Two days to kill in Cairo before heading off on liveaboard — any suggestions?

[nippurmagnum]

We did all that along with Giza in one long day. We had our guide for the whole day. Admittedly, it all became a blur. The second day we tooled around Cairo on our own, as I mentioned above.

As for Luxor and the Valley of the Kings, we figured we'd save it for our next trip to Egypt, and we did. On our second trip to Egypt we skipped Cairo entirely and flew on to Hurghada and then by van to Luxor. Although the great pyramids and the Sphinx are iconic and not to be missed, my impression was that the sites at Luxor and the Valley of the Kings were more extensive, more intricately decorated, well preserved, etc. I mean, tombs like King Tut's! I would never have thought it could be done in a single day, let alone as a day trip via air from Cairo, if ScubaLawyer hadn't said he did it.

I just checked online, and there are same-day package tours to Luxor from Cairo for $480, including flight, guide, transfers, lunch, etc. Seems reasonable in price, but it departs at 5 pm, and returns late at night, circa 10 pm if everything works like it is supposed to. That seems pretty exhausting. So I am thinking to do like you did, and leave it for a return trip . . .

 

[Scuba Lawyer]

Thanks for the tip. Did you arrange the flight/guide separately, or as part of a package? Were there plenty of return flights to Cairo? My main worry about doing this as a day trip is that if I miss my return flight for any reason, I am stuck in Luxor, my luggage/dive gear is in Cairo, and my live aboard is departing from Hurghada the next day. But maybe I should not be a wimp.

Funny you should mention scheduling. Yes, I did it all in one day trip. It was back in about 1993 and I had booked through See & Sea Travel, including the Luxor detour. I returned to Cairo from Luxor that same evening (seemed to be plenty of flights although a guy who looked like every photo of a bad guy you have ever seen walked up to me at the airport and asked if I would carry a sealed package on the plane back to his ailing mother in Cairo - I declined and watched to make sure he didn't give it to anyone else. ) Anyway, my flight the next day to Sharm el Sheik to catch my LOB was delayed and I didn't get to Sharm until the following day. By that time my LOB had departed. I'm sitting there at an empty dock feeling incredibly sorry for myself (I was traveling alone) when two Egyptian sailors (with big guns) walked up to me demanding (in very good english) to know what I was doing there since no boats were scheduled to depart for the rest of that week. I told them my story of woe and they said to come with them. They went into a guard shack and made a few calls, came back out, and 20 minutes later I'm leaning against a 50cal deck gun on an Egyptian Gun Boat being whisked across the southern portion of the Gulf of Aqaba to my liveaboard. The captain and crew of the liveaboard were certainly shocked to see me and figured I must me someone very important to be able to have the Egyptian military at my command. They went above and beyond to treat me great on that trip. I sort of forgot to mention I was just some poor schmuck who lucked out. I tried to give the guys on the gun boat some money but they wouldn't take it. Funny how certain things trigger memories like they happened yesterday. M

 

[KathyV]

We had a few days in Sharm before boarding the liveaboard, and we spent it relaxing and enjoying the lovely seaside resort community - and that is probably a good thing because we were tired and burned-out from finishing up work and traveling - but I regret that we didn't take advantage of the opportunity to visit the archeological sites in Petra, Jordon. We always thought that we would get back to that fascinating part of the world some day, but so far it hasn't happened.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petra

 

[nippurmagnum]

Funny you should mention scheduling. Yes, I did it all in one day trip. It was back in about 1993 and I had booked through See & Sea Travel, including the Luxor detour. I returned to Cairo from Luxor that same evening (seemed to be plenty of flights although a guy who looked like every photo of a bad guy you have ever seen walked up to me at the airport and asked if I would carry a sealed package on the plane back to his ailing mother in Cairo - I declined and watched to make sure he didn't give it to anyone else. ) Anyway, my flight the next day to Sharm el Sheik to catch my LOB was delayed and I didn't get to Sharm until the following day. By that time my LOB had departed. I'm sitting there at an empty dock feeling incredibly sorry for myself (I was traveling alone) when two Egyptian sailors (with big guns) walked up to me demanding (in very good english) to know what I was doing there since no boats were scheduled to depart for the rest of that week. I told them my story of woe and they said to come with them. They went into a guard shack and made a few calls, came back out, and 20 minutes later I'm leaning against a 50cal deck gun on an Egyptian Gun Boat being whisked across the southern portion of the Gulf of Aqaba to my liveaboard. The captain and crew of the liveaboard were certainly shocked to see me and figured I must me someone very important to be able to have the Egyptian military at my command. They went above and beyond to treat me great on that trip. I sort of forgot to mention I was just some poor schmuck who lucked out. I tried to give the guys on the gun boat some money but they wouldn't take it. Funny how certain things trigger memories like they happened yesterday. M

Great story, which validated my decision to stay closer to Cairo and play it safe!

 

[scubadada]

Having an Egyptian guide should help you with the hawkers, they are able to fend them away. Unprotected tourists are easy prey. Increasingly firm NOs times 2 or 3 was usually effective. They are desperate people with tourism suffering so, some empathy is indicated

 

[nippurmagnum]

Having an Egyptian guide should help you with the hawkers, they are able to fend them away. Unprotected tourists are easy prey. Increasingly firm NOs times 2 or 3 was usually effective. They are desperate people with tourism suffering so, some empathy is indicated

I hear you. Though Darwin might predict low survival odds for "empathetic prey."

 

[Scott from LongIsland]

Where is your liveaboard departing from? If from Marsa Alam you could drive there from Luxor. I preferred Luxor to Cairo by a longshot and after visiting Luxor we drove in a van to catch the liveaboard in Marsa Alam. The pyramids and sphinx are great and all but there is so much to see in Luxor. Karnak and the Valley of the King alone are reason to visit. You could still do a quick pyramid/sphinx tour and then hop on a plane to Luxor. I would get of of Cairo as quickly as possible

 

[nippurmagnum]

Where is your liveaboard departing from? If from Marsa Alam you could drive there from Luxor. I preferred Luxor to Cairo by a longshot and after visiting Luxor we drove in a van to catch the liveaboard in Marsa Alam. The pyramids and sphinx are great and all but there is so much to see in Luxor. Karnak and the Valley of the King alone are reason to visit. You could still do a quick pyramid/sphinx tour and then hop on a plane to Luxor. I would get of of Cairo as quickly as possible

From Hurgadha — and I gotta do the pyramids and Sphinx on this first trip.

 

[GR8FUL]

Funny you should mention scheduling. Yes, I did it all in one day trip. It was back in about 1993 and I had booked through See & Sea Travel, including the Luxor detour. I returned to Cairo from Luxor that same evening (seemed to be plenty of flights although a guy who looked like every photo of a bad guy you have ever seen walked up to me at the airport and asked if I would carry a sealed package on the plane back to his ailing mother in Cairo - I declined and watched to make sure he didn't give it to anyone else. ) Anyway, my flight the next day to Sharm el Sheik to catch my LOB was delayed and I didn't get to Sharm until the following day. By that time my LOB had departed. I'm sitting there at an empty dock feeling incredibly sorry for myself (I was traveling alone) when two Egyptian sailors (with big guns) walked up to me demanding (in very good english) to know what I was doing there since no boats were scheduled to depart for the rest of that week. I told them my story of woe and they said to come with them. They went into a guard shack and made a few calls, came back out, and 20 minutes later I'm leaning against a 50cal deck gun on an Egyptian Gun Boat being whisked across the southern portion of the Gulf of Aqaba to my liveaboard. The captain and crew of the liveaboard were certainly shocked to see me and figured I must me someone very important to be able to have the Egyptian military at my command. They went above and beyond to treat me great on that trip. I sort of forgot to mention I was just some poor schmuck who lucked out. I tried to give the guys on the gun boat some money but they wouldn't take it. Funny how certain things trigger memories like they happened yesterday. M

Wow, what a cool story!

 

[scubadada]

Chance that this would happen today are essentially zero. Show up for your boat at least a day early.

My wife and I went on our honeymoon trip to Isla Mujeres at the end of 1979. We had a flight from LA to Cancun and then a flight to Isla. We got to Cancun and went to the counter to check in. The airport on Isla had been closed at least 6 months earlier and they told us to go to the ferry terminal to take a ferry to Isla. We went to the ferry terminal and arrived just before the last ferry of the night. Unfortunately, the terminal only took Mexican Peso and we had not had a chance to change any money. I explained this to the attendant in detail.

The only other people in the ferry terminal was a group of about a dozen Mexican military in fatigues, carrying flat black automatic weapons. One of them stepped up to the counter, paid our ferry bill, and looked over and said, have a nice honeymoon. I will never, ever, forget this act of kindness, you never know when it might happen. Pay it back.