Aggressor Red Sea

[Nwcid]

The Aggressor has some good sales going on this summer for the Red Sea. My wife and I would love to dive it, but we are semi-concerned about safety issues in the area.

We would be flying into Hurghada, I believe (wife has the plans) the day before the ship disembarks. Then after the trip we were considering doing the Luxor "excursion" as well. It sounds like on this part of the trip you have all of your luggage with you. Also there seems to be some confusion on if you can take pictures or not. Some reports say no, some say with permit.

Can anyone give me some insight or thoughts about this trip? Any personal experiences? Any guidance?

 

[Lorenzoid]

You posted this question in the Liveaboards forum. There are a few trip reports posted on Scubaboard, but over in the Red Sea forum. I suggest perusing the Red Sea forum for trip reports and other information. My trip report is there: Red Sea Aggressor trip report See also Ken Kurtis's: Red Sea trip report - Red Sea Aggressor - December 5-12, 2015 And Scubadada's: Red Sea Aggressor April-May 2016. There are probably more. If you have specific questions, I suggest asking over on the Red Sea forum as well.

 

[Scott from LongIsland]

I did the Red Sea Aggressor in Oct 16 and will be doing it again this May. I am also doing the Luxor excursion. At no time did i feel remotely unsafe in the area. I would not concern yourself with safety issues. The problems in Egypt are primarily (not all) in the Sinai Peninsula area. There has been a few random, minor incidents in Hurghada that could happen anywhere.

I would be more concerned with the heat over the summer than safety. It will be brutally hot in the summer.

There are no pictures allowed in the Valley of the Kings or inside Ramesses tomb. Other areas are okay. You can sometimes pay the guards to take the pics but i don't think that i would recommend that.

We have plenty of our own problems and dangers in the US that concern me more than traveling in Egypt.

 

[scubadada]

Hi @Nwcid

My wife and I spent 2 weeks in Cairo, on the Nile, Luxor, Aswan, and Abu Simbel in Feb 2016. We were with a small group and had an Egyptologist/guide. We felt safe the entire time. There was tremendous value to having the guide, not only all of the information, but effective protection against the hawkers. They really only approached us when we were by ourselves. Increasing firm NOs were perfectly effective. The tourist economy in Egypt is very bad, these people are desperate to make a living. On the other hand, all attractions were very uncrowded. There were only a few prohibitions on photography, you could often purchase an above board permit (Egypt museum, some tombs Valley of the Kings, inside the 2 temples at Abu Simbel, maybe a few more). This was the most interesting and educational vacation we have taken, absolutely dazzling.

I returned by myself and spent two weeks on the Red Sea in April/May 2016, report cited by @Lorenzoid, above. I flew into Hurghada but went immediately to Port Ghalib/Marsa Alam. I did a day of land based diving prior to boarding the RSA. I had no safety concerns on this trip

 

[Lorenzoid]

We arranged a Luxor tour through Aggressor. We did it before the liveaboard, figuring that would give us a few days leeway in case our luggage needed to catch up with us.

 

[Hoag]

A good website to keep an eye on since you are currently in the USA is the State Department Travel Advisories website. It will give you an idea about what to expect from a safety point of view.

 

[runsongas]

the way i did it was to schedule two days after the liveaboard, one for luxor and one for cairo. did a multileg ticket to fly into hurghada, do the liveaboard, private car transfer to luxor for one day (temple of hatshepsut, valley of the kings, and karnak temple), luxor to cairo one way, then egyptian museum and giza (pyramids/sphinx) then fly home from cairo instead. cost was roughly 350ish extra to check off the major stuff i wanted to do on the tourist list.

 

[scubadada]

the way i did it was to schedule two days after the liveaboard, one for luxor and one for cairo. did a multileg ticket to fly into hurghada, do the liveaboard, private car transfer to luxor for one day (temple of hatshepsut, valley of the kings, and karnak temple), luxor to cairo one way, then egyptian museum and giza (pyramids/sphinx) then fly home from cairo instead. cost was roughly 350ish extra to check off the major stuff i wanted to do on the tourist list.

2 days is a lot better than none, but insufficient

 

[runsongas]

meant i could still make it back to work on monday. i was able to fit a one week liveaboard and the 2 days to check off the touristy stuff in egypt with only 5 days off work.

 

[Nwcid]

Sorry for the delay in response. It has been a long week.

Thank you for all of your replies.

After a ton more searching I did find this about photography, Photography ticket in the Valley of the Kings - Luxor Forum - TripAdvisor