A bucket list cruise on the Nile
- Chris Wright
- Feb 27
- 6 min read
Updated: May 4
Australian Financial Review: Highflyer, February 2025
The article below is as filed. To see it as it ran at the AFR, click here
Floating in luxury on a serene river, the greatest sights in all antiquity waiting for you at each port. Five thousand years of evocative history combined with the slow easy drift of a ship in the sunshine. Pyramids, temples, Pharaohs; loungers, gin and tonic, good food. This is the allure of a cruise on the Nile.
It is an idea in the right place at the right time for Australians. More and more of us are breaking journeys to Europe in Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi, and looking to see something mesmerising during a stopover. Cairo’s about a four hour flight from each.
And while the Middle East looks increasingly bleak geopolitically, Egypt itself is considered relatively safe: the Australian government lowered its travel advisory (to “exercise a high degree of caution”, the same as Indonesia, Hong Kong and the UK) in September.
“Sometimes when tensions grow in the Middle East, we have a few guests that say: better not,” says Karoline Landa, Hotel General Manager for the Viking Sobek. “But we are fully booked to the end of June. Guests know we would not send them anywhere where it’s not safe.” Egypt attracted an all-time high 14.9 million tourists in 2023. And 8,000 Australians visited in the first half of 2024, according to the Council of Australian Tour Operators.
I enjoyed a four-day taster of Viking’s 12-day Pharaohs & Pyramids cruise on board the Viking Sobek in November, one of two ships (the other is the Viking Hathor) that were launched that month. It was a dazzling distillation of what Egypt has to offer, both in and around Cairo (the Pyramids and Sphinx are in Giza, across the Nile from the heart of the city), and where the actual cruising takes place, 600 kilometres to the south out of Luxor.
Viking is doubling down on the Nile: by the time a further four sister ships launch by 2026 the company will have ten on the river, emboldened by forward bookings and the continuing allure Egypt holds over the popular imagination worldwide.
Viking occupies a clearly defined niche. The brand made its name on rivers, and while its cruises cover oceans too, they are perhaps at their best on the iconic waterways of the Danube, the Mississippi, the Nile.
Viking’s cruises are child-free and targeted at over-55s, and its ships are styled accordingly: peaceful, with a light pine design across all their ships reminiscent of their Scandinavian origins, all natural light and more space than one would expect on a cruise, with low capacity (82 on our ship in 41 staterooms) and a near absence of intrusive announcements. There are no casinos on this ship, no bingo tournaments, no karaoke, no gym; the mood of our trip is better illustrated by detailed lectures on Egyptian medicine, hieroglyphics, the Nile itself, and – about as bracing and energetic as it gets – backgammon.
“Our positioning has always been to explore the world in comfort,” says Michelle Black, ANZ Managing Director at Viking. “A big part of that is when you come back, you feel like you're coming home, and there's no variation.”
Viking is very keen that a guest on any of its cruises will find familiarity with any other of its ships worldwide, right down to the shape of the chairs (always square-backed so you can hang a bag or jacket on them – an edict that comes from founder Torstein Hagen himself). As with its other cruises around the world, Viking prefers to quote an up-front cost with no surprises along the way for drink packages, shore excursions or wifi.
People tend to assume they know what Egypt’s going to give them, and to an extent they’re right. All the glorious money shots of antiquity are part of this tour: guests start on land in Cairo to see the Pyramids, Sphinx, museums and various city highlights such as a night in the Muslim quarter, before being flown to Luxor to meet the ship. Once underway, they cruise between places such as the Valley of the Kings (including Tutankhamun’s tomb), Aswan and lesser-known temples accessible by ship such as those in Qena (the high-ceilinged and well-preserved Dendera Temple) and Esna (the still-colourful Temple of Khnum) before returning to Cairo.
But in truth there are new things to see on a Nile cruise, and chief among them is the magnificent Grand Egyptian Museum, an optional shore excursion on day 11 of the full cruise (it will become a central part of the itinerary when the Tutankhamun collection moves from the older Egyptian Museum in Cairo at some unspecified future date).
Never has the adjective Grand been so richly earned: decades in the conception, the main halls of the museum opened at the end of October after significant delay and the result is remarkable. The spacious, angular building itself is beguiling enough, but its interior artistry – such as a long series of shallow escalators alongside impeccably-lit artefacts covering thousands of years of rich history, culminating at the top with a perfect view of the Pyramids – is something else again. Perhaps you think you’ve seen Egypt: go again, just for that.
Viking also ties up with local operators for another highlight beyond the tombs: a hot-air balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings from Luxor. Nobody who takes that early-morning trip, starting with a small ferry over the darkened Nile before leaping into the baskets in the early morning half-light, comes back anything less than astonished. The sight of dozens of these bright balloons, fire breathing into them from the baskets, with the rugged rock backdrop of the valley behind them, will stay with me a very long time.
The Nile itself, long since tamed by the Aswan Dam, is as calm a sail as one could imagine: I’m often unaware if we’re underway or have docked. A library filled with scholarly texts on Egypt and golden-age authors such as PG Wodehouse chimes nicely with a generous top deck made for reading with a drink. From here, or from a pool deck at the stern, one can take it all in: I’m struck by just how narrow the wedge of green life on either bank of the Nile is before being overtaken by arid desert.
But it is, as program director Sherine Barakat reminds us in a seminar, an almighty river: the longest in the world, draining 10% of Africa across 11 countries. It has been, over the years, a source of life and of death, variously vital for irrigation and sinister for crocodiles and flooding; it has shaped religions and nations. “Without the Nile, there would not have been an Egypt,” Sherine says.
The message of Egypt clearly still resonates. Every generation grows up reading about pyramids and pharaohs and mummies and brings the same wide-eyed fascination when they visit for real. When I visit, three friends back home – one Caucasian, one Chinese, one Indian – ask me to send photos to their hypnotised kids who respond with equal wonder. The pharaohs still have a hold over us all.
DETAILS
12 lower-deck Standard Staterooms are spacious – big enough to have a sofa – but lack balconies. On higher floors, 21 Veranda Staterooms are complemented by six Veranda Suites, which feature two rooms apiece, and two Explorer Suites; all these suites also have verandas or balconies.
Eating takes place at two venues, Aquavit Terrace and The Restaurant. The quality of food is excellent, even if some of the staff were still finding their way on this maiden voyage. Dishes include Western and local options: el san el asfour, for example, a dish of minced lamb and chicken broth; or mahshi, which combines stuffed mixed vegetables with rustic tomato sauce.
Viking doesn’t offer its usual Silver Spirits Beverage upgrade in Egypt because it’s impossible to offer the same inclusions as elsewhere in the world; instead guests receive all the local wine and beer they want with meals, rolled into the price. People are also welcome to bring their own chosen booze with them without corkage charges.
A 12-day Pharaohs & Pyramids tour starts at A$11,195 in a Standard Stateroom. It starts with three days in Cairo before a charter flight to Luxor to join the cruise as far up the river as Aswan. Available pre- and post-cruise extensions in the region include Jerusalem and Istanbul (pre) and Jordan and the Egyptian city of Alexandria (post).
The author travelled as a guest of Viking. Call them in Australia on 138 747 or go to vikingcruises.com.au
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