2 Nights Nile cruise from Aswan to Luxor&Abu Simbel And Balloon

Posted By : Philip_S
Picked up early on the day of departure (sent an email to viator the day before departure to confirm transfer time but no response). The only positive was the food. The ship catered for two large groups of German people with their own itineraries that had already been on the boat for some time. We were forgotten about - the only guests joining for the two day cruise. Had to ask for an itinerary for our time which was met with the receptionist tutting at us. We we were rushed through Kom Ombo with a disinterested guide who said we had 5 minutes free time before leaving us meaning we had to find our own way back to the ship with only 30 minutes in total at the temple panicking as we couldn't initially find the boat (it was changing over). We didn't dare leave the boat the next day for Edfu because the first was too stressful. On the last day no transfer arrived. When we arrived for breakfast on departure day we were shouted at and told we should have ordered breakfast to take away. When trying to get a coffee we were again shouted at and told we should have put them in takeaway cups (despite two breakfasts supposed to be included). Absolutely shambolic from start to finish.
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Posted On : 2022-08-05 10:49:33

Posted By : Nermeen
The name of the Nile cruise is Samiramis.
The operator refused to disclose the name of the ship before check in, the operator didn't communicate with me any details regarding the 2 tour guides who will guide us in the 2 trips rom the cruise or regarding the transportation after the end of the trip.
The ship itself:
The room was very good, the staff are nice and friendly, the sun deck was fantastic.
The food was very bad and some of it was spoiled, the staff who work in the food area don't follow the standards of cleanness and hygiene.
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Posted On : 2022-06-02 04:28:04

Posted By : TecDiveNomad
Our guide Osama was absolutely amazing. One of the things that differentiated him from the other guides we had on previous tours is that he took the time to explain how to read the scenes and walked us through the story told by the successive scenes. All of a sudden things started making more sense and I felt like I just learned how to read. So a truly amazing guiding experience. Yet, the tour only gets three out of five stars from me because the rest of the tour - the cruise itself - fell short of expectations.

Not as advertised. This was our honeymoon and I wanted us to have the glamorous experience implied by the grand staircase lobby of a cruise ship featured as the key photo of this tour. Suffice it to say, the photo is from some other ship and the one we ended up on looked nothing like the one in the pictures. So we were sold one thing and got something that immediately looked to be of a lower standard.

The horses used for the carriage ride to the temple are heavily abused. All were malnourished walking skeletons. Whipped every few seconds because apparently they don’t move fast enough for the drivers. And with open wounds. The one pulling our carriage had an open wound directly under a harness that was rubbing against it with every step. Another parked next to ours had an open wound on its leg.

While docked at Luxor, we noticed bubbly sewage spewing from the boat directly into the river. Both days, while docked, we smelled diesel fumes in our room, which gave us a headache. We reported this to the staff and the response was quite immediate. When we returned back to our room (which still smelled like diesel), we saw incense burning in the empty hallway of the old wooden interior boat. The staff must have recognized that it’s probably a fire hazard so they tied the incense to a fire extinguisher. Hahaha.

The buffet food was ok but not what I would expect for a 5-star experience.
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Posted On : 2022-05-27 16:38:29

Posted By : alfia_a
A wonderful cruise. Such beautiful view. Comfortable room with a breathtaking view of the nile. Top notch food, loved it so so much. The chefs here are so talented. Friendly, efficient staff everywhere. Excellent cleanliness.
No wifi though.
Visited two temples, kom ombo and edfu. Our tour guide, Mr Waleed, was absolutely wonderful and had answers for all our questions. Funny, informative and very efficient, he made our trip an amazing one. Thanks a lot to Waleed, the cruise company and viator.
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Posted On : 2022-05-05 13:15:08

Posted By : Antonio_C
Very beautiful and relaxing cruise across the Nile, from Aswan to Luxor. Totally recommended to relax, enjoy some sun, watch the beautiful shores of the Nile and meet nice people. Recommended.
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Posted On : 2022-04-23 06:03:10

Posted By : Tyson_V
This trip included everything that was advertised. Just pay close attention to the fine print, and I'm guessing you will be fine. I found it to be economical, true to its word about attractions, with great food, and super good tour guiding. Our company ensured we had a small group and our guide took us against the grain and off the beaten path at the right times. We saw even more sights than we were promised, and there was flexibility in the itinerary to cater for our preferences. We needed a 2 day tour because we were cramped for time, and they delivered on the schedule. And we saw everything that 3 night tours see. There are the expected add ons in price, like drinks packages and the costs for sight entry, but all that is spelled out in the details, so there were no surprises for us. I'd do it again in an instant. Highly recommended. Shout out to our guide Hamdy, who helped us get to the airport on time and helped us see some extra sites. Lastly, the broker for the travel agency did a good job of communicating with us via Whatsapp and was true to his word. Overall great.
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Posted On : 2022-04-14 15:05:46

Posted By : Marjana_D
Dear Sirs!
First at all, I Hope that you will really share this text on your page!

Me and my wife were traveling on Nile Sapphire from Aswan to Luxor from 28.12. to 30.12. 2021.

1. Free pick up which you offer
Customers have posibility to choose pick up time from their hotel. I choose for 9:00. Rude person with phone number +201121107247 was laying to me that my hotel has free boat to the cruiser (you can check it on whatsapp), that car needs to my hotel 45 minutes, (he could send it 45 minutes earlier, even then, my hotel was on island, not reachable by car, could simply send boat to pick us up) and forcing me to change pick up time to 10:00. At the end we went to the ship on our expences. Also for free transer which you advertise, to our hotel in Luxor nobody contacted us, we paid for it.

Departure

Should be at 12 pm, it was at 15:14. We have lost 3 hours, could spend them on Aswan souk instead.

Ship

Nice ship, friendly staff, (except cashier), very comfortable bed, great variety of food.
We were without internet for whole yourney.
Only crew in restaurant were wearing masks, some of guests were wearing masks, other crew members were not wearing masks at all. There was no temperature check as advertised.
TV: 10 chanells, 8 Arabic, 1 French, BBC without voice.
Members of crew were knocking on the door on two occasions with stupid questions, even the "do not disturb" sign was on the door.
Probably because of late departure from Aswan we were only 42 minutes in Komombo temple, not enough time at all for such a nice place, we could stay longer, as the ship was then sailing on trough the night.
Day two
We were without hot water, it came only in the late evening.
In the morning we were leaving ship at 6:30!!! for Edfu temple. We went to the temple with carriages, was an awfull frenetic experience, coachmen beating horses, traffic jams on the road as all the cruises have the same schedule, huge crowd in the temple, we were there less than 40 minutes, not enough time at all. Dangerous, uncomfortable race between many carriages back to the Nile. Would be nicer and safer to go by car or bus.
My wife got diarrhea and fever before lunch. She was poisoned with food on the ship, as we were not eating elsewhere. She was womiting many times, there was no hot water to wash her. I was asking for doctor or medicines at the reception, but they dont have neither paracethamol, after nobody was asking how she is. When leaving ship she could barely walk.
We arrived in Luxor after 17h. Our pier was 4 km from the city center, you have time only to visit Luxor temple, other places are already closed. When I paid for extra expences on board, cashier was not wiling to give me an bill or any prove that my extra expences on board are paid, he said this is not their sistem.
Next morning check out time at 8:00!!!

To my opinion such things doesnt happen by case, they are allways present in Egypt, people there are a little chaotic, bad organized, and they cant fix bad service with their friendly behavior, it is nonsense to offer five stars cruise. They are not able to offer what you advertise! If they say ship is 5 star, you can advertise it 3 star or less. We expect at least half of our payment back!
All the best, Andrej and Marjana Kaluza

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Posted On : 2022-01-05 07:47:12

Posted By : Laurie212
I reserved this cruise with Special Trips through TripAdvisor’s sister site Viator. Everything in the description was carried out perfectly by Special Trips.

We were assigned to the cruise ship named M/S Concerto and tour manager Ramzy. Hotel to ship transfers were included. The driver arrived on time at the appointed meeting place in a suitable vehicle and drove us to the ship. Ramzy and the luggage porters were waiting for us at the entrance. Be advised that there is no elevator on this ship.

We were assigned to a large and beautiful stateroom and at a very nice table in the restaurant. All meals are buffet style and the food is very good & plentiful. The amenities on the ship include gift shop, spa, massage, swimming pool, photo/video, and a large lounge for entertainment. There are only 65 staterooms on the entire ship. The staff were efficient, cordial, & hospitable.

The representative from Special Trips accompanies his clients on the entire cruise. He is also the tour guide at the two attractions that the ship ports at. Ramzy was a very good guide and all his services were smoothly carried out.

I highly recommend taking a Nile Cruise while in Egypt and using Special Trips as your reservation agent. We found their prices to be competitive, they are very responsive to questions, they are very reputable, and they fully carried out every bullet point in the cruise description.

Thanks to all for a great cruise!
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Posted On : 2021-09-03 20:35:11

Posted By : NilsFlorian_M
We booked this cruise more than four weeks in advance and scheduled our trip to Egypt around this Nile cruise (Alexandria, Cairo and Aswan before, and Luxor and Hurghada after the cruise). Five days before the scheduled departure, when we were just about to leave Cairo for Aswan, I was contacted by someone from SpecialTrips via WhatsApp that the cruise would not run on the dates we booked, even though the trip was confirmed upon booking (we had already paid for it and received tickets). Without offering an apology, the guy from SpecialTrips asked us to either move the cruise to one day before or the day after the original departure. Looking through other reviews on Tripadvisor, we noticed that this seems to have happened to other customers before, in some cases even closer to the scheduled departure.

This is completely unacceptable. We understand that the current situation with Covid might lead to certain cruises not reaching full capacity, but this has to be communicated in advance. You simply cannot make customers believe that they are booking for a certain date and even confirm the trip only to communicate at short notice that the trip won’t take place after all. How can you expect customers to be this flexible when you know exactly that your target customers do in all likelyhood not live in Egypt but come from abroad and have very likely booked other hotels and activities before and after the Nile cruise.

Since we were able to change the hotel reservations for Aswan and Luxor at short notice and since we had planned for enough time in Aswan to justify leaving earlier, we decided to do the cruise one day before the one we originally booked. The cruise itself was very nice, the food was pretty decent and our guide Ahmad did an outstanding job at explaining to us the significance of the Kom Ombu-, Edfu-, Karnak- and Luxor-Temples and was very helpful in coordinating with us the purchase of the Luxor Passes at Karnak (for which you need USD instead of Egyptian Pounds and all kinds of other ridiculous things such as passport photos) as well as with everything else. For this we would rate the trip 4/5.

Even though the cruise ended up being a good experience, the highly unprofessional way in which SpecialTrips treats its customers and outright lies to them would easily warrant a 1/5 rating.
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Posted On : 2021-08-23 05:26:45

Posted By : Konstantinos_P
Me and my wife had amazing time on this tour. Our guide, Mohamed Albasha, was helpful & informative. Definitely recommended tour.
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Posted On : 2021-08-08 12:48:06