Egypt and the Nile cruise
(250 Reviews)
99% Recommended
Ann Castagna Morin
Southampton, MA
Luxury River Cruise & European travel specialist
I have had a sense of wanderlust since I was a child, always yearning to go off and explore the world.
I will take my own personal passion for travel and use it to craft an extraordinary luxury experience for you.
Europe is my specia...
I have had a sense of wanderlust since I was a child, always yearning to go off and explore the world.
I will take my own personal passion for travel and use it to craft an extraordinary luxury experience for you.
Europe is my specialty, I have dual citizenship holding both Italian and US passports. I have personally traveled to more than 3/4 of the countries in Europe and have visited Italy over 40 times.
The first-hand knowledge I gain from my own adventures I will utilize to create your inspiring journey.
I work with many tour providers, whether you wish a private custom excursion, a rail package with a local concierge in each city, or a group tour, I not only can arrange it, I have personally experienced the product.
As much as I enjoy land tours, I have become enamored with luxury river cruises and small ship/yacht cruising.
After my first glide down the Danube I was hooked!
I have sailed 20 different small ship itineraries in both Europe and Asia and have two more currently booked. I make it a point to cruise at least once a year so that I can keep up with new ships, and offerings.
It is one thing to read about a product, to fully understand all the nuances of a journey, and how it will fit their client's personality, one needs to experience it first-hand, and more than once!
On a river cruise luxury abounds with high end bath products, indulgent linens, and extraordinary service all along your journey. River cruising is such a delightful experience, similar to staying in a high-end boutique hotel, except that it travels along with you.
No detail is overlooked for your comfort, but you can leave your fancy clothes at home, I call it "laid-back luxury".
A small ship/yacht cruise on Ponant, Scenic, Windstar, Azamara or Seabourn is a journey filled with pure indulgence. These small ships can visit ports the large vessels must bypass and are able to stay late into the evening. With guest capacity ranging from 189-700 there are no crowds or lines like the large ocean vessels.
Wading through all of the choices in ships and itineraries can be overwhelming. I will answer all your questions and show you photos and videos from my own journeys to narrow down the perfect cruise for you.
As one of the top selling Key Partners in the world for both Globus Tours and Avalon Waterways I have the unparalleled experience and skills to ask the right questions to match you up with the perfect itinerary for your interests and budget.
I look forward to working with you!
Can Be Reached At
1-413-552-8941
Tomb -Valley of the Kings Luxor
This was an adventure of a lifetime!
I booked our trip with Avalon Waterways, it was wonderful being met at the airport by their staff, we were whisked through customs and immigration and the visa process while other people stood in long lines.
Avalon did a great job with inclusions, we only had to pay for one optional excursion and saw just about everything there is to see from Cairo to Aswan and in between.
Fair warning..this is not a trip for someone looking to relax we were on the go constantly!
We started off with a visit to the pyramids. Standing at the base gazing up I felt the same sense of awe I did when stood before the Taj Mahal. I was witnessing something greater than myself, and incredibly fortunate that I was able to be here. We were an intimate sized group, there were 13 of us in total which was a perfect size. We checked out the Sphinx, which was smaller than I had imagined it, and headed to Sakkara (Saqqara) where I had my first step inside a tomb, it was so exciting!
Our wake up call for the flight to Luxor came well before sunrise!
I am not a morning person, especially a very early in the morning person, but for this adventure I learned to adapt. We all managed to make it to the minibus and board our flight to Luxor. Upon arrival our luggage was strapped to the roof of a minivan ala the Flintstones and we headed off to explore Karnak Temple.
I thought the pyramids were amazing, they were nothing compared to the Karnak temple - it was simply jaw dropping! My sleepiness quickly disappeared, I felt dwarfed by the colossal statues! There was so much to see in this former city, I could have spent hours exploring! We were on a time line however, and at the appointed hour we headed to our Nile Cruise ship to check in and have lunch. After a brief respite we headed back out to the other side of Ram’s Road to the Luxor temple. Workers were putting the finishing touches on the famed pathway for the inaugural celebration of reopening the road between the two temples.Sadly I missed the party by just a week.. Although Luxor temple is smaller it still had lots of interesting treasures to discover.Walking along I tried imagining everything when all the paint was still in place, it must have been just magnificent walking through there!
My favorite day of the trip came next, it was jam packed with drama!
We visited the Valley of the Kings which is another place that one could spend an entire day, really several days. There are 62 tombs in all, we were each given tickets that allowed us to select independently three tombs that we would like to visit plus King Tut’s tomb. All the mummies, except Tut, have been removed, I saw them at the National Museum in Cairo, Tut lays in a glass case in his tomb. Entering the tombs is very dramatic, I can’t imagine the excitement for the archaeologists who found them! There were people actively digging and working while we were there as it is certain there are more to be discovered. My husband and I looked at the map trying to remember history and the mummies we saw at the museum in Cairo. Carefully we selected our three, I think we made good choices as they all had great paintings inside. It was quite the experience walking down further underground and looking around seeing even the ceiling was decorated.
King Tut’s tomb was much smaller than the others, his mummy is encased in glass on one side of the room.On the other is a golden wall and a stone box with the Eye of Horus on it which had a cracked lid.I wish they had put replica treasures in there just so we could get the experience of what it would have been like 99 years ago when it was discovered.
We visited Queen Hatshepsut’s massive mortuary temple which looks quite modern, almost like an office building built into the cliffs.A stop at the huge Colossi of Memnon stirred my imagination, I could picture the massive guardians coming to life, getting up from their seats and walking the valley.
Early the next morning I took an optional excursion that was fantastic, we boarded a plane and flew over to AbuSimbel.This gigantic dual temple complex had to be disassembled and moved to higher ground to avoid being submerged when the Aswan dam was built. The great temple was reassembled with such precision that the sun still illuminates the statues in the inner most sanctuary twice a year on February 22nd and October 22nd.The significance of the dates are Pharaoh Ramses II birthday and coronation date.It is mind boggling when you think of it that thousands of years ago they could align these massive statues to the sun’s rays without any modern surveying equipment.We headed to Edfu for the Temple of Horus dedicated to the Falcon God and then on to KomOmbo a twin temple.The right side is dedicated to the crocodile god Sobek-Ra, while the left side is dedicated to the falcon god Horus.
I am out of space, to read my full blog please see the page below -
https://www.dreamvacation.cc/travel-blog/travel-blog--escape-to-egypt-and-jordan.aspx