We're booked on an MSC cruise out of Safaga and terminating in Venice, in March of 2025. A long way off yet but I love the planning part!
My plan is for my DH and me to fly into Cairo and stay in Giza for a week before the cruise, so that we can really take our time at the monuments, go inside a few, take a boat trip on the Nile and visit the new museum. I've been on a couple of shore excursions in Egypt before and obviously didn't have time to enjoy things at an unhurried pace. DH has never been and he's going to love it!
But, this means arranging transport to Safaga, about 500 kilometers distant I believe, for the start of the cruise.
There aren't a lot of options that I've found so far.
Go Bus Egypt looks to be the equivalent of our National Express coaches here in the UK, or Greyhound in the US. It's about a 7 hour overnight trip and only costs about £9.00. I think that it would be a really cool experience. But, as adventurous as we both are, I'm really not sure if this is a viable option for us. We speak only English and a lot of the journey looks to be through remote areas. When I was in Egypt before I didn't feel unsafe at all - on the one hand, I feel that away from Cairo might even be safer areas, on the other hand, we'd be on a bus in the middle of the night in a country where we might have trouble communicating. We'd also arrive about 7 in the morning so it's doubtful that we could check in to our hotel so early (we'd get there the day before the cruise, I wouldn't tempt fate and arrive the day of!).
Another option to consider is a private car/driver. I've not done a lot of research of companies yet, but the cost looks to average out at around £50.00, which is very inexpensive, and the journey time is a couple of hours less. We could make the journey by day, which would be better. My hesitation here might seem a bit silly, but the thought of just me and my husband in a car with a stranger, trying to be sociable for 5 hours, is not something that either of us would really enjoy. DH is not great at conversation and I'm an introvert who pretends I'm not, which is really hard to maintain for that length of time when there's no one else to take the pressure off. There's a certain anonymity on a bus, you're just one of the crowd, lol. A plus for this option would be that possibly we could initially go from Giza to Luxor and stay a couple of days, and then get another car/driver to take us on to Safaga.
Car hire isn't an option as I don't drive and my husband wouldn't have the confidence. It was hard enough for me to convince him to hire a car for a day trip in Greece a few years ago!
Has anyone out there made this journey, and if so, how? Any options I've missed? I'd love to hear suggestions/thoughts from people who have had more experience travelling in this part of the world.