Tips & Picks: Itinerary, Hotels & Nile Cruise

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After spending hours studying travel guides, searching the web, and reading travelers' reviews on Trip Advisor, here is how we plan to spend our 24 days in Egypt!

While we are sharing some of our tips on planning our itinerary and booking hotels as well as our picks for hotel accommodation and Nile cruise before we head off to Egypt, check back to see whether our picks met expectations. Check out hotel reviews on Trip Advisor in January 2009 by Vancouver Mukluk!

Our Itinerary

Here is the Travelling Canucks' itinerary:

• City of Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast;
• Siwa Oasis on the edge of the Great Sand Sea;
• Ancient capital of Memphis and pyramid fields in Giza, Dahshur and Saqqara;
• Life on the Nile as we cruise from Aswan to Luxor, visiting Kom Ombo and Edfu along the way;
• Upper Egypt and its Nubian culture in Aswan and Abu Simbel and the wealth of ancient sights in and around Luxor; and,
• Cairo, chaotic capital city.

Unfortunately, we won't have the time on this trip to see the Red Sea Coast and Sinai! Beach holidays are not our thing and it is December so water temperatures are not ideal; although it would be great to dip our toes in the Red Sea!

Here are the Travelling Canucks' guidelines for planning travel itineraries:

• Open jaws on international flights.
• Spend a minimum of 3 nights at point of entry to get over jetlag.
• Spend a minimum of 3 nights to get to know the destination, unless it's a small village.
• Immerse yourself in the culture: make your accommodation and restaurant choices culturally authentic.
• Plan your travel time: try not to backtrack, take the quickest mode of transport and sightsee until you drop.
• Take a city tour when you arrive in a big city for the first time.
• Go on every travel adventure like it will be your last - no regrets!

Since Christmas-time is high season, all our flights, hotels, and Nile cruise were booked over 8-10 months ago to make sure we got our first choice in flight times, hotel accommodations and cruise date at good rates. It definitely would be cheaper to tour Egypt during the shoulder season, but our family of three is not only limited to travel over school holidays, but also by our aversion to travelling during the hotter months! After all, we come from the land of ice and igloos!

The "best" cruises, hotels and flight times are sold-out despite the economic and security concerns. Luckily, we booked in advance since hotel rates and transportation costs have been going up dramatically. Mama Canuck has been tracking hotel reviews on Trip Advisor and scanning the Trip Advisor Forums for travel tips to fine tune our plans. She has even visited hotel websites looking for last minute deals to no avail!

Our Accommodation Picks

Here are the Travelling Canucks' tips for booking hotels:

• Check travel guides and Trip Advisor for traveler reviews and follow trends. A previously recommended hotel may no longer rate.
• Contact hotel directly since internet booking is often limited to defined periods.
• Book in advance before new rates are posted. Get email confirmation and bring it with you when you check-in.
• Check hotel rates periodically for special rates - especially last minute deals.
• Look for new hotel openings - rates are below market and you get the new hotel room smell!
• Take into account the time wasted and transportation costs when considering hotel locations that are not in proximity to top tourist sights and lots of restaurant choices.

Also, as we discovered in Morocco, many luxury hotel chains and small family-run hotels in the Arab world do not offer triple rooms with free accommodation for children over the age of 12. Consequently, either a second room has to be booked or a 4 person family room, if available, has to be booked at a higher cost.

In choosing our hotel accommodations, Mama Canuck tried to plan our hotel stays to provide contrasting experiences, in terms of luxury, cultural authenticity, and geographical diversity while ensuring hotel reviews promised cleanliness, great location, good food and service all within our budget!

Here are our accommodation picks:

• We plan on staying at the new Four Seasons Alexandria at San Stefano that overlooks the Mediterranean coast, which was booked when it first opened at a great rate.

While many travelers to Egypt visit Alexandria on a day excursion from their Mediterranean cruise ship or as a day trip from Cairo, Alexandria is more Mediterranean than Middle Eastern, so we will have a chance to get over our jetlag and become acclimatized to the culture before being overwhelmed in chaotic Cairo. Also, by flying into Alexandria at the beginning of our trip, we can take advantage of better weather in early December than in early January and have a shorter drive to Siwa Oasis, our next destination. Four Seasons Alexandria at San Stefano is the top Trip Advisor pick in Alexandria!

We also were pleasantly surprised that Four Seasons Hotels across Egypt accommodate three persons per room and children under the age of 18 stay free in the lap of luxury!

• After our long journey by private transport into the Western Desert, we will be staying at Shali Lodge in Siwa Oasis, which is owned by the same owner as the reputable and very pricey all-inclusive Adrere Amellal: Desert Ecolodge and newly opened budget hotel, Albabenshal. Shali Lodge is centrally located with a highly rated restaurant on site that offers an authentic Siwan experience at a budget price.

• In Cairo, we will celebrate Christmas in style at the Four Seasons Cairo at First Residence. Christmas shopping at the First Residence Mall and visiting the pyramid fields in Dahshur, Saqqara and Giza will be closer in proximity than staying in downtown Cairo. Four Seasons Cairo at First Residence is the top Trip Advisor pick in Giza!

• From Cairo, we fly to Aswan where we will board our luxury cruise ship, Sonesta St George, and visit Aswan, Kom Ombo, Edfu, Esna, and arrive in Luxor. Our reasons for making our choice are detailed below.

• We will linger in Luxor staying at a small family run hotel, El Nakhil. Built in 2005, El Nakhil, which means palm trees, offers views of lush farm land and palms on the edge of El Gezera village, a five minute walk from the West bank of the Nile and a short public ferry boat ride away from the heart of Luxor. A welcome change from staying in large chain hotels in urban centres!

• We will fly back to Aswan staying at the newly renovated Movenpick resort on Elephantine Island. It's time for a relaxation break at an island resort hotel amidst gardens and accessible to Aswan by private boat! This hotel currently tops the Trip Advisor list of hotels for Aswan! Prior and during the renovation, this hotel was not highly rated. By booking the hotel during this period with the expectation that the renovations would be substantially complete, we were able to book this hotel at a very competitive rate!

• From Aswan, we will fly south to Abu Simbel to stay at Eskaleh Eco-Lodge before flying back to Cairo the next morning. While most visitors to Abu Simbel take the bus in an early morning convoy (3am) and return the same day after spending less than two hours at the temples or fly in and out within 2 hours, we wanted to experience a relaxing day and enjoy an authentic stay at a traditional Nubian guesthouse with views of Lake Nasser. Visiting the temples once the hoards of tourists have returned to Aswan and enjoying the Sound & Light Show will be capped off with a home-cooked meal!

• We will stay in Cairo at the Four Seasons Cairo at Nile Plaza in the Garden City district of Cairo before flying home. Located in the heart of Cairo, we hope to be culturally immersed as we walk the streets of Coptic and Islamic Cairo and shop in the Khan Al-Khalili Bazaar and retreat to an oasis of calm! Four Seasons Cairo at Nile Plaza is the top Trip Advisor pick in Cairo!

Booking Our Nile Cruise

Although there are hundreds of cruise ships that sail the Nile, only about 10 of them are luxury ships according to the "travel experts". Cruise ships usually sail between Luxor and Aswan on three-, four- and seven-night cruises on the Nile. Prices for the luxury ships are steep but since we plan on only doing it once, why not splurge!

When cruises depart Luxor, the ship is going upstream as the Nile flows south to north and it takes a minimum of 4 nights. Since you don't see any more sights than on the 3 night cruise and the daily rate per person is much higher in the high-season (25%!p(MISSING)remium), a three night cruise departing from Aswan seemed to be better value for money. After all, the first night is spent docked in Aswan and the last night is spent docked in Luxor, so there is only 1 full day of cruising. Sonesta's schedule for three night cruises requires a Friday departure which fit into our itinerary so we could spend Christmas in Cairo and New Year's Eve in Luxor, facilitated getting direct flights from Cairo to the Nile River Valley on Egypt Air, and suited our independent travel style. Spending three nights on a cruise boat and going on group excursions over 4 days is just about right for independent-hearted travelers!

Why we chose to book on the Sonesta St. George?

Sonesta St George is the newest ship of the Sonesta Nile fleet. It offers 47 deluxe cabins, 9 presidential suites, 1 royal suite, sun deck with oversize pool with shallow water extension and Jacuzzi, full-service spa and fitness center, including gym, massage services, sauna and steam bath, table tennis (Papa Canuck's favorite sport after hockey!), restaurant, piano bar, sun deck bar, panoramic lounge, lounge with dance floor that stages nightly entertainment, and daily guided sightseeing excursions. Breakfast and lunch is served buffet style and à la carte dinners are served in the dining room (2 buffets a day is quite enough!).

Rooms are equipped with plasma screen TV, equipped with the latest technology and featuring a live sailing channel, double-glass panoramic French windows that open to bring in fresh breezes from the Nile, Wireless Internet Access, individual climate control, electronic door locks, mini-bar, safe, and bathrooms equipped with spa unit, including steam bath, Jacuzzi and water massage.

Because it is a larger ship than its sister ships, Sonesta Moon Goddess and Sonesta Star Goddess, it seemed to offer much the same at a lower price point! It is also one of the few luxury ships that offers a triple room, which also resulted in cost savings.

To find out what precautions we plan on taking, what we are packing and how we are getting from rainy Vancouver to sunny Egypt, check out our next blogs!

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Photos

Reading About Travel in Egypt
Which book to take on our trip? Lonely Planet, Rough Guide or Eyewitness? How many books can be hidden away in our luggage before Papa Canuck notices? That is the question!

Comments

[Karima]

Sonesta Moon Goddess Nile Cruise
Thank Travelling Canucks for all your comments. Our family is also traveling to Egypt in Dec. and will be on the 6 night Moon Goddess Cruise. I would be interested to see what you plan on taking, packing, etc. This will be our first trip to Egypt. Thanks. Karima

[Travelling Canucks]

Travelling Canucks
Thank you Karima for your comment. I hope your family has a wonderful trip to Egypt in December. Will you be blogging? If so, I look forward to hearing about your experiences!