Arrive at Cairo International Airport where your private Egyptologist guide meets you at arrivals and transfers you to your 4-star Cairo hotel in a private air-conditioned vehicle. Check in, rest and settle. Your guide briefs you on the programme, answers questions and confirms all logistics. Optional evening (own account): your guide can take you on a walk through Khan El Khalili Bazaar — Cairo’s medieval marketplace, operating since the 14th century through the Fatimid lanes of Al-Muizz Street. Perfume merchants, gold shops, spice sellers, copper craftsmen. The bazaar is best experienced at night when the lights come on and the city’s evening energy fills the alleyways.

• Meet & Assist Cairo Airport · Private transfer to hotel · Check-in · Guide briefing
• Optional: Khan El Khalili evening walk (own account)
• Overnight: Cairo hotel · Meals: None included

An action-packed day covering Cairo’s greatest highlights — then a night train south. Morning at the Giza Plateau: the Great Pyramid of Khufu (the last surviving Wonder of the Ancient World, 146 metres, the tallest structure on earth for nearly 4,000 years), the Pyramid of Khafre (still retaining its limestone casing at the apex), the Pyramid of Menkaure, the panoramic desert viewpoint, the Great Sphinx (73 metres long, carved from a single limestone outcrop), and the Valley Temple of Khafre — the oldest granite structure in Egypt. Your guide explains the astronomical alignment, the engineering logic and the workforce that built these structures.

Afternoon: the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) — the world’s largest archaeological museum, opened in 2023. The complete Tutankhamun collection (over 5,000 objects, together in one space for the first time: the golden death mask, the golden throne, the two life-size guardian statues) and the Royal Mummies Hall (the actual bodies of Ramesses II, Seti I, Hatshepsut and fifteen others). Allow three hours minimum.

After dinner, your guide transfers you to Giza Train Station for the overnight sleeper train to Aswan — approximately 13 hours, departing evening, arriving Aswan morning. Private 2-berth cabin with bedding. No hotel check-in, no airport, no flight. You sleep on the train as Egypt’s Nile Valley scrolls past in the dark.

• Pyramids of Giza + Sphinx + Valley Temple · Grand Egyptian Museum · All entrance fees included
• Evening: Giza Train Station · Overnight sleeper train Cairo → Aswan (~13hrs, private 2-berth cabin, included)
• Overnight: Sleeper train · Meals: Breakfast · Lunch included

The train arrives at Aswan Train Station in the morning. Your local guide meets you at the platform. Transfer to the cruise ship; embark and settle into your cabin. Lunch on board.

Afternoon sightseeing in Aswan — Egypt’s southernmost city, most Nubian in character, where the pink granite outcrops of the First Cataract narrow the Nile:

• Aswan High Dam — 3.6km long, 111m high, completed 1971. Created Lake Nasser (550km, world’s largest artificial lake), ended the Nile floods, electrified Egypt. Required displacement of 90,000 Nubian people and the UNESCO rescue of 22 monuments.
• Unfinished Obelisk — 41.75 metres long, 1,200 tonnes, abandoned in its quarry 3,500 years ago when a crack appeared. Tool marks and hammer stones visible on the quarry floor. If completed, it would have been the largest obelisk in history.
• Philae Temple (Temple of Isis) — reached by motorboat to Agilkia Island, where the temple was relocated stone by stone by UNESCO before the original island was submerged. One of the last ancient Egyptian temples still used for active worship (into the 5th century AD). The Kiosk of Trajan on the water’s edge is one of the most photographed images in Egypt.

Return to ship for dinner. Cruise sails north toward Kom Ombo overnight.

• Arrive Aswan · Meet at platform · Embark cruise · Lunch on board
• High Dam + Unfinished Obelisk + Philae Temple (by motorboat) · All fees included
• Overnight: Nile Cruise, sailing north · Meals: Lunch · Dinner (on board)

The most temple-dense day of the cruise: two significant sites on the same northbound sailing day (Aswan-to-Luxor direction means Kom Ombo first, Edfu second).

Morning: Kom Ombo Temple — the only temple in Egypt dedicated to two gods simultaneously. Sobek the crocodile god on the right (patron of the Nile, military power and fertility); Haroeris the Elder Horus on the left (sky and kingship). Every element is exactly mirrored for both: two pylons, two courts, two hypostyle halls, two sanctuaries. The Crocodile Museum beside the temple holds over 300 mummified crocodiles offered to Sobek across two millennia. The carved medical instruments on the rear wall — surgical forceps, scalpels, birthing chairs, Ptolemaic period — are one of the most striking details at any Egyptian site.

Sail north to Edfu. Afternoon: Temple of Horus at Edfu — the best-preserved ancient temple in Egypt. Buried under Nile silt until the 19th century; the 36-metre entrance pylon (the largest in Egypt), the painted reliefs and the inner sanctuary are intact. The black granite naos — the sacred shrine that once held the cult statue of Horus — stands in the same spot after 2,300 years. The walls of the innermost rooms carry the complete mythological texts of the Horus-Seth conflict: a theological library carved in stone.

Evening on board: Nubian show and Galabeya Party — traditional music and dance performed by the crew, followed by the Galabeya Party where guests and crew wear traditional Egyptian galabeyya robes.

• Kom Ombo Temple + Crocodile Museum · Sail north · Edfu Temple · All fees included
• Evening: Nubian show + Galabeya Party on board
• Overnight: Nile Cruise · Meals: Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner (all on board)

The ship arrives in Luxor — the ancient city of Waset, capital of the New Kingdom at its height. Morning excursion to the East Bank:

• Karnak Temple Complex — the largest religious building ever constructed, covering 100 hectares and expanded by thirty pharaohs over 2,000 years. The Great Hypostyle Hall: 134 columns in 16 rows, the tallest 23 metres. Originally roofed and lit only through clerestory windows — the interior would have been half-dark, the painted columns disappearing into shadow above. The obelisks of Tuthmosis I and Hatshepsut, the Sacred Lake, the Avenue of Sphinxes, the sanctuary of Amun-Ra.
• Luxor Temple — built by Amenhotep III and completed by Ramesses II. The standing obelisk (its twin now in the Place de la Concorde, Paris). The Mosque of Abu al-Haggag inside the buried temple: two civilisations, two faiths, one building. At night the temple illuminates — one of the finest river frontages in the world.

Free afternoon for shopping at Luxor market or a walk along the Corniche. Return to ship for dinner.

• Karnak Temple + Luxor Temple · All fees included · Free afternoon Luxor market
• Overnight: Nile Cruise, moored Luxor · Meals: Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner (all on board)

Disembark the cruise after Breakfast. Final morning on the West Bank of Luxor — the ancient necropolis of the pharaohs:

• Valley of the Kings — 63 royal tombs from Tuthmosis I (c.1504 BC) to Ramesses XI (c.1070 BC). Standard ticket covers three tombs; your guide selects the best available. Tutankhamun, Ramesses II, Seti I (the finest painted tomb in the Valley), Ramesses VI are all here. Wall paintings in extraordinary colour, protected three millennia from direct light. Optional: Tutankhamun’s Tomb (~$20 extra).
• Temple of Hatshepsut (Deir el-Bahari) — three colonnaded terraces built into the Theban cliff. The most sophisticated design in ancient architecture. Reliefs of the Punt expedition and the coronation are among the finest in Egypt.
• Colossi of Memnon — two 18-metre seated statues of Amenhotep III standing alone in the agricultural fields. For centuries one sang at dawn; Hadrian visited in 130 AD to hear it.

Transfer to Luxor Train Station for the overnight sleeper train back to Cairo (approximately 10 hours). Dinner served on the train.

• Valley of Kings (3 tombs) + Hatshepsut Temple + Colossi of Memnon · All fees included
• Disembark after lunch · Transfer Luxor Train Station · Overnight sleeper train Luxor → Cairo (~10hrs, included)
• Overnight: Sleeper train · Meals: Breakfast · Lunch (cruise) · Dinner (train)

The overnight train arrives at Giza Train Station in the early morning. Your guide meets you at the platform. Direct transfer to Cairo International Airport in a private air-conditioned vehicle. End of Best Nile Cruises services. If your international flight departs late, your guide can arrange luggage storage and a final morning visit to the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square (+$45pp, approximately 2 hours).

• Arrive Giza Station (early morning) · Meet at platform · Transfer Cairo International Airport · End of services
• Optional (if late flight): Egyptian Museum Tahrir (+$45pp) · Luggage storage available
• Meals: None included Day 7