Staying Away from the Ship

[astrocat]

Hi all .. we are very close to booking for Med and HOly Lands on Equinox 9/22/10. The ship excursions arent available on the website as yet however I suspect we will use them as a starting point and would really rather get small groups together for private excursions ... this worked very well for Summit in the Med this year.

 

Anyway, my questions are re Alexandria .. Equinox has a two night stay at Alexandria and many of the posters here and on the Celeb board talk about staying away from the ship there. Do you have to do this or are there workable options to do day trips away from the ship at this port? Obviously we want to see the pyramids ... that's the number one priority.

 

I know that the cruise itself is very costly (esp in the conversion to US dollars :() and we don't really want to waste a night's accomodation on the ship as we have already paid for that. Or do I sound like a penny pincher??? HOping for some useful tips .. I see there are heaps of tour companies mentioned and will start working through those shortly ... thanks!

[MercedMike]

Hi all .. we are very close to booking for Med and HOly Lands on Equinox 9/22/10. The ship excursions arent available on the website as yet however I suspect we will use them as a starting point and would really rather get small groups together for private excursions ... this worked very well for Summit in the Med this year.

 

Anyway, my questions are re Alexandria .. Equinox has a two night stay at Alexandria and many of the posters here and on the Celeb board talk about staying away from the ship there. Do you have to do this or are there workable options to do day trips away from the ship at this port? Obviously we want to see the pyramids ... that's the number one priority.

 

I know that the cruise itself is very costly (esp in the conversion to US dollars :() and we don't really want to waste a night's accomodation on the ship as we have already paid for that. Or do I sound like a penny pincher??? HOping for some useful tips .. I see there are heaps of tour companies mentioned and will start working through those shortly ... thanks!

 

The problem is that from either Alexandria or Port Said, it is about a three hour trip to and from Cairo. Thus if you come back to the ship, you are spending at least six extra hours traveling instead of seeing major sights of Egypt.

 

A one day trip into Cairo basically gives you time to see the Great Pyramids at Giza and ONE other thing ... and there are so many to choose from. Saqqara, Memphis, Khan el-Khalili, Old Cairo and the Mosques, Sail on the Nile, The Egyptian Museum and Tut exhibit and Mummy room -- can you pick only one of those? If so you can do Cairo one day and tour Alexandria the next and overnight on the ship.

 

But many many people choose to overnight in Cairo. Of course you have extra expense, but you can choose some fabulous things to do. This is the only way to get the Sound and Light show at the pyramids, and you may choose a Nile dinner cruise too.

 

For one example of an overnight tour, Check out our review and pics at http://www.elite.net/~thehalls/holyland.html

 

Have a GREAT cruise!

[Heelan]

We wrestled with this one, too. We're sailing on 10/25/09 and are still trying to decide how best to use our time on tours. What it came down to for us is that we'll probably never be in Egypt again, and I couldn't see wasting a precious 6 hours in travel time. Consequently, we booked an overnight in Cairo with Ramses. Yeah, it was kind of painful paying for room and board when we'd already done that, and we haven't been there yet, so I can't report on what a fantastic decision that was (:D), but however it works out, I'm looking forward to having more time to visit the pyramids, etc. Now, if we just don't miss the ship...

[CRUISERTN]

We, too, had a hard time deciding, and seriously considered two day-tours into Cairo and overnight on the ship, and when we priced each day trip, it was almost the same as doing the overnight with the hotel included....one day trip was $110 (pyramids, museum) and the other (Memphis, Sakkara, bazaar) was $130 and you had to travel an extra 6 hours going to and from the ship........the overnight was $260, including the hotel and breakfast the next morning, so it then became a "no-brainer" to book the overnight tour. Only real extra expense is dinner for one night, and that is worth it to spend more time in Cairo and see a whole lot more. We are booked for November with Ramses....contact them and they will customize your tour for you if you want something different than their standard overnight tour. Hope this info helps.

[Captain Canuck]

did the royal princess in May. overnight trip with Nileblue...way cheaper than the cruise excursion and there were only 12 of us so much more freedom and time...loading and unloading 50 passenger buses takes time....we stayed at the Meridian Pyramids the same as the ship excursion...dinner in the hotel restaurant was about $50 so reasonable..and there was a restaurant by the pool with the pyramids in view....search nileblue on cruise critic and you will get lots of reviews...

[Flowrider]

we are doing a 2 day tour with ramses in dec 2010, we are going day1 to cairo, they can organize the light and sound show at night and the nile cruise dinner if you want, and on the second day we are doing a tour of alexandria because there are interesting places to see there like the biggest library in the world, a mosque, the catacombs and others, plus we will be closer to the ship on departure day. George from ramses tours is really flexible and can get you a great itinerary and is very flexible as to the size of your group. i would stay away from the 50 people tour of the ship, personally those tours feel like cattle hearding besides being much more expensive.

just my opinion-