Commencez votre excursion à Safaga. Votre guide et votre responsable vous attendront à l'entrée du quai de la croisière. Ils porteront une pancarte à votre nom. Vous pourrez ainsi les identifier facilement. Vous prendrez ensuite un véhicule climatisé pour rejoindre Louxor. Débutez votre excursion à Louxor depuis le port de Safaga.

You arrive in Luxor after the desert drive and step into Karnak, where a forest of 134 sandstone columns in the Great Hypostyle Hall rises above you, some standing 21 meters tall. Built and added to over roughly 2,000 years, it is the largest temple complex ever raised. Your Egyptologist walks you past the sacred lake and the avenue of ram-headed sphinxes, unpicking which pharaoh built what and why. It is the kind of scale that photographs struggle to convey, so you feel it best standing among the columns.

You cross to the West Bank and into the Valley of the Kings, the hidden burial ground where pharaohs were laid in tombs cut deep into the rock to foil robbers. You enter the painted chambers, their colors still vivid after 3,000 years, while your guide reads the scenes on the walls. The standard ticket covers three tombs; the tombs of Tutankhamun and Seti I require separate tickets (about $5 to $25 USD). Time here is focused given the cruise clock.

You stand below the temple of Hatshepsut, its terraces rising straight out of the cliff face at Deir el-Bahari, built for the woman who ruled Egypt as pharaoh in her own right. Your guide tells her story and the attempt to erase her from history afterward. On the way back you pause at the Colossi of Memnon, two seated statues 18 meters tall that once guarded a temple now vanished. Then it is the long drive back to Safaga in time to board.