Following a short stay in Luxor, it was time to join my long awaited Nile cruise on board MS Zaina.
On the first day of my cruise, I was picked up from my city hotel at around 8am, for a pre-cruise tour of the sights of Luxor’s East Bank.
The first stop was the iconic Luxor Temple, known as “The Southern Sanctuary” and dating from around 1400 BCE.
The next stop was Karnak Temple, dating from the reign of Senusret I.
The temple is home to an open air museum and is one of the most visited historical sites in Egypt.
Having spent around an hour at each temple, I joined the ship at around 11am for the passage along the Nile to Aswan.
I had booked my cruise via Get Your Guide and was assigned to the MS Zaina.
Photograph courtesy of Egypt Joy Travel.
On the face of it, the ship looked comfortable. The cabins were nicely furnished and well equipped, and there was also a rooftop pool available.
Unfortunately, this is where a series of annoyances began.
Firstly, I was informed that all cabins on the ship were non-smoking, despite my having been promised by Get Your Guide that I would be allocated to a smoking ship. I escalated this to Get Your Guide and was simply stonewalled, without even an apology for being misled.
Secondly, it emerged that there would be no actual cruising that day, the ship simply remaining in port, moored tightly between two other ships.
This was my view for the remainder of the day.
The cruise included meals, which were served in a buffet setting. The food was luke warm and rather uninspiring, but at least edible.
After a disappointing first day, I was looking forward to the following day’s hot air balloon flight over Luxor, which will be the subject of my next article.