Uniworld Cruise - Egypt????

Has anyone cruised with Uniworld in Egypt recently? We are looking at Nov 2018 and seeking ideas/information. Any help will be appreciated.

Yes, there are a few threads about this buried a couple of pages back.

Here is one. You can use the search function to find more. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2328557

jklc123 has cruised there recently, and David the Wonderer/Wendy the Wanderer less recently. I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting so see who and what else a search turns up. We went in 2012 (not Uniworld) so our experience won't help much.

We were in Egypt late March this year, cruised from Cairo all the way down to Aswan.

Can't help with Uniworld specific details as we didn't use them, but happy to help with any Egypt questions.

Just to get it out of the way, we had a remarkable quantity of security with and around us at all times, but never once felt unsafe despite their presence, rather than because of their presence.

Some of that security reflected the fact that we were traveling through areas in the north where few of the cruise ships go these days and with Uniworld you won't do that, but equally the people we met were so welcoming and enthusiastic about greeting us, especially in those places.

Thanks for providing the link, JP. Fred111, if you have questions after reading the posts on the link, please ask. It was a wonderful trip.

We did it in 2015, in late October. Loved, loved it. There was a thread too, but I'll have to search for it...

Okay, I found it:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2152393&highlight=Nile

Thanks for all the information. My wife and I have been to Cairo but never cruised the upper Nile. We are booked with friends on a Tauck land tour to Israel and Jordon (Petra is high on my bucket list) in Nov 2018. We can fly from that tour to the Uniworld Egypt tour and are seriously contemplating doing it.

We are watching the Uniworld discounts now - extra 15% off ends with the May 2018 cruises but I expect they will add the Nov 2018 soon.

Again thanks for the info. We are 95% sure that we will book this one.

We're on a November 2018 Uniworld Egypt trip. We got an amazing discount (IMO) by booking early this year and paying in full. If they discount it further, I expect they will honor that discount with us since we're River Heritage members.

While we were on Uniworld's tulip cruise in April, our program director announced that a future cruise booked while aboard would received a 20% discount. We went ahead and booked Egypt for January, 2018. About a month after we got home, I received a mailing from Uniworld regarding an additional discount for cruises to Asia, India and Egypt. Our travel agent called Uniworld and our discount went from 20% to 30% and we got over $1000 refunded. We just booked our flights and are looking forward to January. This will be our third trip with Uniworld and we haven't been disappointed yet.

We are looking at the Nov 17, 2018 cruise and will book in a couple of weeks.

We are looking at the Nov 17, 2018 cruise and will book in a couple of weeks.

If you book that one, we'll see you in Cairo!!

There will be four of us on that cruise. We will fly in from Amman the evening before flying to Luxor. We won't miss much since we have been in Cairo before although the Cairo Museum is well worth seeing many times.

Hopefully the Grand Museum will be open by November 2018...

They have already begun moving artefacts from the old museum so there will be a few gaps here and there if you visit before the new one opens.

Many have warned about drinking the water. What about the water on the ship??

Sent from my iPad using Forums

Uniworld (and the Four Seasons Hotel) provided plenty of bottled water. We never had the need to buy any. We ate the fresh salads on board and didn't have a problem, but didn't drink the tap water.

Thanks on info on water. Looking to cruise Uniworld Egypt in March 2018. We are wondering how yours are organized. How many people per tour guide? How many people per bus?

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Thanks on info on water. Looking to cruise Uniworld Egypt in March 2018. We are wondering how yours are organized. How many people per tour guide? How many people per bus?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Unlike European cruises, with local tour guides at each port, our cruise director was also a university-trained Egyptologist who guided us at each stop. He was absolutely excellent. Due to the great drop in tourism in Egypt, there were only 26 of us, so we were bused and toured together, along with two ladies from another company who had their own Egyptologist. I don't know, of course, what the procedure would be if the ship were sold out.

Thanks for the information about the Egyptologist. Looking forward to in-depth explanations at all the sites.

Does Uniworld handle any extensions pre or post Egypt if you want to arrive earlier or stay later? I know Viking has a Jordan and Israel one before their cruise. Doing some research now for a future cruise to that part of the world.

Does Uniworld handle any extensions pre or post Egypt if you want to arrive earlier or stay later? I know Viking has a Jordan and Israel one before their cruise. Doing some research now for a future cruise to that part of the world.

No, Uniworld hasn't reinstated the pre or post extensions they offered up until the great drop off in tourism in Egypt.

If you look in the Roll Call section, I covered this cruise extensively. We were there in February.

Spring Tours actually runs all the tours for Uniworld in Egypt. The ship and crew are Uniworld, but the CD and all other personnel are Spring Tours. Once you arrive, you will learn that Spring Tours offers a pre or post day trip to Alexandria. I wish we had known before hand and would have scheduled my flights accordingly. They also do wonderful Cairo tours to places not on the Uniworld package such as Coptic Cairo. They don't do Jordan.

I love Uniworld, but it is my belief they are acting as total jerks in not providing all the Spring Tours options. When meet at the airport, it will be by Spring Tours people under contract of Uniworld. You can discuss with them all the possibilities. My counsel would be to fly into Cairo a day or do early. Book the extra nights in the Four Seasons through Uniworld, they don't charge more than you can book it on line. This way you will be meet by Spring Tours people and can set up a list of pre and/or post tours, whichever you prefer. If you can find their website you may be able to do it all in advance.

^^ Thank you!