca in Cyprus to Giza Sphinx airport. They fly Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturday (so roughly every other day), giving you one evening, one full day, and one half day in Giza. So if you were on holiday in Cyprus, it would be fairly easy to spend a Thursday and Friday night in Giza and get plenty of time to see these three sights. The return flight is often just around £60-70 GBP!

DAY 3: Aswan, southern Egypt

One of my bucketlist places to see was the Unfinished Obelisk and the Aswan Granite Quarry, located in the same place. To get there, we needed to cross the river to Aswan and then get a taxi to take us there from the east bank pier. We had ignored the "offer" from our guesthouse host of $20 USD one way on a boat and went to ask around for prices. In the end, we were offered to charter a motorboat for EGY 800 ($15 USD). We could probably have negotiated the price lower, but we were just eager to move on. When we got to the east bank and found a taxi driver that would drive us to the Unfinished Obelisk, wait for us while we walked around and then take us to the Aswan Souqs for $10 USD.

The ancient Egyptians sourced much of their red granite for monuments from granite quarries in and around Aswan, used for cladding pyramids, making obelisks, and statues of pharaohs. The granite blocks were floated on the Nile using wooden boats during the flood season. The Unfinished Obelisk, which is still lying in the bedrock, provides a rare, unfinished glimpse into ancient Egyptian stone-working techniques. It was commissioned, likely during the reign of Queen Hatshepsut about 3500 years ago (circa 1508–1458 BCE), but was abandoned after cracks appeared in the stone, making it unsuitable for use. If completed, it would have been the largest obelisk ever erected, standing at approximately 42 meters (137 feet) tall and weighing an estimated 1,200 tons. The site reveals how obelisks were carved directly from bedrock using dolerite pounders, which were harder than the granite itself. Today, the granite quarry and the obelisk within it is a major tourist attraction showcasing ancient quarrying techniques. You can either buy the ticket at the gate or online on the Egyptian Monuments website, which will give you a QR code to scan at the gates (EGY 220).

Unfinished Obelisk & Aswan Granite Quarry

Old Aswan Souq market

I love markets and the Old Aswan Souq (Sharia as-Souq) is meant to be one of the most authentic and colorful markets in Egypt. Unlike the more chaotic souqs in Cairo, this market has a laid-back Nubian charm, making it a great place to explore, shop, and experience local culture. The souq has been a trading hub for centuries, where merchants from Sudan and Nubia sell goods alongside Egyptian traders. However, the souq was pretty quitet during the early afternoon when we were there. Apparently the best time to visit the market is after 5pm or in the evening, particularly if you're there during Ramadan, but also because the market is cooler and livelier after 5pm. However, as we were based on the west bank, that was a bit tricky for us as we didn't really have anything to do hanging around Aswan until that time. Plus, we didn't really want to be taking a boat back to our guesthouse on the west bank. So unfortunately we didn't really get the fun souq experience in Aswan. Once we had a quick browse through the market, which was largely closed, we went back to the pier and found a captain willing to take us back for EGY 700 ($14 USD).

Flying from Cairo and arriving in Aswan

We were a bit hesitant to use Uber in Egypt after our poor experience at Cairo International. However, our hotel was charging a rip-off rate of $25 USD for the airport transfer, so we thougt we'd try and pre-book an Uber. Long story short, it actually worked! This time around, the driver was on time, drove reasonably well and didn't try to scam us at any point. The final price was EGY 460 ($9.10 USD / £7 GBP), but we gave the driver an additional EGY 100 as tip.

We took a NileAir flight from Cairo International to Aswan which cost us £142 in total including luggage and took 1hr 25min. The flight departed from Terminal 1, also named "Old Cairo Airport". Trying to find the check-in counters was very confusing, as there was no signage and the counters were hidden on the other side of security, so we didn't know if we were going to the right one. There were loads of guys hanging around looking for tips for taking lost tourists to the right place, but we just about managed on our own. The check-in desks for the Aswan flight was not in the main hall but in a different hall within the same building. We then had to go through security, THEN we could go to the check-in desk and get rid of our bag. The terminal is absolutely tiny and the coffee is super overpriced at whopping EGY 200 ($4 USD) for a small cup, but needs must at 5am in the morning when you have a 4am start. The departure hall resembled that of a small bus terminal.

We eventually boarded the ancient plane that was pretty dirty and shagged out, with cracks in the windows and ripped seat fabric in places. I am not a great flier at the best of times, but having seen Egyptian driving, I hoped they flew their planes better but I didn't hold much hope. The alternative would have been something like 14-16 hours on a train, which was a stern "NO" for both of us. However, the flight ended up being fairly comfortable and we landed safely on time in Aswan.

Once outside the airport, I thought I'd try the Careem taxi app once more. This time the driver didn't try to ask for more money, but he couldn't actually access the airport itself and asked us to go to the gate outside. We had no idea what gate he was talking about as we couldn't see it, and as I asked him to explain, I lost connectivity on my phone. We were left with the swarm of Aswan taxi drivers at the airport, we were captive audience and they knew it. They were asking us for ridiculous prices for the short 25min drive to Aswan west bank to our booked hotel Kato Waidi Nubian House, like $30 USD and similar. They were not in the negotiating mood either, they just wanted to rip us off. So note to anybody going to Aswan airport: Pre-arrange your pickup through your hotel to avoid the stress, as these taxi drivers are sharks, not pleasant to deal with and they gang up together to get the most money out of the tourists. After way too long, we finally managed to talk them down to $15 USD, which was still quite a lot for the short journey (we did twice the distance for the same in Cairo but even then it was expensive for Egypt). We got into the driver's old banger and headed for Aswan west bank.

When we got to the guest house, I gave the driver the money as agreed - except I gave him $10 USD and then miscalculated the number of Egyptian pounds there were in $5 USD and gave him EGY 500 (which is $10 not $5), totalling to $20 USD. The driver was not happy and demanded more, that we had not paid him the full fare, which was a complete lie and a scam. He hovered around the guesthouse, complaining until we had ignored him for 5 minutes or so and then he buggered off. We were starting to REALLY not enjoy using taxis in this country.

The owners of the guest house were kind enough to let us check in early. The guest house features traditional Nubian style domed houses painted very colorfully. It was beautiful, both the room, albeit very basic though with air conditioning, but also the grounds of the guest house and all the surrounding area was just lovely.

Nubian Villages

Our guesthouse Kato Waidi Nubian House was located in a Nubian village on the West Bank of Aswan and cost us £59 for the night including breakfast. These villages are vibrant, colorful, and full of history, offering a unique chance to explore authentic Nubian culture. The Nubians are one of Egypt’s oldest ethnic groups, known for their distinct language, traditions, and colorful houses. Rather than going on an organized tour to visit the Nubian villages in and around Aswan, we chose to stay in one. The village is surrounded by lush palm trees and golden sand dunes, particularly breathtaking at sunset and is said to be one of the best places to take a relaxing felucca (sailing boat) ride on the Nile. However, when we were there, we did not see a single felucca, only plenty of motorboats.

We needed to get to Aswan city on the east bank of the River Nile, so I asked our host what was the best way to get us there. He said that one way with the motorboat would cost us $20 USD, which I thought was really steep. We'd then also have to get a taxi to get us to the Unfinished Obelisk, which we wanted to see in the Aswan granite quarries. The prices he suggested was $50 USD just to get us accross the river and back with a short taxi drive to the obelisk and back to the boat. That seemed very expensive, as you can hire a car for the day on GetYourGuide for $35 USD for two people that takes you to Philae Temple, the High Dam and Unfinished Obelisk from Aswan. Our host was suggesting that just to get into town from his guesthouse would set us back $40 USD for the return boat trip (20 min each way). Madness.

We left the guesthouse to walk around the village, which was very scenic. They have some excellent artists there.

Felucca sailing on the Nile

One of the things guidebooks always talk about when talking about Aswan is how incredible it is to go on a felucca boat ride, which is a sail boat rather than a motorboat. While it did sound appealing, just looking around the River Nile made me think maybe it's not all what it's cut out to be, because while YOUR boat might be silent, it will be surrounded by motorboats - there is a LOT of them, especially at sunset when all the passengers from all the Nile Cruise trips go for a sunset trip to the Nubian villages. Besides, as we were forced to take a boat between Aswan and our Nubian village, we thought that experience was plenty nice on its own, so we felt no need to pay over the odds for a felucca sunset trip, as we had originally planned.

THe colourful Nubian village on the west bank of Aswan

The Unfinished Obelisk in Aswan Quarry. Middle image shows Google Earth satellite imagery of the Unfinished Obelisk and the photo on the right a close up of the type of granite found in Aswan Quarry

Sailing on a motorboar between the Nubian village and Aswan city

River Nile Cruise (4 days/3 nights) from Aswan to Luxor

One of the absolute must-do's when in Egypt is to do a River Nile cruise, but with so many choices, it's hard to pick a cruise. After much thought and research, there were a few things that factored into our decision to go for the cruise that we did.

PRICE:
There's a huge range of prices for the River Nile Cruises but the fact of the matter is that they are all more or less the same. You'll find people on your boat in the same sort of room as you're in that paid twice as much. People talk about paying thousands of pounds for a River Nile Cruise. Those are the people who basically booked through third-party like Tui, Kuoni or similar travel agent that a) is being ripped off by the Egyptian tour operators; and b) Has an extortionate markup themselves on their tours (because they also need to make money from selling the cruise). Doing this is your Option 1 and will cost a fortune for what you're getting. Your Option 2 would be to book directly with the Egyptian tour operators using international platforms like Viator, GetYourGuide, TripAdvisor and the like. This will be much cheaper than the foreign travel agencies, costing typically around £90-100 GBP per person per night for the accommodation on the boat, all food and all tours, excluding entrance fees and tips. The benefit of doing this is that you can see people's reviews of the cruise and try to book something reasonable this way, but it will come at a premium as it will cost you more than Option 3, which is to just find one of the tour sales people at the port where you plan to start your cruise (typically either Aswan or Luxor) and haggle the price. If you're on a budget, that's the way to go but you have absolutely no clue what sort of boat you'll be on, what sort of room you'll be in or if the food will be edible.

TIME:
The River Nile flows into the Nile Delta and onwards into the Mediterranean. In my view, there's absolutely no point in sailing upstream, it just slows your progress and makes your tour more expensive as a result. If you're short on time (or don't like wasting time) and would rather pay less for the same service, it's better to travel downstream from Aswan to Luxor rather than upstream from Luxor to Aswan. Just take a flight from Cairo to Aswan rather than, what I hear is rather horrible, train ride from Cairo to Luxor.

ONWARD TRAVEL:
For us it was also really handy to end in Luxor, as it's a relatively 'short' bus ride from Luxor to Hurghada by the Red Sea, where we planned to end our trip. Going from Aswan would have been a lot more complicated , as there are no flights between Aswan and Hurghada and the overland journey is much, much longer than from Luxor. So a win-win in this case to sail from Aswan to Luxor.

OUR FINAL DECISION ON CRUISE:
We went for Option 2 booking a 4 day/3 night River Nile Cruise from Aswan to Luxor including a tour to Abu Simbel and a hot air balloon flight over Luxor through an international booking platform (Viator), as we wanted to know what we were getting ourselves in for, including a clear itinerary, reviews from other travellers and clear outlining of inclusions and exclusions.

What we found when we were in Egypt that the agencies hold their Viator rating in high regard and it was noticable that the company had made changes to their operation following travellers feedback, to the better. For one, there was an item in the itinerary that suggested that we'd be taken by horse carriage to one of the temples, but following complaints by travellers of the treatment of the horses and the bad state they are in, our tour now ran that leg in a minibus. There had also been complaints in the past about guides pushing tourists to leave a positive review for the tour, sometimes looking over their shoulders as they did it, but that was now not the case after tourists had complained about this (this may well happen on other tours but certainly didn't happen on ours). So I think it's worthwhile using these agencies as they offer you a fair price while allowing you to gauge which travel agencies are reputable. We certainly recommend the one we went with.

Prices vary depending on when you travel, but we paid £260 per person for the 4 day / 3 night cruise including very nice room on the ship MS King of Thebes (what ship you end up on may vary but they are all pretty similar), all food and tours, including a hot air balloon tour. However note that tips and entrance fees to the Egyptian monuments are not included. The tips cover all the staff that are involved with making your tour great, including the cruise ship staff and minibus drivers. You just tip at the start - in our case it was a total of $32 USD between the two of us, and then you don't need to tip anybody else, except your tour guide at the end of the trip. Entry tickets can be purchased beforehand with a credit card (MasterCard or Visa only), if that helps, on the official Egymonuments website. Just be mindful of your itinerary, as the entry tickets are only valid on the day and if you booked your cruise ahead of time, there's a chance you might get shuffled to another day, as was the case for us. We booked the cruise for 20th March but it was was cancelled so we were offered either 19th or the 21st instead, of which we chose the 19th. Also, the days when you visit the temples in Luxor isn't completely set in stone. We had purchased entry ticket to Luxor Temple for the 22nd March as we were supposed to visit the temple at night of the 22nd but our cruise ship got held up at Esna Lock for several hours causing us to miss the opening hours for the night time opening of the temple. You can also just buy the tickets off your guide, who doesn't charge you anything extra for that service. The only caveat is that you need to have a fair bit of cash on you for that, and give him the payment in cash but then you'll be sure to have a ticket for the correct date. The entry fees, correct as of March 2025, are in brackets behind each attraction listed in the itinerary below (EGP 50 = c.a. $1 USD in March 2025).

Note that all River Nile Cruises have extremely early starts!! Wake up call is always between 3:30am and 5am, but it's worth it!! Mentally prepare yourself!!

ITINERARY:

• Day 1: We got picked up from our hotel on the west bank of Aswan and taken to the cruise ship for check in and lunch on board. After check in, we were taken to Aswan High Dam (EGP 200) and Temple of Philae (EGP 550) and to Aswan Spice Market to be introduced to international spices that have been going through Aswan throughout Egyptian history. After the spice market there was an optional excursion to the West Bank of Aswan to see the Nubian village, which we skipped out on, as we had actually been staying in that very same village. The boat was docked at Aswan for the night, as there was an early morning trip next morning to Abu Simbel.

• Day 2: Super early start (4am departure) to drive 4 hours south towards the Sudanese border to go see the temple of Abu Simbel (EGP 750) and once back in Aswan we made a quick stop at Aswan High Dam (EGP 200). When back on the boar, we had lunch and started sailing to Kom Ombo (EGP 450) and visit the temple which is lit up at night. We had dinner on board the boat after visiting Kom Ombo and then the cruise then continued towards Edfu where the boat docked overnight.

• Day 3: We left for the Temple of Horus at Edfu (EGP 550) at 05:30am and returned to the boat for breakfast. The most cruise-like day with more time on the boat. We then returned to the cruise to chill on deck watching the unique landscape and admire the beautiful scenery of the Nile river while sailing to Luxor and experienced crossing the Esna Lock. We were supposed to see at least Luxor Temple on this day in the evening but we got held up for a long time to wait our turn to go through Esna Lock.

• Day 4: We were meant to have a 4am start to go on a half an hour Hot Air Balloon flight over Valley of the Kings at sunrise. However, the weather conditions were unfavourable with strong winds, which was not safe for the hot air balloon flight (you get a $25 USD refund if it gets cancelled). Instead, we still had an early 5:30am breakfast and 6am departure to Valley of the Kings (EGP 750). I had purchased additional tickets to see the Tomb of Tutankhamen (EGP 700) and Ramesses V&VI Tomb (EGP 220). In the main ticket you also have 3 more tombs included. After the Valley of the Kings, we went to Temple of Hatshepsut (EGP 440) Later in the afternoon we went to the East bank of Luxor seeo Karnak Temple followed by Luxor Temple (EGP 500) on the East bank of Luxor and then on to Karnak Temple (EGP 600) before finishing the tour, picking up our bags and checking into our Luxor hotel.

All meals, except for the lunch on the very last day ($8 USD) were included in the itinerary but drinks of the boat were extra. A big Heineken cost us EGP 165 (£2.50 GBP), which was very cheap compared to our Luxor hotel that charged us EGP 600 per beer!!

If you fancy doing the same cruise and tours, you can book the 4 the 4 day/3 night tour on Viator here. More detailed description of our experience of the cruise and the tours is in the following sections.

Our River Nile cruise ship - The King of Thebes

DAY 1 OF RIVER NILE CRUISE: Philae Temple and the Aswan Spice Market

On the first day, you don't actually leave Aswan but stay docked in town. However, there's good reason for that as there is plenty to see. One thing we didn't know was that while they travel agency includes pick up from the East Bank hotels, train station and Aswan airport, they don't include pick up from the West Bank of Aswan so we had to make our way ourselves to the East Bank. After having an "interesting" experience with a taxi driver that took us from Aswan airport to the West Bank and the bad road conditions, we decided we'd charter a boat again to get across to the KFC where our boat was docked.

As previously experienced, chartering a boat to take you the 15-20 minute boat journey to the East Bank of Aswan usually cost us around EGP700-800, though that was in the higher range of prices - we just didn't bother bartering for £1-2 GBP difference. We went to the pier just outside our hotel and a captain approached us. We asked him for a price to take us to Aswan KFC and he quoted us EGP 600. "Fine" we thought. He was a bit more fair than the previous two guys. We boarded the boat and sat down. Except the boat didn't leave. We wondered if we had ended up on the public ferry, as this boat was a bit bigger than the two we had previously chartered, in which case EGP 600 was a total ripoff. The captain told us to wait, as he was expecting some more people. Little did we know that 20 minutes later, a huge group of an organised tour of Spanish tourists was coming. We were basically crashing their party. The EGP 600 he was asking us was DEFINITELY a ripoff.

The boat finally departed and cruised down the River Nile, playing obnoxiously loud reggeaton music, not particularly fitting for the crowd of Spanish pensioners. We then spotted the KFC on Aswan East Bank, but the crew just sailed right past it. We were already late for our arrival at the boat. I said to the crew member they had agreed to drop us off at the KFC, but they just said "Tour group first". Except the tour group was getting off another couple of miles downstream. Now we were really late, by a full hour. We eventually got to the KFC and I, very begrudgingly, handed the captain the EGP 600, pretty pissed off about his behaviour. He looked at us and said that we had only paid for one of us, that the fare was EGP 1200!! I was absolutely raging, as that's not what had been agreed at all. In the end we just ignored his outrageous request and walked away, absolutely furious and outraged. This captain's name was Abraham (or so he said earlier, when he was trying to sell us a felucca tour for EGP 1500 for two people for 1 hr, before everything went sour). He was wearing a striped "galabeya" (a traditional Egyptian style robe for men) and his boat was branded with Bob Marley. If you're in Aswan, avoid this con-artist.

We checked into our beautiful boat, MS King of Thebes, and we were shown to our huge room with river view. Lovely. See images above. We were then fed lunch before heading out exploring.

We got into a minibus and were taken to a pier where a boat took us to an island to see the Temple of Philae. It is one of the more "recent" ancient Egypt monuments, a Graeco Roman Temple dedicated to goddess Isis, built over 2000 years ago, between the years 380-145 BC. When you visit the temple, you'll notice that many of the figures have had their faces defaced. The Philae Temple in Egypt was defaced over different periods, but one of the most notable acts of defacement was carried out by early Christians. When Christianity became the dominant religion in Egypt, many ancient Egyptian temples were repurposed as churches. At Philae, Christian iconoclasts chiseled out the faces and figures of pagan gods, particularly Isis, to erase their religious significance. With the construction of the modern dam in Aswan (1960 - 1970) a few kilometers upstream, this temple was going to face total flooding. The UNESCO awarded two Italian companies with a contract tasked with documenting, dismantling, and restoring the Philae monumental complex, as well as transferring and reconstructing it at the new site on Agilkia Island.

Visiting Philae Temple during Day 1 on our River Nile Cruise

The next stop on the tour was to a "spice institute" in Aswan, but Aswan played a significant role in the ancient spice trade primarily from the New Kingdom period of Egypt (circa 1550–1070 BCE) through the Ptolemaic (305–30 BCE) and Roman periods (30 BCE–476 CE) due to its strategic location on the Nile River and its role as a gateway between Egypt and Nubia.. It served as a key transit point for goods coming from Africa, Arabia, and India, including spices such as cinnamon, frankincense and myrrh. These goods were transported along trade routes like the Incense Route and the Red Sea trade networks, reaching markets in Egypt, the Mediterranean, and beyond. Aswan’s importance was further enhanced by its control over the cataracts of the Nile, which made it a natural checkpoint for trade caravans and river transport.

During our visit to the spice institute, we were shown jars of spices, given a brief explanation of each and allowed to taste them. After the briefing, we were then given free time to look at their (overpriced) products and buy some, if we so desired. However, being as lucky as we are living in the UK, we have access to an incredible variety of spices right from the comfort of our local supermarkets, at much lower prices.

Aswan Spice market visited on the River Nile Cruise

We were then taken back to the boat to relax and have dinner while others that had opted for the optional excursion to the Nubian Village on the West Bank went there for a sunset trip (as we had already been staying there the previous day).

DAY 2 OF RIVER NILE CRUISE: Abu Simbel

Our guide asked us to be ready to leave for Abu Simbel at 4am on Day 2 of the cruise, as it was a 4 hour long journey towards the Sudanese border and we needed to catch the boat, which was sailing in the afternoon. We were given a packed breakfast box with some sandwiches, juice and water and off we went into our minivan.

It must be said, that the minivan was not comfortable. It was pretty cramped and the air conditioning didn't work very well. Certain people were also particularly unlucky with their seat, sitting above the tyres, which made the leg room even less (which wasn't much to begin with). We then made it some 30min away from our ship where we, along with many, many, many other buses, got held up at a police checkpoint for whatever reason. The police wasn't interested it us, but they weren't letting anybody pass. There was no information given. Time passed and nothing. An hour later we eventually started crawling forward, except now, because of all the hold-up, every single bus of every single cruise ship and travel agency in Aswan and surrounding area was headed into Abu Simbel at the exact same time. And once we got there, we definitely felt it.

Ocean of tourists as far as the eye could see inside Abu Simbel Temple

Abu Simbel was built by Pharaoh Ramesses II almost 3300 years ago during the 19th Dynasty of the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. The complex consists of two massive rock-cut temples, the Temple of Ramesses II and Temple of Queen Nefertari, which was originally carved directly into a sandstone cliff. The façade of the Tempe of Ramesses II features four colossal statues of Ramesses II, each about 20 meters tall. The temple was designed so that twice a year (on February 22 and October 22), the sun aligns to illuminate the inner sanctuary, lighting up statues of deities—except for Ptah, associated with the underworld. The Temple of Queen Nefetari fatures six colossal statues (four of Ramesses and two of Nefertari, each about 10 meters. It is one of the few temples in Egypt where a queen is depicted at the same scale as the pharaoh.

Aside from the incredible feat of building this huge temple that was carved into the mountain side, a more recent feat of engineering is about as impressive. In the 1960s, due to the construction of the Aswan High Dam, the rising waters of Lake Nasser threatened to submerge Abu Simbel. A massive international UNESCO-led effort relocated the temples piece by piece to higher ground between 1964 and 1968, which involved not just taking apart the colossal statues at the front, but to cut up the entire mountain that hosts the interior of the temple into blocks, labelling them and putting them back together at higher elevation. The entire complex was dismantled and reconstructed 200 meters inland and 65 meters higher than its original location.

Temple of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel

Temple of Queen Nefertari at Abu Simbel

I must say I felt a bit deflated when we finally got to Abu Simbel, as this is a place I have dreamt about visiting literally for decades. Such an awe-inspiring place but it was so crowded you couldn't move, and because we were so late due to being held back at a police check-point meant that we only had 1 hour to see this marvellous complex, when we had gotten up at 3:30am, spent 5 hours to get there and would spend another 4 hours to get back. If you are going to Egypt and feel as strongly about Abu Simbel as I did, which was almost the whole reason I wanted to go to Egypt (as well as seeing the pyramids), you may just want to hire a private driver that can leave a tiny bit later than 4am and skip the mad cruise ship, as they will largely have left by 11am. But if it isn't, then the cruise ship tour is probably fine for you, as long as the buses are a bit more staggered than they were when we were there. The temple complex is a sight to behold!

Note how the entire mountain has been cut into blocks and put back together

Pictures from the amazing Abu Simbel Complex near the Sudanese border

Aswan Dam - a quick stop

Seeing as we were quite late to go back to the boat, our guide asked us if we were interested in seeing Aswan High Dam. He said he was asking us, as many people in the past apparently had been quite disappointed and found it to be nothing special. Being such a famous dam, one assumes something similar to the Hoover Dam or some grand structures. The Aswan High Dam is one of the most significant infrastructure projects in Egypt. It was built to prevent control the River Nile's flow, prevent flooding and provide hydroelectric power. It was constructed in the 1960s by Egypt with major support from the Soviet Union. We ended up going there in the end for a quick stop, paid the EGY 200 ($4 USD) it costs to enter the dam site and low and behold.... we were as underwhelmed as previous tourists had been....

Aswan High Dam

DAY 2 OF RIVER NILE CRUISE: Kom Ombo Temple

We were rushed from Aswan High Dam to the boat which was waiting for our tour group, and as soon as we were on board the boat started sailing. The next destination was an evening visit to Kom Ombo temple. The Temple of Kom Ombo is a unique "double temple" dedicated to two gods: Sobek the crocodile god and Horus. The temple has two identical halves, each dedicated to a separate deity, with its own sanctuaries, courts, and hypostyle halls. This reflects the balance of power between the gods. It was built during the Ptolemaic period (circa 180–47 BCE) but incorporates older structures from the New Kingdom (16th–11th century BCE). Sobek was feared and revered, as crocodiles were common in the Nile. A crocodile mummification chamber was found near the temple and the 2000+ year old crocodile mummies are now on display in a museum near the temple.

The Ptolemaic period in ancient Egypt marked the reign of the Ptolemaic dynasty, a Macedonian Greek dynasty founded by Ptolemy I Soter, a general of Alexander the Great, and ended with the death of Cleopatra VII. The Ptolemies, Greek rulers of Egypt after Alexander the Great, often blended Egyptian and Greek religious traditions. This temple honored both Sobek, associated with fertility and the Nile, and Horus the Elder, linked to protection and kingship. The temple was further restored and expanded under Roman emperors, but reliefs from this period depict Roman rulers making offerings to Egyptian gods. After the temple was abandoned, it fell into ruin over time due to Nile flooding, earthquakes and stone looting. Many of its reliefs were defaced by early Christians, which can be seen inside the temple.

The entrance fee for the temple is EGY 450 and can be purchased at the gate, with the guide or online on the official Egyptian Monuments page. When we got to the temple, it was incredibly busy, but as we were getting there pretty late, we were seeing the tail end of the cruise ship traffic and towards the end of our visit, the temple was actually pretty quiet! The temple is very pretty as it is lit up in the night, so I was glad we came there at night.

Kom Ombo Temple at night

DAY 3 OF RIVER NILE CRUISE: Temple of Horus, Edfu

We were told to be ready for a 5:30am departure to go and see the Temple of Horus in Edfu. Typically tour groups take a horse carriage to Temple of Horus from their ship, however the agency we were travelling with listened to previous customers' complaints about the state and treatement of the horses and therefore we were taken in a minibus to the temple. Just as well.

The temple of Horus at Edfu is considered to be the most complete and the best preserved of all the Egyptian temples and is dedicated to Horus, the falcon-headed god of kingship and protection. It was built during the Ptolemaic period between the years 237 BCE and 57 BCE when Greek rulers controlled Egypt but continued traditional Egyptian religious and architectural practices. The Ptolemies sought to legitimize their rule by reviving and promoting Egyptian religious traditions, followingd classical Egyptian temple design, emphasizing continuity with Egypt’s ancient past. Hieroglyphic inscriptions depict the Ptolemies as traditional pharaohs, making offerings to the gods. During the Roman period, the temple remained an active religious center. With the spread of Christianity, pagan temples were closed, and parts of the temple were repurposed. The temple was buried under desert sand and village buildings until it was excavated by Auguste Mariette in the 19th century.

The entry price to the temple was EGY 550 and again, can be purchased with the guide, at the front gate or online. There was already a LONG queue to get in when we were at the temple by 05:50am. After having been at Abu Simbel the day before absolutely swimming in crowds of people, I didn't think we'd ever see anything busier than that but I was wrong. The Temple of Horus is a bottleneck temple on the Nile cruises and eeeeeeeeverybody goes there at the same time first thing in the morning. If you are in Egypt and NOT doing a Nile cruise, you should probably avoid being there first thing in the morning. Just trying to take photos that were not like this was extremely hard:

EXtremely busy Temple of Horus first thing in the morning

You can even see my very disgruntled face in this group photo, where I am clearly thinking "I don't know where I'm going in this push and shove ocean of people but I also can't get back out of here"

Me on the left, not looking happy, unable to move due to crowds at Temple of Horus in Edfu

The temple did look very cool, like something out of Legend of Zelda, but I didn't get many photos at all because there was just not much opportunity due to the crowds. I did find a few slightly quieter pockets though.

Temple of Horus in Edfu

Gosh, was I glad when we got out of there and back on the boat. Little did we know though that this was going to be the only excursion of the day. We were meant to go at least to Luxor Temple at night time, but we ended up getting stuck in a queue to enter Esna Lock, which caused us to be so late that it was not worthwhile going to Luxor Temple by the time we finally got to Luxor. So the day was just pure sailing.

After the rather horrible experience of crowds at Temple of Horus, with Kom Ombo and Abu Simbel also having been pretty overrun as well, several of us were considering just abandoning the tour to be able to avoid being at all the temples at the exact same time as all of the cruise ship passengers at once. However, after speaking with our tour guide, he agreed we'd adjust the itinerary to avoid the crowds, especially as he had a strong suspicion that our hot air balloon tour first thing in the morning would likely be cancelled due to strong winds, meaning we could win some time.

DAY 3 of RIVER NILE CRUISE: Luxor

Hot air Balloon experience in Luxor

As expected, our hot air balloon flight was cancelled due to strong winds (it was really windy!!). It was very disappointing as it was one of the things I was looking forward to the most about our Egypt trip (along with the pyramids, Abu Simbel and the Red Sea). But we had a trump card now - the fact that we could be at the biggest sight of Luxor pretty much as soon as it opened, while others were still having their breakfast. We has breakfast at 5:30am and headed in a minibus for Valley of the Kings at 6am in the morning.

However, if you want to learn about people's experience of the hot air balloon part of the River Nile Cruise, I can direct you to Discoveny.com. I guess I'll just have to wait for my next chance, maybe we'll go to Capadoccia in Turkey one day?

Hot Air balloon take-off on Luxor West Bank (Image: DiscovenY.com)

Valley of the Kings

If you don't know anything about Valley of the Kings, when you first arrive it looks quite unassuming. However, the incredible archaeology lies within caverns dug into the mountainside consisting of tombs of Egyptian Pharaohs that have been preserved in absolutely remarkable condition. You get access to three tombs with your general Valley of the Kings entry ticket (EGY 750) that aren't tombs requiring special tickets. The tombs requiring extra tickets are Aye Tomb (EGP 200), Tutankhamen Tomb (EGP 700), Ramesses V&VI Tomb (EGP 220) and Seti The First Tomb (EGP 2000). Not all tombs are open to the public, and there is continuous work in the area to restore more tombs.

I bought us tickets for Tutankhamen's Tomb and Ramesses V&VI Tomb. We then visited the tombs of Ramesses IX, Merenptah and Siptah on the general ticket. I knew Valley of the Kings would be cool, but I didn't expect just how much I was going to get blown away with the incredible tombs. Below is a map of the tombs. The grey is the above ground walking paths, white are the underground tombs.

The Tomb of Tutankhamen

The tomb of Tutankhamen is the most famous tomb in the valley due to its discovery largely intact (as opposed to having been raided by grave robbers). It was discovered by a British archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922. The tomb, which is thought to be over 3300 years old (c. 1332–1323 BCE) contained a vast collection of treasures, including the golden death mask.

There is so much mystery shrouding the Tomb of Tutankhamen and with the famous solid gold mask, you kind of expect to see something incredibly grandiose but in fact the tomb is possibly the smallest one in the Valley of the Kings! This is considered likely due to the young king’s unexpected death. It contains King Tutankhamen's mummified body, wall paitings featuring Tutankhamun with Osiris and the Opening of the Mouth Ceremony as well as his chest. Most of the treasures found within the tomb have been transferred to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, due to be transferred to the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza.

Tomb of Tutankhamen

Tomb of Ramesses V&VI

Dynasty: 20th Dynasty Reigns: Ramesses V (c. 1147–1143 BCE) Ramesses VI (c. 1143–1136 BCE) Notable Features: Originally built for Ramesses V, but later expanded and reused by Ramesses VI. Features detailed astronomical texts, including The Book of the Day and Night and The Book of the Dead. The ceiling of the burial chamber displays Nut, the sky goddess, swallowing and rebirthing the sun, symbolizing cosmic renewal.

Ramesses V&VI Tomb

Tomb of Merenptah

Merenptah, son of Ramesses II who was around some 3200+ years ago was known for his victory over the Libyans and the Merneptah Stele, which contains the earliest reference to Israel. His tomb is one of the largest in the Valley of the Kings. The tomb features multiple stone sarcophagi, but his mummy was later moved to the royal cache at Deir el-Bahari. Decorated with Book of Gates and Book of the Dead texts.

Tomb of Merenptah

Tomb of Siptah

Siptah was a young pharaoh with a short reign around 1197–1191 BCE, possibly suffering from polio (his mummy shows a withered leg). His tomb was unfinished at his death, and his sarcophagus was later reused. There is lots of exposed chalky limestone in this tomb and it feels a bit like going into a cave, descending into the tomb.

Tomb of Siptah

Tomb of Ramesses IX

This tomb, interestingly, was the busiest one (as it's near the valley's entrance) and the least impressive one we went into. It dates back to ca. 1129–1111 BCE but the tomb was unfinished, with a relatively simple burial chamber. Ramesses IX's mummy was later moved to the royal cache (DB320) in Deir el-Bahari.

Tomb of Ramesses IX

Temple of Hatshepsut

The Temple of Hatshepsut, also known as Deir el-Bahari, is a magnificent mortuary temple on the west bank of the Nile near Luxor. It was built in the 15th century BCE to honor Queen Hatshepsut, one of ancient Egypt’s few female pharaohs. The temple is famous for its unique design, consisting of three massive terraces that blend seamlessly into the limestone cliffs of the desert. The symbolism emphasizes Hatshepsut’s unprecedented rule as a female pharaoh who portrayed herself with male regalia to solidify her position. The temple was also a religious center dedicated to Amun-Ra, the chief deity of ancient Egypt. Despite attempts by later rulers, including Thutmose III, to erase her legacy, the well-preserved reliefs and architectural grandeur of the temple continue to showcase Hatshepsut’s remarkable and groundbreaking reign.

Temple of Hatshepsut

Colossi of Memnon

Before leaving the West Bank of Luxor, we made a short stop at an alabaster factory, as well as at the Colossi of Memnon (free entry). The Colossi of Memnon consists of two massive stone statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, standing at about 18 meters high. Amenhotep III’s reign was during the 14th century BCE. One of the most intriguing aspects of the Colossi is the "singing phenomenon" recorded in ancient times. Due to cracks in the northern statue, it would emit a mysterious, musical sound at dawn, likely caused by temperature changes and moisture evaporation. This phenomenon led the Greeks to associate the statues with Memnon, a Trojan War hero, believing the sound was his voice greeting his mother, the goddess Eos. Although the sounds stopped after Roman restorations in the 3rd century CE, the Colossi remain an awe-inspiring sight, attracting visitors who marvel at their sheer size and historical significance.

Colossi of Memnon, Luxor West Bank

Karnak Temple

We travelled from the West Bank to the East bank to our next destination: Karnak. The Karnak Temple Complex in Luxor is one of the largest and most impressive religious sites in the world. Built over 2,000 years (from the Middle Kingdom to the Ptolemaic era), it was dedicated primarily to Amun-Ra, the chief god of Thebes, along with Mut and Khonsu. I certainly found it to be one of the most impressive temples we saw on our journey through Egypt. It is also the place of the tallest obelisk in all of Egypt, and would only have been surpassed in size had the Unfinished Obelisk in Aswan been finished.

The temple’s most iconic feature is the Great Hypostyle Hall, a vast space covering 5,000 square meters with 134 massive sandstone columns, some reaching 21 meters (69 feet) high. This hall, along with the towering obelisks, colossal statues, and sacred lake, reflects the grandeur and architectural achievements of ancient Egypt.

What makes Karnak truly special is its historical and religious significance. It was not just a temple but a living, evolving religious center where pharaohs continuously added chapels, pylons, and inscriptions to honor the gods and legitimize their rule. The temple was also home to the Opet Festival, a grand annual celebration where Amun’s statue was paraded from Karnak to Luxor Temple. Today, Karnak remains a breathtaking testament to Egypt’s power, devotion, and architectural mastery, attracting visitors who walk through its monumental ruins to witness the legacy of the pharaohs.

The incredibly impressive Karnak Temple

Luxor Temple

Luxor Temple is one of Egypt’s most stunning and well-preserved temples, located on the east bank of the Nile in Luxor (ancient Thebes). Unlike many temples dedicated to gods, Luxor Temple was primarily dedicated to the divine aspect of kingship, making it a center for royal coronations and rituals. It was built mainly during the New Kingdom (c. 1400 BCE), with contributions from Amenhotep III, Tutankhamun, Horemheb, Ramesses II, and later Roman emperors. What is particularly special about the temple is how it has been used throughout Luxor's history, from the ancient Egyptians, through the Greco-Roman, Christian and then later Islamic rule of the country. There is reference made to Alexander the Great inside one of the chambers, some structures had been repurposed as Christian temples with the ancient hieroglyphs pastered over and Christian symbology and figures painted over the plaster which now has started to crumble, revealing the ancient figures and hieroglyphs. There us also a mosque within the complex.

Luxor Temple

Post River Nile cruise reflections

• The River Nile Cruises are an excellent way to see many of Egypt's most incredible archaeological sites in confort and without stress or hassle of dealing with hustlers and taxi drivers. The crew and the guide take really good care of you.

• However, there are early starts every day (4am, 5:30am and 6am though normally 4am if air balloon goes ahead). Mentally prepare yourself for this.

• The days are long and you will see a lot. There is a fair bit of walking but nothing too strenuous.

• Breakfast is early while lunch and dinner tends to be late (2pm / 8pm)

• There will always be a cruise ship bottle neck at Kom Ombo and Temple of Horus. Expect crowds. We were unlucky with Abu Simbel as the buses should have been more staggered but because of police check point hold-up.

• The food was generally pretty good and the crew was very nice. They had Heineken beer which wasn't expensive.

• The room on our boat was excellent, it was one of the best rooms we had in Egypt. Huge as well for a room on a boat!

• Don't bother paying for a more expensive cruise - all the boats are roughly the same. I can say that, as we had to walk through sometimes up to 5 different ships to get to our ship (they're all docked next to each other with doors open so you can just walk through). You also see the upper deck of other ships from your own upper deck, and there's no noticable difference that would warrant the different price (which can sometimes be up to £1000 pp!). Just go for the one we went on, it is perfectly nice, we had a lovely time.

If you fancy doing the same cruise and tours, you can book the 4 the 4 day/3 night tour on Viator here.

Luxor

For the attractions of Luxor, see the sections above for the River Nile Cruise tours.

We stayed two nights in a hotel in Luxor after we finished our last River Nile Cruise tour. The tour had pretty much taken us to every place we could ever dream of going in Luxor and on the River Nile, so there wasn't much left to do after the tour than to just take it easy, though we did have a plan to go on a half a day trip to Qena to see the Temple of Dendera, which I had heard good things about.

In terms of place to stay in Luxor, wWe wanted something central, highly rated, not too expensive and which included breakfast. There are obviously a lot of options out there and some of the ones we considered were:

• Jolie Ville Hotel & Spa Kings Island for £93 including breakfast which looked lovely but just a bit out of the way,

• Steigenberger Resort Achti for £94 (including breakfast) which looked like a beautiful hotel

• Nefertiti Hotel Luxor, which was very cheap at just just £38 per night, had great reviews and included breakfast

There was really a tie between Steigenberger and Nefertiti for the location. There was quite a big difference in price but in the end and while I was leaning towards Nefertiti Hotel Luxor, I decided that the Steigenberger Resort Achti would be a better choice for us, given that it was an international chain hotel and we were there during Ramadan, so we hopefully wouldn't have issues getting fed after sunrise.

We had originally planned to only stay 1 night in Luxor, but because our River Nile Cruise on the 20th got cancelled and we had to move it to the 19th of March, we had to stay 2 nights in Luxor. I was able to amend the booking for the Steigenberger Resort Achti, but what I didn't realise until we got there that for some reason, our room conditions were changed to not including breakfast anymore, even though the price we paid was the same as the current rate for a room with breakfast. Which was disappointing, as the hotel charged a whopping $12 USD for the breakfast per person! We were a captive audience though, so we went for the breakfast on the first morning. However, it was horribly disappointing, with stale bread, dried out ham and cheese slices and just generally very poor quality food. They also didn't have a coffee station, so you needed to ask a waiter to bring you coffee and juice, which was an inconvenience. The room in the hotel was fine, but nothing special. And while the hotel did have local Egyptian beer, it was shockingly expensive compared to what we had had on the River Nile Cruise (which one would assume would generally be expensive!). They charged $6.50 USD for every beer! That's more expensive than most places in Europe. So my final verdict is that the Steigenberger Resort Achti is not worth the money - you'll get the same or better quality for a fraction of the price elsewhere (like the Nefertiti Hotel, for example).

Temple of Dendera

The Temple of Dendera, located in Qena a one hour's drive from Luxor, is one of the best-preserved temples from ancient Egypt. We came here by hiring a taxi for half a day, paying him $40 USD, if I remember correctly, for the 1 hr journey, wait for us outside the temple for 1 hr and drive us 1hr back to our Luxor hotel. The entry fee was EGP 300 and can be purchased either online or at the ticket booth.

The temple is primarily dedicated to Hathor, the goddess of love, beauty, music and motherhood, and was an important religious center for ancient Egyptians. The temple complex dates back to the Ptolemaic and Roman periods (c. 125 BCE – 60 CE), though evidence suggests earlier structures existed on the site as far back as the Old Kingdom (c. 2500 BCE).

The temple's architecture is remarkable for its massive hypostyle hall, featuring incredibly impressive 24 towering columns adorned with Hathor-headed capitals. The walls and ceilings are covered in some of the most vibrant and detailed reliefs found in any Egyptian temple, including astronomical depictions such as the famous Dendera Zodiac, which maps celestial bodies and constellations. The temple also features an underground crypt, once used to store sacred objects, and a rooftop chapel where rituals honoring the goddess were performed. The crypt comes at an additional ticket cost (minimal), but the rooftop chapel can be visited through a maze of stairs elaborately decorated in hieroglyphs the whole way up to the rooftop. Join us on a journey through Dendera Temple in the video below:

From our visit at Dendera Temple in Qena.

The temple’s sanctuary housed the sacred image of Hathor, and various smaller chapels were dedicated to other deities, including Osiris and Isis. One of the temple’s most intriguing carvings is the "Dendera Light" relief, which some have interpreted as an ancient electrical device, though scholars widely agree it represents a symbolic depiction of creation myths. The temple remained in use well into the Roman period, and later, parts of it were converted into a Coptic Christian church, as seen by Christian crosses carved over some of the ancient reliefs.

One of the reasons why we decided to visit Dendera Temple was because it's off the beaten track - cruise ships don't come here, so only the slightly more intrepid independent travellers make it here. Therefore, the temple is very quiet. It looks very unassuming as you approach the temple and it makes you think... have I pre-blown my mind after seeing so many temples and tombs for the past week that this is just yet another temple? Then you walk inside the temple and WOAH..... absolutely not the case. We largely had the whole place to ourselves. It was such a magical experience to wander through all the nooks and crannies of this beautiful and incredibly well preserved temple and I would recommend to anybody to make time to visit it. It is honestly just so special. Loved it.

The Absolutely stunning Dendera Temple in Qena near Luxor

Hurghada by the Red Sea

GETTING FROM LUXOR TO HURGHADA

On our second morning in Luxor, we then took the bus from Luxor to Hurghada. You can book it in advance using Go-Bus Egypt for EGP 320 (£5 GBP) per person, but we had real trouble using the website when it came to adding the credit card details, at least when operating on the mobile. We ended up using 12Go.com and bought the 4 hour Go bus journey from there, except it cost us £7 GBP per person instead of £5 GBP.

CHOOSING A RESORT IN HURGHADA

There are numerous resort towns by the Red Sea in Egypt but the most famous ones being Sharm El Sheik, Hurghada and Marsa Alam. As I mentioned earlier, due to logistics it made sense to start our River Nile Cruise in Aswan and finish in Luxor because it was a lot easier to get to the Red Sea from Luxor. Then Hurghada is not really too far from Luxor and has a direct flight back to Edinburgh, which is handy for us. There are lots of smaller resort towns surrounding Hughada, most of which are filled with all-inclusive resorts. However according to the German guys on our tour group during the River Nile Cruise, it appears that it is quite common that alcohol is not always included in the all-inclusive options, so that's something to keep an eye out if you're looking to book an all inclusive resort and it is important for you that alcohol is included.

One issue you'll be faced with when deciding to go to Hurghada area is the fact that there are just SO MANY choices of all-inclusive resorts to choose from. You genuinely are spoiled for choice and I had a real hard time deciding on where to send us. I first had to think about the WHY - Why are we going to the Red Sea? The answer was that we wanted to chill out after a hectic few days travelling and not have to deal with the hustle and bustle of Egypt for a bit before flying back home. We also wanted to do some snorkelling and diving, preferably near our hotel. We wanted to go swim in the Red Sea, which meant we'd need to pick a hotel with sea access, as much of the coastline is privately owned by hotels and it would be super disappointing to make it all the way to the Red Sea resort and not having easy access to the sea. We were also not wanting to spend an excessive amount of money. We were not looking to do any sightseeing at all, just chill, eat, drink, enjoy the good weather, swim, snorkel and dive, that was all. So after much going back and forth, we ended up deciding on staying in Makadi Bay south of Hurghada in a resort called Prima Life Makadi Hotel, an all inclusive hotel that cost us £515 for 4 nights for the two of us, fully all inclusive (including alcoholic drinks).

I will do a comparative review of our resort experience below, comparing it to the two other all inclusive resorts we've stayed at in the past (The HSA apartments Ficus in Costa Teguise, Lanzarote in the Canary Islands and Melia Punta Cana at Punta Cana beach in the Dominican Republic). But as a brief summary of Prima Life, we overall loved it. Especially me, because I love snorkelling and diving and the reef at the hotel is just utterly incredible. The food was fine, there was always something decent or good but was hit or miss. Drinks were meh. Value was excellent.

But definitely, the biggest draw was the on-demand stone baked pizza at the beach bar, and the reef. Below is a video I shot during couple of rounds of snorkelling for a few minutes. You'll probably want to replace this with your YouTube fireplace, as it's totally Zen!

Snorkeling at Prima Life Makadi BAy

A few photos from the resort follow:

All Inclusive Resorts - a comparison

Location

Prima Life Makadi Bay, Egypt
The resort is just 30min drive from Hurghada airport. The taxi to get to the airport cost us $10 USD after some negotiating. The pick up that the hotel taxi arranges is $25 USD so expect to pay something like that to get to or from the resort.

The location of the resort is incredible and has its own private beach. It's in a sheltered bay (Makadi Bay) which is absolutely teeming with marine life. I have dived a fair few times but no dive site beats the snorkelling literally just off the beach at the hotel.

The beach here is yellow sand with shell fragments and clean but there's not much actual space on the sand itself without sunbeds. We found that there were usually sunbeds available and while we didn't see the resort staff policing the "reserving of sunbeds" people had either learned from experience not to do it, or they were actually being nice and respectful towards other guests and took their stuff away.

Melia Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
The resort is about 25min drive from Punta Cana airport and transfer cost us $50 USD back in 2024 but bound to be more expensive now. Though there might be some good deals on Viator or GetYourGuide for transfers.

The private beach here is absolutely incredible, talk about a bounty advert!! The Caribbean Sea is warm and inviting, the sand is white and powdery. However, there is no snorkeling from the beach, just swimming and lots of space to do it! The only issue is that there aren't enough sunbeds for everyone and the Melia pushes an agenda for people to pay extra for "Level" access which includes area of sunbeds which is less busy, but for a stupidly expensive price when you've already paid loads just to stay there! People at this resort are REALLY BAD for waking up first thing, plonking their beach towels onto the sunbeds and leaving, sometimes until 4pm, without using the sunbed at all and the staff at Melia Punta Cana don't care. So you either have to be ballsy and just chuck people's beach towels away, or play the same ugly game as them, or go early and just stay at the beach all day.

HSA Apartments Ficus, Lanzarote
The resort which you can only book this resort direct or via travel agency is located within the town of Costa Teguise, inland and away from the sea. It's split over two resorts - the main one and the new one. The new one is a lot nicer, with a pool and sun lounger area you spend with a lot less people compared to the old section, which is absolutely cramped and the new section is secured with a gate so people who paid the lower price don't get access to the better facilities in the new one.

The location isn't that idyllic, but we got a good last minute price on the holiday, which is why we chose it. Our room had a great balcony for chilling and the pool area in our Premium section of the resort was nice. The weather in the Canaries is also almost always nice and prices are fair, which is why we keep going to the islands. This was the first time we went to an all inclusive though, as we usually go self-catering.

Food and Drink

Prima Life Makadi Bay, Egypt
The best part about the food and drink at this resort is the pizza on demand at the beach bar. They are delicious stone baked pizzas available between 1pm and 4pm.

There are numerous bars at the resort serving alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks but the ones we liked the best were the beach bar where they serve the pizzas too, and the lobby bar, for the simple reason that they'd actually fill our travel mugs properly and they were friendly. The staff at the other bars left us with mugs containing 50% beer foam, which was annoying.

The beer and wine at this resort is not great. The beer is passable, though pretty weak ( 4% lager) but the wine is just weird. It's like watered down wine, probably only containing like 9% alcohol, if that. The cocktails are genuinely awful. They name them with the common names like "Caipiroska" and "Mojito" but they add just a tiny bit of booze, then add a touch of lime and fill with soda water and ice in the so-called caipiroska (absolutely not how to make it and is completely undrinkable) and the Mojito was literally just sprite with some lime and a tiny touch of rum.

The buffet food is hit or miss. There is always somerthing that tastes good or tastes fine, but there's always something too that is dry and tough, so it comes to the luck of the draw. The koftas and the chicken was usually good, as was the stewed beef. As Egypt is a muslim country, you won't get any pork, so byebye bacon.

There are a few a la carte restaurants there too, but based on the poor reviews, and also based on our all inclusive resort a la carte restaurant experience in the Dominican Republic, we just stuck to the pizza bar and the buffet.

Melia Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
The resort has an awesome loaded nachos truck by the pool area, which we absolutely loved. We must have gone there at least every day, sometimes two times a day. Awesome tasty snack! The buffet food was generally pretty good at the Melia and the restaurant was beautifully decorated, located right on the beach. There were obviously some things that were less good than others but we were generally happy with the food.

We tried two of the a la carte restaurants, but it's very tricky to get a booking in as they are popular. In our opinion, absolutely not worth the hype, as the a la carte restaurants just feel like they are differently decorated versions of the buffet, with the same sort of food but less variety, and they just slap the buffet food onto a plate and bring it to you. If anything,t he food was of poorer quality than the buffet and if you didn't like the food, you'd feel guilty to ask for something else. On Joe's mum's birthday, we went to one of the a la carte restaurants and what she got was absolutely dreadful and she wanted something else. When we explained that she didn't like it, it turned into a huge drama from the manager and the staff and it was just overall very embarassing asking for something different. So from there on, we just stuck to the buffet.

In terms of alcohol, there's lots of it and the best cocktail bars are the one inside the buffet restaurant by the beach as well as the one in between the two a la carte restaurants in the lobby building. Fantastic cocktails and they can make you just about anything. They also don't skimp on the booze either at those two bars. Another one we liked was the swim-up bar in the pool area, where you can get an alcoholic slushy. Lovely!

HSA Apartments Ficus, Lanzarote
The hotel only has a buffet restaurant and no a la carte. The buffet restaurant was hit or miss, mostly miss. The look, feel and sound of the buffet was very much that of a noisy school canteen, very manic, loud, busy and generally rather unpleasant. It was convenient though to always have access to food and not have to think about what restaurant to go to every lunch and dinner but the experience made us wish we had gone for a self-catering option instead.

There is wine and beer to be had on self-serve taps in the main buffet restaurant open all day and in the premium section of the hotel (where we stayed) there was a pool bar with limited opening hours that served beer, wine and basic cocktails. I believe there was another bar in the events hall too in the older part of the hotel where they may have done some basic cocktails too, but we never went there.

Weather

Prima Life Makadi Bay, Egypt
We paid £126 GBP per night in March 2025 for the all inclusive experience which does not include flights. You can get an EasyJet for £250-300 per person for a return flight from the UK fairly easily if booked in advance, making the all inclusive holiday an absolute bargain of about £200 GBP per night including flights.

Melia Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
We paid £559 GBP per night in February 2024 for the all inclusive experience including economy flights to Punta Cana as part of a British Airways package holiday. However if exclude the flights then Melia was likely around £380 per night.

HSA Apartments Ficus
We paid £232 per night for the all inclusive experience including economy flights to Lanzarote in December 2023. Excluding the price of flights, this would have likely been around £200 per night.

Price

Prima Life Makadi Bay, Egypt
Dry heat and clear every day for the whole time were were in Egypt, aside from slight cloud cover on the last day. The Red Sea is famous for winter sun, December, January, February and March being excellent with manageable temperatures ranging between 24-26 degrees celcius. Summers in Egypt are brutally hot with temperatures up to 40 degrees.

Melia Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
Humid heat and tropical in the Dominican Republic. The weather stays fairly consistent throughout the year with 29-32 degrees celcius, except risk of hurricanes in the autumn and early winter.

HSA Apartments Ficus
Dry, sunny and warm with temperatures ranging between pleasant 21-25 degrees celcius for most of the year, reaching 30 degrees at the height of summer on average. Doesn't rain much at all but can get a bit blustery. Can be affected by "calima" sand storms any time of year but particularly in winter and early spring.

Verdict

Prima Life Makadi Bay, Egypt
The absolute winner in terms of quality for the price you pay. The house reef just off the beach is also absolutely incredibly, I could just live there snorkeling forever, it is so amazing. The pizza bar is fantastic too. If I was in the market for an all inclusive stay, this is definitely a nice place to go and chill, though the alcoholic drinks are a major drawback.

Rooms

Prima Life Makadi Bay, Egypt
Very nice, large, modern rooms with good showers, flat screen TV and balcony. We were able to plug in our Switch to play games when chilling. The room had comfortable chairs for lounging but they were a bit pointless facing the toilet instead of the TV.

Melia Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
Rooms were nice although our room had bad smell coming out of the drains. We couldn't really sit outside on our patio without getting swarmed by hungry mosquitoes as they are attracted to the nearby water features. The beach and pool area was a better place to hang out. We had a big flat screen TV where we could play our Switch.

HSA Apartments Ficus, Lanzarote
Basic rooms but comfortable, with a big balcony with a view which we loved spending time on chilling. The room had a lounge area and a big screen TV but the electric sockets were super awkward if we wanted to plug in our Firestick/ Chromecast or our Switch. We ended up having to purchase a very long extension lead. They had hobs and microwave and such in the room, but no actual utensils or anything for cooking with, which was weird.

Melia Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
The absolute winner in terms of overall quality of food, drink, beach and sea, but the biggest loser in terms of price point. It is a lot of money to pay £380 per night for us, so we won't be back just on that basis but if you have the money to spare, it really is a lovely resort and the beach is an absolute stunner!! It also doesn't have any snorkelling worth doing.

HSA Apartments Ficus, Lanzarote
Good value for money, however we'd rather do self-catering than stay here again.

In summary - the good, bad and the ugly when visiting Egypt

I'm going to be completely honest here. The reason being that many people report bad experiences from Egypt but some of it comes down to people's lack of exposure to places outside of countries that are similar to their own. Egypt isn't Ibiza, Germany or France, it is a very different experience and being in Egypt can certainly be a challenge even for those of us who have travelled a lot around the world. But the key here is to manage your expectations so that you can have an enjoyable holiday - our trip to Egypt certainly was one of our absolutely best holidays ever! Just be mentally prepared and you'll be able to breeze through the challenging experiences in Egypt without losing your cool.

The Ugly

The ugliest part of Egypt is:

1. The rubbish. There is SO MUCH OF IT. There are loads of illegal landfills where trash is just mixed with the desert sand and left there to rot. Piles of trash on the streets, with cats, dogs and rats eating from the rubbish piles. I thought Glasgow (where we live) had a lot of rubbish on the street but this is a whole other level. But at least they keep the tourist attractions clean, as well as hotels and restaurants.

2. The abandoned animals. If you are an animal lover, it can sometimes be heartbreaking to see the street animals. I saw many dogs with broken legs hanging loose on them and I just wanted to cry. Poor wee dog..... It was genuinely awful to see. Same with horses, while not abandoned they are really poorly kept and many have their rib cages sticking out from under their skin.

3. A very large proportion of the taxi drivers are horrible. They are the biggest con-artists in all of Egypt because they know tourists need their services and they just charge you whatever ridiculous price, and then when you get to your destination, they suddenly want more than they originally agreed the price on. We had so many bad experiences with taxi drivers, with the ratio of bad vs good guys being 8:1. They also drive like absolute maniacs, constantly beeping their horn as they push and shove their way through traffic. Lanes on roads are not even indicative. Sometimes they'll even go as far as drive against traffic if a road is closed and it saves them time. They also cheat on Uber and other similar app, using them just to get in contact with a potential client, charge them 4-5x the fare and ask them to cancel their Uber. The key here really is to limit your exposure to taxi drivers as much as you can. In our experience they were the worst part about Egypt and we were glad to join the River Nile Cruise, as well as spending a few days in an all inclusive resort, because during those 8 days we weren't hassled at all (aside from desperate sales people), and we were taken good care of.

The bad

While not as sad or bad as the rubbish, the abandoned animals and the taxi drivers, there are certain nuisances you will experience but you don't really need to.

1. Food poisoning, as many say, is common in Egypt but there are things you can to avoid it. Don't come near the tap water, whether it's drinking, brushing your teeth or even salad ingredients washed out of tap water. It is very bad for tourists' tummies and you don't want it to ruin your amazing excursions. Only eat things that have been cooked. Avoid ice whenever you can, in case it's made from tap water. Be wary of water bottles that may have been re-filled (note if no seal). Don't accidentally swallow sea water when snorkeling - spit out the water.

2. Noisy nights. The town centres are generally pretty noisy and if you're sensitive to car horns and shouting heard through not well insulated walls, then consider getting the silicon ear plugs I recommended at the top of this blog, they work magic.

3. Very pushy vendors. If you're not planning on buying anything, don't even glance at their products or the salesmen will hound you down until you buy whatever you glanced at. They will literally walk behind you with the item and offer you it for lower and lower and lower price (but they will eventually give up). Just walk away. But if you are in the market to buy something, be ready to bargain. It is very feasible to get the item at 25% of the orginal price quoted (because they usually try to rip you off in the first instance). Your first plan of action would be to ask for the price, then you'll be horrified at the price and ask if he/she can give you a better price. Then say it's too expensive. They'll give you another cheaper price. Offer half that (which they will say no to), and then work your way to the middle ground where both parties are happy with the price.

4. Very veeery early starts on the River Nile Cruise. Just know that it happens - we're talking waking up at 3:30am and never later than 5:30am, but it is so worth it (at least if you like amazing historical sites). If you mentally prepare yourself for knowing this will be your life for 3 mornings of your life, you'll cope with it a lot better.

5. The lack of booze. Egypt is a Muslim majority country and it is hard to find booze. The best place for you if a cold beer is a must, then look for the international hotels, all inclusive Red Sea resorts and River Nile Cruises.

6. Crowds at attractions at River Nile Cruise bottle necks like Edfu. Sometimes there's only certain time of day you can visit the ancient monuments when you're on a cruise, as the ships need to keep to schedule. If you were travelling independently, you could avoid the ship traffic, but you might have to deal with really annoying taxi drivers and the stress of doing things independently. In our view, the downside of the crowds that we sometimes had weighed less than the frustration and annoyance of dealing with taxi drivers.

The good

Naming this section "The good" is an utter understatement. It should be called "The Incredible". Egypt is a world class destination for the most intriguing, fascinating, beautiful, incredible, awe-inspiring, breathtaking archaeological sites on the planet. Even if you're not a history buff, you'll still be blown away by the temples and tombs that are so astonishingly old, but so incredibly well preserved, it's hard to even wrap your head around the sheer amount of human history that has taken place at these ancient Egyptian monuments, as well as just marvel the mind-boggling engineering skills that these ancient people possessed. Just absolutely incredible. Putting up with frustratingly pushy vendors and cheating taxi drivers will be SO worth it, just learn to make the annoyances wash over you and enjoy this incredibly unique and fascinating country that is Egypt.

Everybody should go to Egypt once in their life! It is amazing.

The cost of a 13 day holiday in Egypt

The expense breakdown for our independent trip

Every element of our trip was planned by me, but we did go on an organised tour as part of the River Nile Cruise, as that's the only way to do it really. We weren't particularly on a tight budget so we didn't choose the cheapest hotels or the cheapest restaurants, but rather paid for things that are nice, but not extravagant. Below is a breakdown of our costs.

• eVisa for 2 people: £39 GBP

• International flights for 2 people £814 GBP + 25,000 Avios (includes Edinburgh-Cairo via London with British Airways and Hurghada-Edinburgh with EasyJet)

• Internal travel for 2 people: £152 GBP (includes 2x one-way flights Cairo to Aswan and 2x bus tickets Luxor to Hurghada)

• 5 nights in hotels: £347 GBP

• 4 nights in an all inclusive resort by the Red Sea: £515 GBP

• 3 night/4 day River Nile Cruise for 2 people: £522 GBP (includes accommodation, all food and all tours, excluding entry fees to monuments, drinks and tips)

• Entry fees to 15x monuments for 2 people: £253 GBP

• Food and drink for 2 people: £200 GBP (all but 5 days were all inclusive though drinks were extra on River Nile Cruise with beers costing £2.50 GBP)

• Taxis and boat charter: £134 GBP

Total cost per person: £1488 GBP.

Our Egypt favourites

Myself and Joe often have contrasting ideas of what we enjoyed the most and the least about each place we visit, as we have different interests / likes / dislikes. Below is our list of things we liked the most / least of the places we saw, places we stayed at or places we ate at while in Egypt.

Thru's picks

Favourite places to stay:

1. Prima Life Makadi Bay, Hurghada area

2. River Nile Cruise between Aswan and Luxor

3. Elite Pyramids Boutique Hotel, Giza

4. Kato Waidi Nubian House, Aswan

5. Steigenberger Resort Achti, Luxor

6. Kove Hotel by the Pyramids, Giza

Favourite places to see:

1. The Pyramids & The Sphinx, Giza

2. The Valley of the Kings, Luxor

3. Dendera Temple, Qena

4. Karnak, Luxor

5. Abu Simbel, near Sudanese border

6. Temple of Kom Ombo, Kom Ombo

7. The Temple of Horus, Edfu

8. The Grand Egyptian Museum, Giza

9. The Temple of Hatshepsut, Luxor

10. Snorkeling the Red Sea, Makadi Bay

11. The Nubian Village, Aswan

12. The Unfinished Obelisk, Aswan

13. Luxor Temple, Luxor

14. Philae Temple, Aswan

15. Colossi of Memnon, Luxor

16. Aswan High Dam, Aswan

Favourite places to eat:

1. Zeeyara Elite Pyramids, Giza

2. Zooba, Grand Egyptian Museum, Giza

3. Nile River Cruise buffet

4. Kato Waidi Nubian House, Aswan

5. Prima Life Makadi Bay, Hurghada area

6. Steigenberger Resort Achti, Luxor

7. Random restaurant in Luxor at the end of River Nile Cruise

Joe's picks

Favourite places to stay:

1. River Nile Cruise between Aswan and Luxor

2. Prima Life Makadi Bay, Hurghada area

3. Steigenberger Resort Achti, Luxor

4. Kato Waidi Nubian House, Aswan

5. Elite Pyramids Boutique Hotel, Giza

6. Kove Hotel by the Pyramids, Giza

Favourite places to see:

1. The Pyramids & The Sphinx, Giza

2. Dendera Temple, Qena

3. Karnak, Luxor

4. Abu Simbel, near Sudanese border

5. Philae Temple, Aswan

6. The Temple of Horus, Edfu (Zelda temple)

7. The Valley of the Kings, Luxor

8. The Temple of Hatshepsut, Luxor

9. Luxor Temple, Luxor

10. Snorkeling the Red Sea, Makadi Bay

11. The Unfinished Obelisk, Aswan

12. The Nubian Village, Aswan

13. Temple of Kom Ombo, Kom Ombo

14. Colossi of Memnon, Luxor

15. Aswan High Dam, Aswan

16. The Grand Egyptian Museum, Giza

Favourite places to eat:

1. Zeeyara Elite Pyramids, Giza

2. Zooba, Grand Egyptian Museum, Giza

3. Nile River Cruise buffet

4. Kato Waidi Nubian House, Aswan

5. Prima Life Makadi Bay, Hurghada area

6. Steigenberger Resort Achti, Luxor

7. Random restaurant in Luxor at the end of River Nile Cruise

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