Book Standard Nile Cruise 5 days 4 nights from Luxor to Aswan

March 2023 Royal Esadora The Classic Holidays and Orbital Travel service was first class and I agree with a previous review about Addi, the food and that it's best to avoid the drinks-inclusive package. We are not heavy drinkers but still went for this package as we thought it might help us get more easily served. How wrong we were! It might be better to pick a different boat anyway, as the Esadora's crew's attitudes to their guests and to service generally was very mixed and the boat always moored far away from anywhere you would want to be. Tony P

1 week Nile cruise booked through Classic Holidays with 3 nights in Cairo beforehand. Overall, definitely value for money & recommended as an excellent trip. Couple of top tips: - don’t take £1 or €1 coins to use as tips. The Egyptians can’t change coins. Best way to tip is using US $1 bills or local currency which you can withdraw from an ATM of which there are plenty! - Be aware if you have booked an excursion to the Pyramids via Classic holidays; the price only included entry to the site of the pyramids. There is an extra cost to go inside the pyramids & to be taken via horse & cart to the extreme of the site for a decent photo opportunity. I wouldn’t recommend the horse & cart as the horses are not treated well at all. Otherwise the info from Classic holidays was spot on and all excursions & transfers worked as expected. The Cruise: MS Royal Esadora is a decent boat. It’s not as smart as some of the others but it was spotless, with decent cabins & good facilities. Classic Holidays use Orbital Travel to look after you on the cruise & we lucked out with our tour guide Ahmed. Exceptionally knowledgable, he proved an excellent guide & really helped make every excursion engaging. Unless you’re planning to drink yourselves silly every night (there’s little opportunity to do so in reality) I don’t think it’s worth paying for the drinks package. It’s doubtful you’ll drink enough to warrant it. Prices of on board drinks are pretty reasonable. Be aware that most excursions start early morning (6am wake up calls). This is necessary as the afternoon sun gets extremely hot so they try & get you back to the boat for lunch. All the temples were unique in their own way & as the week went on increasingly awesome! There are optional excursions; we did 3. Coach trip to Abu Simbel involves a long drive through the desert with a very early start but is absolutely worth doing. The Sound & Light show at Philae Temple was a nice experience but grossly overpriced. High tea at the Old Cataract Hotel in Awsan was pure joy & well worth doing. Food onboard the boat is buffet style. It’s as you’d expect; a mixed bag and a tad repetitive but with some excellent salads. Staff on board generally very polite & helpful. We can definitely recommend the onboard masseur. She was excellent!!

just returned from a 7 day Nile cruise on the Royal Esadora,, the holiday was excellent, the boat and crew were very good, apart from the food which we would say was satisfactory, the excursions were great and the tour guide Addy was vert good, we booked the holiday through Classic Holidays, with 3 nights in Cairo prior to cruise, everything was very well organised, all tranfers and tips were included. do not buy the drinks package on the boat unless you are a heavy drinker, the beer was £4,50 for a large bottle 500ml, for a good wine was £18 bottle, our bill at the end of the was £138 for the two of us.