Aswan to Luxor Nile Cruise: 4 Days & Abu Simbel Option

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Free cancellationTravelers' pick

1/30

Duration4d

GroupUp to 50

LanguagesEN · AR +5

PickupAt your hotel

Four Days Sailing the Nile: Temples, Tombs & the Unfinished Obelisk

You board a 5-star Nile cruise in Aswan and spend four days sailing south to Luxor, visiting temples at Philae, Kom Ombo, Edfu, and Karnak, plus the Valley of the Kings and Hatshepsut's mortuary temple. An Egyptologist guide explains what you're seeing at each stop. Abu Simbel and a hot air balloon are optional add-ons. All meals, transfers, and three nights' accommodation on the cruise are included, and you finish in Luxor by mid-afternoon on day four.

Step-by-step itinerary

Day 1 — Aswan tour and Nile cruise boarding

Pick up from Aswan meeting point
Board Nile cruise and have lunch
Visit the High Dam
Visit Philae Temple Complex
Dinner on board
Enjoy Nubian Folkloric Show
Overnight on Nile cruise

Day 2 — Abu Simbel optional and Kom Ombo visit

Optional Abu Simbel tour
Return to cruise and free time
Cruise sails in the afternoon
Visit Kom Ombo Temple
Cruise sails towards Edfu Temple
Overnight on Nile cruise

Day 3 — Edfu Temple visit and sail to Luxor

Free time while cruising Nile
Visit Temple of Horus at Edfu
Cruise sails to Luxor
Arrive in Luxor late afternoon
Overnight on Nile cruise

Day 4 — Luxor West and East Banks tour

Breakfast and check out
Visit Valley of the Kings
Visit Temple of Queen Hatshepsut
See Colossi of Memnon
Visit Karnak Temple
Visit Luxor Temple and Obelisk of Ramses II
Drive back for drop off in Luxor

The Experience

"The stone is still waiting," your Egyptologist guide will tell you on day one, standing in the Aswan quarry where an enormous obelisk lies half-carved, abandoned 3,500 years ago. That's the kind of detail that sticks with you on this cruise — not just the scale of what the ancients built, but the scale of what they left behind. You board your 5-star Nile cruise at Aswan between 10 and 11 AM after pickup from the meeting point, settle into your private cabin, and lunch comes almost immediately. Then it's straight to the Aswan High Dam, a modern wall of rock that holds back the entire river, and the Philae Temple complex, which was nearly swallowed by the dam's reservoir in the 1960s before engineers moved it stone by stone to higher ground. Dinner on board, then a Nubian folkloric show while the boat rocks gently beneath you.

Day two is where Abu Simbel comes in — if you've added that option. It's an early start, a small group tour with your English-speaking guide to those colossal seated Pharaohs carved directly into the mountainside, so massive they seem to be watching the desert itself. You're back on the cruise by afternoon as it sails toward Kom Ombo Temple, where your guide walks you through a temple dedicated to two gods at once, the stonework so precise it makes you wonder how they did it without power tools. The boat keeps moving south, and you keep moving through time. Day three brings the Temple of Horus at Edfu — you'll ride a cart through the town to reach it, which is its own small adventure — and then the cruise sails on toward Luxor, arriving in the late afternoon.

The last morning is the payoff. You cross to the West Bank and walk through the Valley of the Kings, where the tombs of pharaohs are cut into the rock face, some still holding their original paint. You see the Temple of Hatshepsut, a woman pharaoh whose mortuary temple rises in terraces from the desert floor, and the Colossi of Memnon, two seated giants that are all that's left of a temple now gone. Then back across the Nile to the East Bank for Karnak Temple — the largest religious complex ever built, your guide will say, and you'll believe it when you're standing among columns thick as trees — and finally Luxor Temple with its obelisk of Ramses II. The whole tour wraps by 3 or 4 PM, and you're dropped in downtown Luxor or at the airport or train station, depending on where you need to be.

If you booked the hot air balloon option, that happens in Luxor at sunrise on the last day, though the ministry of aviation can cancel it for weather — if that happens, you get a full refund. The boat's name gets confirmed a few days before departure once it receives sailing permission from the Egyptian government, which is just how the system works here. You'll be added to a WhatsApp group so pickup coordination is straightforward, and your guide speaks English throughout.

What’s included

Your four days include hotel or meeting-point pickup in Aswan, three nights' accommodation in a private cabin aboard a 5-star Nile cruise, all meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner each day), guided tours at Philae Temple, Aswan High Dam, Kom Ombo Temple, Edfu Temple, Valley of the Kings, Temple of Hatshepsut, Colossi of Memnon, Karnak Temple, and Luxor Temple, an English-speaking Egyptologist guide at each stop, motorboat transfer to Philae, a cart ride at Edfu, all local taxes and services, and drop-off in downtown Luxor, at Luxor airport, or at the train station on day four. Abu Simbel and the hot air balloon are optional add-ons booked separately.

Good to know

Easy physical level

Operated by Hola Egipto

Is this one for you?Choose this cruise if you want to see Egypt's major temples and tombs in one continuous journey without arranging separate hotels, guides, or transport between sites — the boat moves you while you sleep, and the Egyptologist guide handles the history at each stop.