R. Doug Wicker — Author

Ursula and I left Cairo behind and flew south, reaching our next destination on this months-long trip, Aswan, on Wednesday, 26 February of this year. Here we were greeted by a driver from Luxor and Asway Travel, which would be supplying us the best guide we’ve ever encountered in all our travels. Not only would this guide, Mohamad Salah, meet us on our boat, he would sail with us in his own cabin and arrange travel and tours for us the entire cruise beginning with the day before we set sail.

Now let me describe our boat. For this journey we were traveling with Jaz Cruises aboard their Jaz Celebrity. Although our River Nile cruise would not leave until the next day, we boarded on the 26th and overnighted in Aswan, which saves hotel and dining expenses for one night. Nothing wrong with that scenario.

I’ll show your our room and a couple of other places aboard Celebrity on Wednesday, and boat-board dining options on Friday, but today is mostly concentrated upon comon areas starting with the atrium. This is the impressive view greeting you upon boarding:

This view is of the atrium opening from an intermediate deck:

The Jaz Celebrity game room contains a pool table:

Pool not your thing? How about a library and some chess?

Or perhaps you would prefer a bit of shopping:

Yes, these boats do have lounges with fully equipped bars:

And the seating is quite nice:

But let’s face it. We’re here for the view, and views are in abundance up on the top deck. And feluccas are everywhere:

More views of the Jaz Celebrity on Wednesday, with an emphasis on our accommodations.

Слава Україні! (Slava Ukraini!)