GetYourGuide vs Headout vs Tiqets: where to book your Nile trip

Three booking sites sell most of what a visitor to the Nile buys online: GetYourGuide, Headout and Tiqets. They overlap far less than you might expect. If you want to book a Nile cruise between Luxor and Aswan, GetYourGuide is the only one with real choice and real reviews. For a dinner boat in Cairo, Headout is usually cheaper and better reviewed. Tiqets is useful for Cairo boats, feluccas and site tickets, and shows you who actually runs your trip.

This guide compares them on what matters on the Nile: which ship you get, what the price includes, who you are really booking with and how cancellations work. All prices are "from" prices seen on the three sites.

Which platform for which Nile trip

The quick rule: cruises on GetYourGuide, Cairo evenings on Headout, and always check Tiqets when the product is in Cairo or Giza. For the cruises themselves, start with the Nile cruise guide.

Booking a Nile cruise on GetYourGuide

GetYourGuide is our main partner and, for cruises, the obvious place to start. It lists 64 multi-day Nile cruises and packages, carrying 5,350 reviews between them, from $450 to $4,550 per person. Most leave from Luxor, Cairo or Aswan; a few start in Hurghada and drive you to the river.

The review leaders give you a sense of the market:

• From Aswan: 4-Day Nile Cruise to Luxor with Guide: 3 nights from $450, 4.3 from 654 reviews. The cheapest serious option.
• From Aswan: 4-Day Nile Cruise with Abu Simbel and Balloon: from $580, 4.5 from 555 reviews. The most complete short package.
• From Aswan: 3-Day Cruise to Luxor with Hot Air Balloon: from $1,000, 4.3 from 657 reviews. The most reviewed, but only 2 nights.

Remember that a "4-Day" cruise is 3 nights and a "5-Day" cruise is 4 nights. The cruise length guide explains the mapping.

What GetYourGuide does not tell you

The ship. Multi-day listings say "5-star ship or similar". Only two name their ship: the Radamis II listing (no reviews yet, at about double the price of an unnamed 4-night cruise) and Princess Sarah (2 reviews). On everything else the operator assigns the ship.

The supplier. GetYourGuide's cruises are run by Egyptian agencies, but the supplier's name is not shown in the listing data we see. You learn it from your confirmation.

The entry fees. Most listings do not say clearly whether temple tickets are included. If they are not, the eight sites of a standard cruise cost EGP 4,060 per foreign adult (students half price), before extras such as Tutankhamun's tomb.

Cancellation and payment. GetYourGuide offers "free cancellation up to 24 hours before your activity for most bookings" and a "reserve now, pay later" option. Multi-day cruises may have stricter terms, so read the cancellation box on the listing before you pay. Prices are shown as one "from" price per person.

Titles matter. Searching by place pulls in departures from elsewhere; a cruise filed under Luxor may start with a four-hour drive from Hurghada. Read the first word of the title ("From Aswan", "From Hurghada").

⛵ Aswan

GetYourGuide3 nightsFrom Aswan

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

4.5 (555)

from $580Check dates

⛵ Aswan

GetYourGuide3 nightsFrom Aswan

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

4.3 (654)

from $450Check dates

☾ Evening

GetYourGuide2 hCairo

Cairo: Opal Nile Romantic Dinner Cruise & Live Entertainment

4.7 (401)

from $45Check dates

☀ Sunrise

GetYourGuide3 hLuxor

Luxor: Deluxe Sunrise Hot Air Balloon

4.6 (409)

from $96Check dates

☀ Sunrise

GetYourGuideFull dayLuxor

Luxor: West and East Banks All-Inclusive Tour & Balloon Ride

4.5 (446)

from $175Check dates

☀ Sunrise

GetYourGuide3 hLuxor

Luxor: West Bank Hot Air Balloon Ride with Hotel Pickup

4.7 (337)

from $70Check dates

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

Headout: Cairo dinner boats first, cruises second

Headout sells about 15 Nile-related products in Egypt, and its strength is clear: Cairo. Its 47 Cairo products carry 13,582 reviews between them, led by the Nile Maxim (from $70, 302 reviews), the Nile Crystal (from $31, 392 reviews) and a Grand Egyptian Museum plus dinner cruise combo (from $70.30, 1,155 reviews).

Three things to know before you book there:

• Per-group prices. Fourteen Headout products, including the Nile Maxim listings and the private felucca, are priced per group, not per person. Read the label, or you will think a boat is either cheaper or dearer than it is.
• "Exclusive" seating is a seat upgrade. The Nile Maxim "exclusive" (from $75) guarantees a window or stage table; the Nile Crystal "exclusive" (from $39) guarantees a window table assigned before boarding. The boat, menu and show are the same as the standard ticket. Both upgrades are resold by FTS Travels.
• Cancellation is set by each supplier. Headout's own policy is that a booking cannot be refunded unless the listing says so; the "exclusive" Nile Maxim and Nile Crystal listings and the private felucca offer free cancellation up to 24 hours before. Refunds are started within seven days of Headout receiving the money from the supplier.

On multi-day cruises Headout is thin: five listings with 0–1 reviews (one has a single 2.0 review). One stands out anyway. The 4-Day 5-Star Nile Cruise with Egyptologist, Transfers and Entrance Fees (from $325) is the only cruise on any of the three platforms that puts temple entry fees in the price; it excludes a tipping kitty of about US$45. By contrast, the 3-night cruise with Abu Simbel and balloon (from $1,000) excludes entrance fees, the Philae motorboat, drinks and Wi-Fi. Cancellation terms are not shown on Headout's cruise listings: check before paying.

Tiqets: Cairo boats, feluccas and the supplier's name

Tiqets sells 105 products in Egypt, mostly in Cairo, Giza and Hurghada, plus a handful in Luxor (Luxor Temple tickets, two balloon flights, private tours). It has nothing in Aswan or Abu Simbel, no multi-day cruise and no dahabiya. Its Nile range is eight Cairo boat and dinner products (Nile Maxim, Nile Crystal, two Nile Pharaohs options, the Memphis boat, an open-air motorboat and two combos) and three felucca products.

Review counts are tiny: 499 across all 105 Egypt products. So why look at all? Because Tiqets shows what the others hide:

• The supplier, such as FTS Travels or Black Camel Tours, before you pay.
• The boarding address and start time, so you know which dock and which bank of the river.
• Clear refund rules. All Tiqets dinner cruises and feluccas can be cancelled free up to 24 hours ahead. Site-entry tickets (Grand Egyptian Museum, Egyptian Museum, Giza, Citadel, Luxor Temple) are never refundable.

For the Nile Pharaohs, Tiqets is the main platform: the dinner cruise with optional transfer starts from $30.32. The Memphis dinner boat in Maadi is also a Tiqets product.

Same boat, three prices

Because the same Cairo boats are resold everywhere, comparing by boat name pays off. On the same day the Nile Maxim cost $70 on Headout (priced per group), $75 on Tiqets and $122.55 on GetYourGuide, where it is also the lowest-rated named boat (3.9). The Nile Crystal was $27 on Tiqets and $31 on Headout.

A private felucca in Cairo shows the same pattern, with the added twist of per-person and per-group pricing:

Grand Egyptian Museum tickets are a third example: $30.34 on GetYourGuide and $41 on Headout, while the museum itself sells only on tickets.gem.eg, at about EGP 1,450 for a foreign adult according to recent press reports. Check the official site first. The ship, the seat, the inclusions or the date may differ between listings, so compare like with like. For the boats themselves, see the Cairo dinner cruise guide and felucca rides in Cairo.

Who supplies GetYourGuide's Nile cruises?

Egyptian travel agencies. GetYourGuide is a marketplace: the agency that runs your cruise buys the cabins on a ship, books the guide and sends the transfer. The supplier's name does not appear in the listing data, so we never pair a GetYourGuide cruise with a named agency or ship, and you shouldn't trust anyone who claims to know which agency is "behind" a listing.

Many of those agencies also sell direct, and so do ship companies. Sonesta sells its cabins like hotel rooms, with sightseeing not included; Mayfair Cruises publishes per-night rates that include entry fees and transfers; Oberoi includes entrance fees and a guide. If you already know the ship you want, booking direct or through an agency is often the only way to get it. See Nile cruise operators and agencies and the Memphis Tours review for how that works, and the Sonesta St George review for a ship sold direct.

Book a Nile cruise direct or through a platform?

Use a platform when you want a standard 3- or 4-night cruise, value flexible cancellation and don't mind which 5-star ship you get. Book direct or through an agency when the ship matters: a luxury boat such as the Oberoi Zahra or a Sonesta ship, a dahabiya, a Lake Nasser cruise or a specific weekday. The Nile cruise prices guide shows what each route costs.

GetYourGuide, Headout or Tiqets: questions