Nile cruise prices: what a cruise really costs per person

Nile cruise prices depend on three things: how many nights, what class of boat, and what the price actually covers. The cheapest real cruise, three nights from Aswan to Luxor on a ship sold as five-star, starts at $450 per person on GetYourGuide. A ship that prints its own rates, with guiding and entry fees included, costs roughly twice that. A luxury boat with a small number of cabins costs four to eight times as much. The headline number is only half the story, because two cruises at the same price can differ by EGP 4,060 per person in entry fees alone.

Every price on this page is per person, two sharing a cabin, unless it says otherwise. Platform prices are the live "from" prices, which move with dates. Operator and agency rates are quoted in the currency they publish.

Nile cruise prices per person by class of boat

The quickest way to read the market is price per person per night. Most cruises are three nights downstream (Aswan → Luxor) or four nights upstream (Luxor → Aswan) on the same ship, so dividing by nights makes a 3-night deal and a 4-night deal comparable. The nights guide explains why the two directions are halves of the same weekly loop.

A few things this ladder shows that a brochure won't:

• Budget and upper 5-star overlap. "Five-star" is a label nearly every ship sold to foreigners uses, and no public ministry list of rated Nile ships exists. Semiramis III calls itself "5-star deluxe" and sells through an agency for $455 for 4 summer nights; Royal Esadora, sold under the same label, costs $895 for 4 winter nights. The difference is the age of the ship, cabin size and what is included.
• Luxury is a different product, not a bigger cabin. Standard ships carry 50–80 cabins. Many luxury boats have far fewer (Sun Boat III 16, Oberoi Philae 22, Oberoi Zahra 28, Nile Seray 32), A&K and Oberoi avoid the crowded public quays, and both build entry fees into the price. See luxury Nile cruises.
• Dahabiyas are priced differently. Djed Egypt charges €330 per person per night in a cabin and €415 in a suite. Nour El Nil prices per room for a 5-night cruise: €6,600 for its Agatha Luxury Room, which is about €660 per person per night for two. The dahabiya guide compares the boats.
• International lines sell whole holidays. Viking's 12-day Pharaohs & Pyramids starts at $6,999 and Uniworld's 12-day programme runs $6,099–20,849, including Cairo hotels and internal flights. Divide by nights and you get the top rows of the ladder.

Nile cruise cost on the booking platforms: price per night

GetYourGuide lists 64 multi-day Nile cruises and packages, from $450 to $4,550. None of them names the ship: the listing says "5-star ship or similar" and the local operator assigns one. That keeps prices low, and it means you cannot compare ships, only listings. Here are the listings that matter for price, divided by nights:

Two lessons. First, the longer the cruise, the lower the price per night, until you reach 7 nights, where listings have so few reviews that you are buying blind. Second, the short slices are poor value. The one-night "overnight" costs $550 for a single night aboard, more than the plain 3-night cruise costs in total. The 2-night versions put you on a ship partway through its 3-night run, at almost double the nightly rate.

The Headout listing at $325 is the only cruise on any platform whose title promises entrance fees. On paper it is the cheapest cruise in Egypt. It has no reviews yet, and it excludes a tipping kitty of about US$45, so treat it as a promising newcomer rather than a safe bet.

Best-value cruise listings today

1

First-timers on a budget

The cheapest 3-night cruise with hundreds of reviews and a guide included; check the "includes" list for entry fees before you pay.

⛵ Aswan

GetYourGuide3 nightsFrom Aswan

From Aswan: 4-Day Nile Cruise from Aswan to Luxor with Guide

4.3 (654)

from $450Check dates

2

Want Abu Simbel and the balloon done for you

The most-reviewed listing with both extras bundled, at $130 more than the plain cruise.

⛵ Aswan

GetYourGuide3 nightsFrom Aswan

From Aswan: 4-Day Nile Cruise to Luxor with Abu Simbel and Balloon Flight

4.5 (555)

from $580Check dates

3

Four nights, more time in Aswan

The upstream version, with Kom Ombo at dusk and an extra afternoon in Aswan.

⛵ Luxor

GetYourGuide4 nightsFrom Luxor

Luxor: 5 Days Nile Cruise with Guided Tours & Abu Simbel

4.4 (69)

from $840Check dates

All of these sail the same stretch of river, with the same temples on the way:

What "all inclusive" means on a Nile cruise

On the Nile, "all inclusive" and "full board" mean different things from one seller to the next. Full board means meals: Mövenpick serves four a day (breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner). Drinks at the bar are extra unless a package says otherwise. Entry fees and guiding are the big variable:

If you book a ship direct, like a hotel room, expect sightseeing to be a separate bill. Sonesta says so plainly on its own pages ("Sightseeing activities are not included in the rates"), and JAZ and Steigenberger charge it at check-in. Our reviews of Mayfair and A&K Sanctuary set out exactly what each fare covers.

The costs on top: entry fees, tips, drinks and gala nights

Entry fees

If your cruise does not include entry fees, these are the eight sites a standard Luxor–Aswan cruise visits, at the official prices for foreign adults:

That adds up to EGP 4,060 per adult (students half price). It doesn't include the optional extras: Tutankhamun's tomb is EGP 700 on top of the Valley ticket, Seti I's tomb EGP 2,000, Abu Simbel EGP 822. Children under 6 get in free at ministry sites. You can check every price on the ministry's ticket shop at https://egymonuments.com/locations. Carry a card and some cash for ticket offices.

Tips

There is no official rule. Agencies suggest budgeting roughly US$5–10 per person per night for the crew, handed over in one envelope at reception on the last evening, plus US$10–15 per person per day for your guide. Mayfair's own guidance is $10 per person per day for the crew and $5–7 for the guide. Classic Collection Holidays suggests £10 per person per night. The ship usually announces its suggested figure at the welcome briefing, so you don't have to guess. Uniworld includes all tips in the fare.

Drinks, extras and festive supplements

Drinks are the cost people forget. On most ships they are billed separately and settled by card or cash at the end of the cruise. Some ships go further: Le Fayan does not allow outside drinks, even water.

Over Christmas and New Year, expect a compulsory New Year's Eve gala supplement on many ships. Agencies quote roughly US$50–180 per person; the Christmas Eve dinner is often optional. Ship rates rise too: Mayfair's festive departures from 20 to 31 December cost $400 per person per night instead of $330, and A&K publishes separate festive rates.

Singles and children

There is no standard single supplement. Some real examples: Nile Shams charges $584 for a single on a summer 3-night against $406 per person sharing. Mayfair's single rate is $330–430 a night against $230–330 sharing. AmaWaterways adds 50% for cabins and 100% for suites. MS Tulip has two single cabins with no supplement. For children, Sonesta takes under-6s free and charges half price for ages 6–11 sharing with parents. Other lines set minimum ages (A&K from 10). The family cruises guide lists them.

Abu Simbel and the balloon: bundle or buy separately?

Many cruise listings bundle Abu Simbel and a Luxor balloon flight. On GetYourGuide the bundle adds $130: the plain 3-night is from $450, the same route with both extras from $580. Bought separately, an Abu Simbel day trip from Aswan starts at $40 and a Luxor balloon flight at $88, which is about the same money.

So the bundle is a convenience, not a saving. Buy separately if you are unsure about a 03:30 alarm or a balloon. Bundle if you want one booking and no planning. Similar packages are sold on Headout, and today GetYourGuide is cheaper for the 3-night version:

For the 4-night Luxor → Aswan version with Abu Simbel, Headout is cheaper today but its listing has no reviews yet. Ship, cabin, inclusions and dates may differ between the two:

Nile cruise packages and cruise & stay holidays from the UK

A UK package costs more per night than a platform cruise, but it includes flights, transfers and someone to call when a flight is cancelled. These are the prices seen for packages with flights from the UK:

• TUI River Cruises: its own ships, TUI Al Horeya and TUI Bahareya, sail 7-night all-inclusive round trips from Luxor in winter, with flights from Gatwick and Manchester. Launch prices were from £1,785 (Al Horeya) and £1,499 (Bahareya) per person. Cruise & stay adds 7 nights in a Luxor hotel, or a Hurghada beach hotel (8 nights before or 6 after). Only Edfu and Kom Ombo are included as excursions. Check https://www.tui.co.uk/river-cruises/nile-cruises for this winter's prices.
• Classic Collection Holidays: 7-night cruises with flights on MS Classic Semiramis II, Royal Princess and the Classic Blue Shadow ships, from £1,895 per person on Blue Shadow. The Semiramis II and Royal Princess packages include entry fees for 11 excursions with an Egyptologist. Extras are listed upfront: Abu Simbel £120 by road or £280 by air, the balloon £110.
• Saga: an 11-day solo holiday on the MS Livingstone (3 hotel nights and 7 on board) from £4,495, with flights, visa and drinks from 11:00 to 22:00 included.
• Riviera Travel: the 14-night Cairo → Aswan river cruise on Mövenpick's Darakum, from £7,589 with flights. It is the way to sail all the way from Cairo to Aswan; see Nile cruises from Cairo.

The international river lines sit at the top: Avalon's 10-day Taste of Egypt on MS Farah from $4,949, Viking from $6,999, A&K's small-group Egypt and the Nile from £13,760. Their prices include internal flights, Cairo hotels and guiding, so compare them with a whole self-built trip, not with a cruise alone. For a DIY package, a platform cruise plus flights to Luxor (easyJet from Gatwick, TUI from Gatwick and Manchester, both seasonal) is the do-it-yourself alternative.

Nile cruise deals: when prices drop and when they don't

Summer is the cheapest season, and the hottest. A&K's published rate for a 4-night cruise on Sun Boat IV is $3,235 per person in October–November and January–March; its June–August 2026 rate was $1,654, about half. Agency fares show the same pattern: Semiramis III is $455 for 4 nights in summer against $645 in winter. The catch is the heat (Luxor and Aswan average 39–42 °C by day) and that several ships simply stop: Mayfair Cruises, Nour El Nil and Mövenpick's Royal Lily, Royal Lotus and Sun Ray do not sail in June–August, and the Oberoi ships skip June. Mövenpick's Hamees, the JAZ and Steigenberger ships, Sonesta and A&K keep sailing. See when to go.

Christmas and New Year are the dearest weeks, with gala supplements on top. December–January is the peak of the season, so book those dates early.

One summer date is not cheap at all. For the total solar eclipse on 2 August 2027, Mayfair charges $950 per person per night and Viking's 12-day eclipse holiday starts at $10,999.

Last-minute Nile cruises are possible because platform listings show live availability and the operator fits you onto whichever ship has space. Most GetYourGuide bookings can be cancelled free up to 24 hours ahead and offer "reserve now, pay later", but multi-day cruises may have their own terms, so check the listing. The risk of booking late is in the ship, not the price: in peak weeks you get whatever "similar" ship is left. More on how the three platforms differ is in our platforms guide.

Working out the real price of a cruise

A worked example for two adults on the cheapest listing, three nights from Aswan: $900 for the cruise. If entry fees are excluded, add EGP 8,120. Tips come to roughly $30–60 for the crew and $60–120 for the guide over three or four guiding days. Add drinks and any extras. Fees and tips alone can add a third or more to the cheapest fares, before drinks and extras. That is why an agency cruise that includes the fees, such as Royal Viking at $646 for 3 winter nights, or Mayfair's $1,320 per person for 4 winter nights with fees, sightseeing and airport transfers, can be closer in real cost than the headline suggests.

Don't forget the trip around the cruise: the visa (US$30 on arrival, cash only, or as an e-visa on https://www.visa2egypt.gov.eg, rising to US$33 from 1 January 2027), flights to Luxor or Aswan, and a night or two in Cairo.

Which price level is worth paying for?

Budget ($400–700 for 3–4 nights). Fine for a first Nile cruise if you accept a big ship, a cabin that may face the ship moored alongside, and an operator-assigned boat. Pay for a listing with hundreds of reviews and a clear inclusions list. Our budget cruise guide names the cheapest ships worth booking.

Upper 5-star (about $200–525 a night). Worth it if you want to choose the ship, the cabin deck and the departure day, and to know the entry fees are paid. Mayfair's published rate sheet is the most transparent of this group.

Luxury (about $1,300 and up for 3–4 nights). Worth it for small boats, private moorings, guiding for a handful of people and extra tombs built in (the Oberoi Philae's 4-night includes Tutankhamun and Ramses VI). A&K's summer rates, about half its autumn price, are the cheapest way into this class.

Dahabiya. The price buys a different trip: sailing by day, a dozen or two guests, stops the big ships can't make, no pool. If that appeals, the euro price per night is easy to justify.

⛵ Aswan

GetYourGuide3 nightsFrom Aswan

From Aswan: 4-Day Nile Cruise from Aswan to Luxor with Guide

4.3 (654)

from $450Check dates

⛵ Aswan

GetYourGuide1 nightFrom Aswan

Aswan to Luxor: 1 Night Felucca Sail to Daraw, End Luxor

4.0 (1)

from $230Check dates

⛵ Aswan

GetYourGuide3 nightsFrom Aswan

From Aswan: 4 Days Nile River Cruise with Guided Tours

4.2 (43)

from $630Check dates

⛵ Aswan

GetYourGuide3 nightsFrom Aswan

Aswan: 4-Day Private Nile Cruise to Luxor with Balloon Ride

4.2 (261)

from $643Check dates

⛵ Luxor

GetYourGuide4 nightsFrom Luxor

Princess Sarah Cruise 5 days 4 nights from Luxor to Aswan

4.8 (2)

from $975Check dates

⛵ Aswan

GetYourGuide3 nightsFrom Aswan

From Aswan: 4-Day 3-Night Nile Cruise with Hot Air Balloon

4.6 (76)

from $686Check dates

See everything on GetYourGuide →See everything on Headout →See everything on Tiqets →Prices checked on 19 October 2026

Nile cruise prices: questions