MS Nile Festival Review

Good Points
There are excellent facilities throughout the boat. The rooms are cleaned twice a day ensuring you always have plenty of clean towels and toilet roll if required!!!!

Bad Points
The dining room doesn't really cater for the British palate, there were many Italian and Spanish on the boat and it appeared the catering was aimed to please them, but if you fancy going on a diet whilst on holiday or you're a rabbit then this could be considered a good point.

General Comments
Ship:

At the time of writing, the boat was only two and half years old, the general condition was good and well up to the standard expected of it's 5 star rating. It appears there is a lack of a maintenance on some of the other boats you see, which gives the apperance of them being slightly tired.

Rooms:

Clean and tidy at all times, don't worry, you won't get a port hole to peer out of. All rooms have a full size sliding door, so if it gets too hot up on the sun deck then you won't miss much sat in your room with the door open.

All rooms had a small LCD telly (prog's aimed at Spanish and Italians, there is CNN), fridge, safe and plenty of storage space for the 2 average travellers. The beds are x2singles pushed together (firm). There is also a small table and chairs in each room.

En-suite:

A decent size with a shower that has jets that manage to clear out the bits an average shower could not reach.

Excursions:

Easy to summarise this one - unbelievable and if you our guide then you are made, he is wealth of information, spoke excellent English, understands our humour and goes above and beyond to make your holiday that little bit special (even the locals refer to him as no 1 guide).

Must do's:

Abu Simbel, we took our guides advice and went by road, it's about 3 hours each way but when you consider the time you would spend waiting in an airport it works out roughly the same but it's have the price by road and you get to see so much more by road (the incredible mirage) and the timings are more flexible.

Balloon ride, we went with Hod Hod, it cost £135 for two of us, I have seen reviews saying that people had got it cheaper with other providers, all I can tell you is that three Hod Hod ballons were up a lot longer than any of the other providers, we were airbourne for just under an hour, we saw others up for only 25-30mins, plus Hod Hod gives you a T shirt, certificate and everyone has dance and song after the landing.

If you go with Libra and you the bird spotting boat trip, take it, it costs around GB £10pp, you get picked-up next to your ship then travel up the Nile towards the Cataracts (rapids), you go to a crocodile farm and get to travel back in time when the boat zig-zags between the islands close to the Aswan damn, it's amazing and yes you do get to see different birds if you like that sort of thing!

Other Info:

Money - Take plenty of low denomination sterling, you can use it everywhere (local markets etc), it's better to pay for your extra excursions with GB £ rather than credit cards, the exchange rate fluctuates and it's obviously never in your favour.

Drinks/food - Buy your water off the ship, it will cost you about £1.50 for a lge bottle on the ship, but if you get it from the local shop it's around 50p, it might not seem a great saving but over the week and the amount you will consume, it's well worth stocking up when you get there for the first leg of your journey, there's plenty of shops en-route to top-up as you go down the Nile.

We found it was handy to take a few nibles with you to have in your room, the mini-bar has no stickies/nibles but has plenty of room to store your own.

Summary: All in all an excellent holiday, it's full-on with the excursions etc but you do get plenty of time to relax when the ship is moving between sites.