Aswan to Luxor: 4-Day Nile Cruise & Abu Simbel with Guide

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Duration4d

GroupUp to 50

LanguagesEN · AR +4

PickupAt your hotel

Four Days Sailing the Nile: Temples, Tombs & Abu Simbel from Aswan

You're picked up in Aswan and board a 5-star cruise for three nights, visiting Abu Simbel, Kom Ombo, Edfu, and the Valley of the Kings with an Egyptology guide. All meals, transfers, and entry fees are included; the ship handles the logistics while you move between temples. You finish in Luxor by mid-afternoon on day four, with an optional sunrise hot air balloon over the West Bank.

Step-by-step itinerary

Day 1 — Aswan guided tour and cruise boarding

Pick up from Aswan hotel or station
Transfer to 5-star Nile Cruise
Visit Aswan High Dam
Boat to Philae Temple island
Guided tour of Philae Temple
Return to Nile Cruise for overnight

Day 2 — Abu Simbel and Kom Ombo temple visit

Early morning tour to Abu Simbel
Return to cruise and prepare for sailing
Visit Kom Ombo Temple with guide
Continue sailing towards Edfu
Overnight on Nile Cruise

Day 3 — Edfu temple visit and sail to Luxor

Free time on cruise sailing Nile
Visit Edfu Temple with guide
Sail towards Luxor
Arrive Luxor and overnight on cruise

Day 4 — Luxor temples visit and drop off

Optional early hot air balloon ride
Breakfast and check out
Visit Valley of the Kings
Visit Temple of Queen Hatshepsut
Stop at Colossi of Memnon
Visit Karnak Temple complex
Visit Luxor Temple
Drop off at Luxor hotel or station

The Experience

The Aswan High Dam looks smaller from the top than you'd expect—a long concrete line holding back an entire lake. That's where the first day starts, after you're picked up from your hotel or train station and settled onto a 5-star Nile cruise. You'll stand on the dam and look south across Lake Nasser, then head to Philae Temple, which was physically moved 500 meters when the dam flooded the original site in the 1960s. A motorboat takes you to the island temple dedicated to the goddess Isis, where your Egyptology guide walks you through the carved reliefs before leaving you free to wander. By evening you're back on the ship for dinner, and the Nile is quiet in a way that makes four days on the water feel necessary rather than indulgent.

Day two starts early—Abu Simbel requires it. The two colossal temples carved into the mountainside sit 280 kilometers south, and the drive happens before sunrise so you're there when the light hits the statues straight on. Your guide explains the engineering: how the temples were cut from the rock, how they were relocated when the dam threatened to submerge them. You spend a few hours there, then drive back to rejoin the cruise as it sails toward Kom Ombo. The ship stops at the temple, and you walk through it with your guide before the Nile cruise continues toward Edfu. Meals—breakfast, lunch, dinner—happen on board, and you don't have to think about where to eat or what to book.

Edfu's Temple of Horus comes on day three. The cruise pulls in, and you visit with your guide, then there's free time to sit on deck while the ship moves downriver toward Luxor. The rhythm of the Nile cruise becomes the rhythm of your days: wake, visit a temple, return to the ship, eat, sleep. No transfers between hotels, no negotiating with drivers at each stop. On the final morning in Luxor, there's an optional hot air balloon at dawn—you rise above the West Bank and see the Valley of the Kings from above, the tombs laid out like a grid in the desert floor. After breakfast, you cross to the west bank and spend the day at the Valley itself (66 tombs from various dynasties), the Temple of Hatshepsut (the only female pharaoh), the Colossi of Memnon (two 18-meter statues facing the river), and Karnak Temple—a complex so vast it covers nearly two square kilometers with over 20 temples inside it. The Hypostyle Hall alone, with its forest of papyrus-shaped columns, is one of the great architectural achievements of the ancient world. Luxor Temple closes out the afternoon. By 3 or 4 PM you're dropped at your hotel, train station, or wherever you prefer in Luxor, and the four days are done.

The ship is 5-star, the guide speaks English and knows Egyptology, the drivers are licensed, and everything—transfers, meals, entry fees, taxes—is included. If you want to add a west bank hotel pickup in Aswan, it's an extra $15 per person; if you need a west bank drop-off in Luxor, add $10. Small groups share the Abu Simbel trip, so you're not alone but not in a crowd either. The Nile cruise Aswan to Luxor works because you don't have to plan the logistics—the ship moves, you move with it, and the temples appear on schedule.

What’s included

Your four days include hotel or train station pickup in Aswan, three nights aboard a 5-star Nile cruise with full board (breakfast, lunch, dinner daily), all transfers by air-conditioned vehicle with qualified drivers, entry to Abu Simbel, Kom Ombo Temple, Edfu Temple, Valley of the Kings, Temple of Hatshepsut, Colossi of Memnon, Karnak Temple, and Luxor Temple.
An English-speaking Egyptology guide leads all temple visits.
Local taxes, service charges, and a meet-and-assist representative are included.
The tour ends with drop-off at your Luxor hotel, train station, or preferred location by 3–4 PM on day four.

Good to know

Easy physical level

Operated by Egypt Best Holidays

Is this one for you?Book this if you want the major Upper Egypt temples and Abu Simbel in one trip without arranging separate hotels, transfers, or entry tickets—the cruise handles all logistics while you move between sites, which is what makes a four-day itinerary possible without the planning.