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Nile River Cruise aboard the Sunray : Egypt : Trip Report

Nile River Cruise aboard the Sunray

See you later Alligator. Have a smile on the Nile.

After spending one week on a boat and one night in a hotel we checked into the Sunray which is a river boat for our cruise up the Nile from Luxor south (up the Nile) to Aswan.

However, we wanted to spend two days visiting the sites in Luxor so we checked into the boat and dropped off our luggage on the boat then went to visit Karnak and Luxor Temples while the boat sailed 50km south to Esna. After a day of touring the bus would drive the hour south to Esna to meet up with the boat. The boat was stuck there waiting in line for the locks to bring up the level of the boat.

For a river cruise it didn't spend a while lot of time cruising. The little cruising it did do was done at night so we had the whole day available for touring. The one day we did sail for a couple hours during the day I spent on the top deck with my laptop working on this website and taking pictures of the Nile River scenery as it went by. The girls spent that time shopping for the Egypt themed party.

The reception was on the 2nd level deck. It was three stories high and had skylights. The dining room was on the lower level where the windows were only inches above the water line. Guest rooms were on the 2nd and 3rd levels and the bar/night club area was on the 4th level. There was also a sun deck with swimming pool and exercise area (ahem).

The food wasn't bad, but wasn't great either. We were a little spoiled by the excellent cook on the Blue Waves. The food here was a bit bland and I thought too greasy. Other than that we didn't really have any complaints about the boat.

One thing interesting about Nile Cruise boats is they all appear to be very nearly the same size. I found out this is so they can all dock super tight and sometimes three or four boats deep. All the boats have doors in the middle of the ship on both sides at the same position. That way when the boats are docked four deep you just get onto the boat on the dock and walk through a boat or two until you get to your own boat.


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Video available:
Very disturbing video of the Egyptian Night entertainment on the cruise. This video and expert commentary courtesy of Michelle. Fortunately I missed out on witnessing this personally. (50 seconds)


Next: Next attraction was Edfu Temple.