One of the only practical ways to visit Egypt these days, outside of arriving by air, is on a cruise ship. Sure, there are land routes and other possibilities, but most of these for many visitors are not really much of an option. Many Mediterranean Cruises visit Egypt, though we can make a distinction to those that visit the country very casually, together with a number of other countries, as opposed to those that provide more in-depth tours. By casual, we mean cruises that stop in one or only a couple of Egyptian ports for usually very short durations of not more than a day or two, as opposed to those that include a more complete tour. For many of the casual tours, not much will be seen of Egypt's greatest wonders. At best, there might be some sort of day tour to Cairo where the Great Pyramids of Giza and the Egyptian Antiquities Museum is located, and at worst, they will perhaps include a tour of the port cities such as Alexandria or Port Said.

Even the most extensive (extended) cruises that include Egypt, for the most part, will fall short of more extensive land based tours. Some of the best ocean cruises we have found that visit Egypt may stop in Alexandria, Port Said, Sharm El-Sheikh and Safaga, and may stay more than one day in each area. Technically, these would allow for some fairly serious touring, and many do even have extensions that include tours in Cairo, Luxor and various other places, but none appear to be as extensive as most full two week land based tours.

The cruises vary from world tours, stopping off in Egypt but visiting many different ports, to cruises that are very specific to Egypt.

 

Of course, for those who might for one reason or another be opposed to flying these days, that may be unavoidable or impractical in order to reach the beginning point of most such cruises, but some do actually appear to originate in the US, and others can be driven to in Europe.

As can be seen, some of these cruises offer very casual tours to Egypt, meaning that they may only stop over in one single port, such as Alexandria. Our reference to Casual/Extended means that they may stop over at one port for several days, or several ports for one day. Extended generally means that the cruises stop in several ports for several days, allowing enough time to make somewhat extensive visits to a number of the most important sites in Egypt. Casual and Extended means that the cruise stops over long enough to visit a number of Egyptian antiquities, but the tours are apparently optional.

 

All of these tours will use Egyptian tour operators to conduct their ground operations if they do tours at all. Only licensed Egyptian guides can conduct a tour. Some, however, may have no tours at all. Even if the cruise does offer tours, some passengers may wish to arrange their own.

For example, rather than spending a day touring Alexandria, which might be offered by the cruise company, they may instead wish to visit Cairo.