M/S Esmeralda Nile Cruise - 4 or 7 Nights From Luxor each Monday and 03 Nights From Aswan each Friday

Pros: All I can say is WOW! We came on our honeymoon and got upgraded to a suit. The staff went above and beyond for us and made our stay one of the best in Egypt. From arrival to leaving everyone was super nice and assisted in anything you needed. Food was great couldn’t have been any better as we even got a private dinner on top deck and a private breakfast on a Egyptian boat before leaving. Thank you to all the staff we really appreciated everything. Lots of love from Canada and Malta 🫶🏼

Pros: Staff and caring people with smiles - celebratory atmosphere for Christmas

Cons: Cost for facilities -

Nice Trip: Be aware you're Booking with an Agent, not the boat. Communications could be improved.

Pros: Nice boat - old but well kept. We had one of the 2 fancy suites up the front and it was nice and spacious. Food was nice overall, though we picked up a 24 hour bug on day 1 ( suspected from the salad bar - avoid things washed in tap water in Egypt ! ). It's buffet almost all the time with an exception of the last evening where the booking.com guest get a roof top private dinner. Team on board were very friendly and went out of their way to make sure that we were taken care of. Overall, the boat experience and team were great - the issues we had were mostly related to the booking itself which are detailed below. We had a great guide, Hani, who brought us around and went the extra mile in keeping us safe and educated - lovely guy.

Cons: Kicked off with a rather stressful experience. This is not a booking with Esmeralda direct - it's with an agent who you never meet. We have 150+ bookings w/booking.com in recent years - this is the first time we were not dealing direct with property. We had no idea we were not booking with agent. There was no communications about this arrangement before we arrived and we found this out upon check-in. Approx 100+ guest split across 10-15 tour groups. Each group has it's own tour guide. The boat has no tour guide services or contacts for tours. We were told we had to organise tours with the agent. You check-in 12 noon, and would expect to visit Karnak & Luxor temples early afternoon. We had nothing and were freaking. We spent first hour making contact with agent via booking.com messaging to try find out what options were. Managed to make contact and then had whatsapp chat about itinerary and costs. The communications was terrible and we could have been told in advance how things worked instead of having to deal with this circus immediately upon boarding. No idea why they don't send a simple message. As part of tour group segregation booking.com guests are sat at a specific table and are assigned specific seats in dining room. You keep these seats for all meals for whole trip. Luckily we had 2 wonderful gents at our table of 4 though this is a dice roll and you will spend 12 meals sharing the table with some strangers. These will also accompany you on the tours, so whoever else booking.com gets, you'll be spending lots of time with them for your trip. Again, we were very lucky. One comment on boat: There are photo/video guys who film/photo you often while on the boat, and then they will harass you later to buy photos/videos. Egypt is full of people harassing you for money - top 5 countries for this. The boat should be a safe space from that annoyance, but it's not.

Excellent way of experiencing ancient Egypt

Pros: The key highlight of the cruise is our Egyptologist Mohamed (Zezu) who has brought color to the history at each site. I also enjoyed the private top deck dinner offered to us which came as a pleasant surprise! Food was great on board and cabin was clean and tidy. Bed was also very spacious. Pool area is also very good and pool is deep enough to swim in. We also had a massage on the ship which was very relaxing!

Cons: The detailed itinerary for the cruise wasn‘t available in advance which made it difficult for independent travellers such as myself to plan ahead. For example we have organised transfer to the cruise on embarkation day, and the pick up time was not confirmed until the day before after several prompts from myself. We had no idea if we were going straight into a tour, or checking in on the ship first. From my understanding the itinerary is set by the local guides on the day and therefore very little information can be given in advance but I feel that this could have been communicated better to us. Another thing I didn‘t like was the (optional?) recommended tip of $55 USD per person at the end of the cruise. This felt like a hidden cost as it wasn‘t mentioned anywhere on Booking.com and came as a surprise to me and it brought us above our holiday budget. I understand that tipping a certain % is the norm for some countries, but as a traveller from the UK I would have appreciated it if this were included in the cost of the cruise or explicitly mentioned in Booking.com to avoid surprises.

Best Nile Cruise!

Pros: Best Nile Cruise! I Highly recommend this experience. We booked the cruise by booking.com and sightseeings direct with the cruise agent. We were very worried about this trip as we did not have a lot of information regarding destiny, but now we are back home we can tell EVERYTHING was beyond our expectations. The ship is beautiful, all the staff is worried to provide their best. We had an upgrade to a suite including bathub and additional services and received a lot of details every day including a romantic dinner in top deck! Food was exquisite, I am vegetarian and the Cheff prepared some dishes specially for me. Also Important to say is that sightseeings were with highly experienced tourist guides! Special thanks to Ship Manager, Maitre and Cheff (I'm so sorry I lost my notes where I had pointed their names) and also for tourist Guides Tony Adel and Salma Khairt.

Cons: Nothing to complain about! I Highly recommend Esmeralda and hope to have the opportunity to go back soon.

AMAZING

Pros: We were celebrating our anniversary. We travelled on June 19-23 room 302. Out stay exceeded our expectations. We were really taken care of by everyone on this ship. Outstanding service and attention to details. Our special Thank you goes to the manager Mr. Ahmed. He was truly amazing and offered us an upgrade for a special occasion. Chef Ahmed made delicious food for us everyday, Mr. Kareem, the restaurant manager was very attentive and arranged for a special anniversary dinner. Cleaning staff made our room with nice decoration from bathroom towels. We loved every minute on this ship and will be back.

Wonderful, Fantastic, 10-Stars, everytime again, very happy.

Pros: Our stay at the M/S Esmeralda Nile Cruise was a wonderful experience. We enjoyed it very much! It was so much better than our expectations. The Service was fantastic. The Crew welcomed us like good friends and where very helpful and kind. They also called us before the ship moved on to the next location, to get sure that we are on board. Breakfast, Lunch, Afternoon Tea/Coffee and Dinner was great, very good locale and international cuisine. The Chefs did a excellent job and more. There was also a opportunity to get a breakfast on a nice little Feluka on the Nile organized by the ship management for us :) At the last day we did a magical Candlelight dinner in front of the Karnak temple in Luxor. We are very happy to got this memorable experience. Thank you very much! :)

Luxus in ungezwungener bequemer Atmosphäre

Pros: Die Atmosphäre und der Service war erstklassig. Die Zimmer sind wie abgebildet sehr groß. 37 qm. Die Betten sehr bequem. Der Sanitärbereich sehr sauber und Top. Unter den vielen Nilkreuzfahrtschiffen ist hier das Preis Leistungsverhältnis sicher nicht zu toppen. Der Kapitän hat uns ein Abenddinner am Pool extra organisiert. Die Minibar wird täglich kostenlos gefüllt (incl. Bier und westlicher Softdrinks). Das Frühstück, das Mittagessen und das Abendessen waren sehr gut und abwechslungsreich. Es gab jeden Abend ein anderes Thema. Wir hatten zuerst das Schiff über booking.com gebucht und dann zusätzlich die Ausflüge vor Ort. Vielen Dank hier speziell an Mohamed unseren Reiseführer und die Bedienung Mahmoud Younis und F&B. Ahmed. Wer dieses Schiff bucht, wird sicher nicht enttäuscht!!!

COMPLETAMENTE RECOMENDABLE

Pros: El servicio por parte del equipo ha sido excepcional. Supero nuestras expectativas ya que desafortunadamente teníamos miedo por tanta reseñas de otros cruceros en diferentes sitios de internet , me tomo el tiempo por la misma situación. Reservamos 4 dias y 3 noches desde Aswan un dia antes indicaron el muelle . Los paseos los hemos ido reservándoosla a lo largo de los dias para evitar madurar todos los dias con los paquetes todo incluido . El Chef , los meseros , los camareros de piso y front des han sido atentos en todo momento . La comida es buena y variada. Habitaciones limpias y cómodas. Baño de buen tamaño . Muchas atenciones por parte de staff con nosotros . Gracias Equipo MS Esmeralda . David e Isabel .

Preço bom e qualidade.

Pros: Da atenção do gerente. do interesse em servir bem e deixar o cliente satisfeito, da surpresa no final oferecendo um jantar maravilhoso a luz das velas, da qualidade e quantidade de comida oferecida, da localização onde atracava, da gentileza da equipe toda

Cons: Todos esperam gorgetas. Haja dinheiro.........É gorjeta quando pegam as malas, quando entregam as malas fora do barco, Melhor comprar pacote que inclua gorjeta