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 It is said that Cleopatra could speak seven languages and had exquisite taste. Egypt’s ancient wise monarch would certainly approve of Zoom luxury gay trip to Egypt, fit for a queen. Zoom Alumni have been asking us to design another trip to Egypt, and our overseas partners have assured us that there has never been a better time to go. Crowds are at a minimum, and visitors are eagerly welcomed with open arms. We are pleased to announce our Egyptian vacation, available for a maximum of 12 guests.
This intriguing country of gods and goddesses, pharaohs and fantasies will inspire and surprise you as it has done so to its travelers for centuries. But Egypt is so much more than mythology and magic, and offers more to see and do than ruins and camel rides. Zoom luxury gay trip to Egypt brings out the rich history, culture and cuisine in addition to the things every visitor to the country must experience.
At times you will feel like a pharaoh, while at other times you will see the authentic Egypt of today, and what it means to live in this fascinating country.
However, your highlight will likely be our 4 night Nile River all-gay cruise aboard the Sanctuary Zein Nile Chateau, perhaps the most elegant yacht on the Nile, privately chartered for our group.
Day 1
Upon arrival in Cairo airport (CAI), where your Tour Coordinator will meet you before immigration and transfer you to your hotel.
Welcome cocktail:
Today we gather at the Hotel for welcome reception, hot and cold canapés will be served.
Welcome dinner:
Welcome dinner at the Hotel.
Meals Included: Welcome Dinner & Cocktails
Accommodation: Four Seasons Hotel Cairo at The First Residence, Cairo, 5*
Day 2
Breakfast, included at our hotel.
Egyptian Museum:
You’ll tour 7,000 years of history at this museum which houses the largest collection of ancient Egyptian art in the world. Don’t miss the treasures of the boy-king Tutankhamun, including his gold mask, the solid gold sarcophagus that held his mummy, and his beautiful throne.
Khan El Khalili:
The fascinating Khan El-Khalili Bazaar is reputed to be the largest bazaar in the Middle East. Originally founded as a watering stop for caravanserai in the 14th century, the bazaar has now grown to vast proportions. As one wanders through the labyrinth of narrow streets you will find workshops and stalls selling all manner of things from woodwork, glassware and leather goods to perfumes, fabrics and Pharaonic curiosities.
Lunch at Naguib Mahfouz restaurant:
Located in the heart of the Khan El Khalili Bazaar, this restaurant is named after Egypt’s Nobel Prize-winning novelist, and it’s a convenient, air-conditioned place to take a break from shopping. The coffee shop at the entrance offers drinks, snacks and shisha (water pipes), while the restaurant section offers a selection of chicken, meats and mouth-watering Middle Eastern mezzas. No alcohol is served.
Citadel:
Perched high on limestone hills above Cairo, the Citadel is a medieval fortress built by Salah El Din (Saladin) in 1176 to protect the city from Crusaders. The Citadel has always had a military use, and was expanded over the centuries by Egypt’s rulers who often resided there. Today, the Citadel complex has mosques and museums, including the National Military Museum.
Mosque of Sultan Hassan:
With its grand, soaring architecture and rich decoration, the Mosque of Sultan Hassan, completed in 1363, is one of the finest in Egypt. In recesses around its open courtyard, each of the four schools of Sunni Islam was taught to students, and in its mausoleum, Sultan Hassan’s sons are buried.
Refaie Mosque: Next to the Mosque of Sultan Hassan, you’ll view the much newer Refaie Mosque, completed in 1912 with well-preserved, colorful decoration. Buried in tombs here are a Muslim saint, a companion of the Prophet Mohamed, Egypt’s last royal family and the last Shah of Iran.
Meals Included: Breakfast & Lunch
Accommodation: Four Seasons Hotel Cairo at The First Residence, Cairo, 5*
Day 3
Breakfast, included at our hotel.
Your Tour Coordinator will escort you to Cairo International Airport by air-conditioned Vehicle to board your flight to Aswan.
Note: Zoom will coordinate this flight and will advise the price at the time of flight purchase.
Arrival:
At Aswan Airport where your Tour Coordinator will meet you and take you to our beautiful hotel, the Hotel Sofitel Legend Old Cataract Aswan.
Afternoon at leisure to enjoy the hotel and the markets of Aswan.
Meals Included: Breakfast
Accommodation: Sofitel Legend Old Cataract Aswan Hotel, Aswan, 5*
Day 4
Breakfast, included at our hotel.
Optional Abu Simbel Excursion
Enjoy a half-day tour to the Temple at Abu Simbel. Built by the Great Ramses II, Egypt’s longest ruling pharaoh, it is one of the most recognizable images in the country. Actually two temples, namely the Great Temple of Ra-Harakhte, fronted by the four colossal statues of Ramses II and the Temple of Hathor, dedicated to Ramses’ favorite wife Queen Nefertari, they were moved by the United Nations to their current location when the creation of Lake Nasser threatened their existence.
Transfer:
Transfer by air-conditioned vehicle to Sanctuary Zein Nile Chateau, our privately chartered historic yacht.
Check-in on board the Sanctuary Zein Nile Chateau followed by lunch on board.
Today we will see the following sites:
1. Philae Temple
According to the Ancient Egyptians, the goddess Isis traveled all over Egypt gathering her husband Osiris’s remains after he was cut to pieces by his evil brother. On Philae Island, where she found his heart, the Egyptians built a sacred temple to Isis, goddess of purity, sexuality, nature and protection. During the building of the High Dam, Philae Island was submerged by water, so UNESCO helped transport the temple complex to nearby Agilika Island, where you see it today.
2. Unfinished Obelisk
Visit this massive obelisk, which was abandoned in Aswan’s Northern Quarry when a crack was found as it was being carved from the red granite. Tools left behind show how builders accomplished such great work.
Sail to Kom Ombo
Afternoon visit to Kom Ombo Temple
In this Ptolemaic temple shared by two gods, Sobek and Horus the Elder, everything is duplicated symmetrically, with double hallways, doors and chambers.
Afternoon tea and dinner on board.
Overnight in Kom Ombo.
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Accommodation: Sanctuary Zein Nile Chateau, Nile River, 5*
Day 5
Breakfast onboard
Breakfast on board while sailing to Temple of Horus and then on to Edfu.
Edfu temple
Afternoon visit to Edfu temple. Explore the largest and most completely preserved Pharaonic – albeit Greek-built – temple in Egypt, the extraordinary Temple of Horus at Edfu.
Afternoon tea and dinner on board.
Overnight in Esna.
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Accommodation: Sanctuary Zein Nile Chateau, Nile River, 5*
Day 6
Breakfast onboard.
Morning visit to Esna Temple
Visit the Greco-Roman Temple of Khnum at Esna. The beautifully preserved Great Hypostyle Hall was built during the reign of the Roman Emperor Claudius; it was excavated from the silt that had accumulated through centuries of annual Nile floods and is about nine meters below present-day street level.
Lunch on board while sailing to Luxor
Afternoon visit to Luxor Temple
Visit the strikingly graceful Temple of Luxor dedicated to the god Amun. Proceed to the Temple of Luxor, once connected to Karnak via the Avenue of Sphinxes, almost 3 kilometers in length. Built by Amenhotep III in 1380 BC, the site was added to by later pharaohs. The temple enjoyed many celebrations, the most important being the Festival of Opet which lasted almost a month.
Dinner on board
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Accommodation: Sanctuary Zein Nile Chateau, Nile River, 5*
Day 7
Breakfast on board.
Optional Hot Air Balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings.
Morning visit to the Valley of the Kings
Explore the Valley of the Kings, a vast City of the Dead where magnificent tombs were carved into the desert rocks, decorated richly, and filled with treasures for the afterlife by generations of Pharaohs.
Visit to the West Bank, with a choice of three from the below:
1. Valley of the Queens
There are between 75 and 80 tombs in the Valley of the Queens, or Biban al-Harim. These belong to Queens of the 18th, 19th and 20th Dynasties. It is called “Place of Beauty” by the Egyptians, where the pharaohs’ wives and children were buried.
2. Hatshepsut Temple
Rising out of the desert plain in a series of terraces, the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut (Ancient Egypt’s only female Pharaoh) merges with the sheer limestone cliffs that surround it, as if nature herself had built this extraordinary monument.
3. Valley of Workers (Deir El Medina)
Visit the remains of the self-contained village on the West Bank where the workmen who built the kings’ and queens’ tombs lived in mud brick houses with their families. The site gives archeologists a view of how urban people lived in ancient Egypt. You can also visit the tombs that the workmen created for themselves, to admire the art in ordinary people’s tombs. Nearby is the Temple of Deir El Medina, from Ptolemaic times.
4. Tombs of the Nobles
On the West Bank sit 400 tombs of Theban aristocrats, some of which you can enter. The tomb walls were white-washed and painted with murals of the nobles’ daily lives, making them quite different from royal tombs, where relief work focused on judgment and resurrection. Since the tombs were not sealed, some have deteriorated.
5. Medinet Habu
The magnificent Medinet Habu is a series of temples built by the Pharaoh Ramses III (1182-1151 BC) and second only to Karnak Temple in size and complexity. The most impressive is the Mortuary Temple of Ramses III, decorated with relief work depicting his many military victories. With its massive mud brick enclosure that held storehouses, workshops, administrative offices, and residences of priests and officials, Medinet Habu grew into a city that maintained its population well into Coptic times.
6. Ramesseum Temple
The Ramesseum, the Mortuary Temple of Ramses II, was built early in the great pharaoh’s reign and was 20 years in the making. Here you’ll see the broken, awesome Colossus of Ramses II, a 1000 ton statue in which the fingers alone are over 1 meter long; it inspired the famous poem “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley. This great temple reportedly rivaled the wonders of Ramses II’s temple at Abu Simbel.
Afternoon visit to the Karnak Temple
Visit the Temple of Karnak, built over more than a thousand years by generations of Pharaohs. The great Hypostyle Hall is an incredible forest of giant pillars, covering an area larger than the whole of Notre Dame Cathedral.
Afternoon tea and dinner on board.
Overnight in Luxor.
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Accommodation: Sanctuary Zein Nile Chateau, Nile River, 5*
Day 8
Breakfast buffet on board and check out at 8:00 AM.
Transfer by air-conditioned vehicle to Luxor Airport to board your flight to Cairo.
Arrival:
At Cairo International Airport, and proceed to the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), for lunch, followed by an escorted tour.
The Grand Egyptian Museum’s (GEM) Main Galleries take guests on an extraordinary journey through millennia of history, spanning from prehistoric times (700,000 BC) to the Roman era (circa 394 AD). Visitors will encounter a rich array of artifacts, presented within three interconnected themes—Kingship, Society, and Beliefs—revealing how these elements shaped the dynamic relationship between ancient Egyptian kings, their subjects, and the gods.
After lunch, we proceed to our hotel in Giza.
Evening at Leisure.
Meals Included: Breakfast & Lunch
Accommodation: Marriott Mena House Hotel, Cairo, 5*
Day 9
Breakfast, included at our hotel.
Sakkara:
Sakkara was the necropolis (cemetery) for the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis and the place where the very first pyramids were built as tombs for kings, not with smooth sides, but with six steps on the outside representing the pharaoh’s stepladder to heaven. Here you’ll see the famous Step Pyramid of King Zoser, the first pyramid ever built and the world’s oldest freestanding stone structure. You will also admire the beautiful tomb art at Sakkara, which gives great insight into the lives of the ancient Egyptians.
Lunch overlooking the Great Pyramids of Egypt.
Pyramids and Sphinx:
The Great Pyramids of Giza are the only present-day survivors of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, built about 4500 years ago as giant tombs for the mummies of the pharaohs Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, who were a father, son and grandson. (Cheops, Chephren and Mycerinus are the Greek forms of their names.) In the ancient Egyptian religion, the sides of the pyramids were likened to sun rays on which the Pharaoh ascended to heaven. The pyramids are truly monumental in scale, with the largest, Khufu’s, made of over 2 million blocks. The pyramids were not built by slaves but by Egyptian peasants who paid their taxes to the Pharaoh through this labor, and were fed, clothed and housed by him.
Nearby sits the enigmatic Sphinx with the body of a lion and the face of a man wearing a royal head cloth, which workers may have based on King Khafre to guard his enormous funerary monument. About a thousand years after the Sphinx was built it was covered in sand until a young prince had a dream in which the Sphinx told him that if he cleared the sand away, he would become Pharaoh. This story is told on the “Dream Stela” that was placed between the Sphinx’s paws by King Tuthmose IV.
Until next time dinner.
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Accommodation: Marriott Mena House Hotel, Cairo, 5*
Day 10
Breakfast, included at our hotel.
Transfer:
Your Tour Coordinator will escort you to Cairo International Airport by air-conditioned Vehicle.
End of services
Meals Included: Breakfast
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• Fully escorted with the services of a Zoom Concierge throughout the trip
• Accommodations at the elegant Four Seasons First Residence and the stylish Mena House Hotel and Resort, with breathtaking views of the Pyramids
• An unforgettable tour of the Great Pyramids of Giza
• Visit the newly opened Grand Egyptian Museum
• Enter the temple of the mysterious Sphinx, an ancient figure shrouded in legend and mystery
• Our exciting tour to the necropolis of Sakkara, within the ancient city of Memphis
• A unique welcome sunset cocktail reception
• Breakfast daily
• Visit to the famed Egyptian Antiquities Museum
• Fascinating tour of Medieval Cairo
• Visit the Khan El-Khalilli Bazaar – reputed to be the largest bazaar in the Middle East
• Surprise farewell Event
• All land and Zoom event transfers
• Services of a Zoom Concierge throughout the trip
• Accommodations at Sanctuary Zein Nile Chateau
• See the very best of Upper Egypt while cruising in uncompromising luxury
• Daily excursions
• All gourmet Meals Included
• Daily afternoon tea
• Daily well-rounded, personalized conversations with our personable and candid Egyptologist guide
• Motorboat ride to visit the romantic and majestic Philae Temple on the Island of Agilka
• Visit the Temple of Kom Ombo, dedicated to the crocodile-god Sobek
• Egyptian cooking lesson
• Visit the Temple of Horus at Edfu, the largest in Egypt!
• Visit to the Valley of the Kings
• Visit the Colossi of Memnon, two massive stone statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III
• Visit to Luxor
• Sunset visit to the temple of Karnak, an incredible forest of giant pillars
• All airport transfers
Four Seasons Hotel Cairo at The First Residence, Cairo, 5*
Enjoying impressive views of Cairo’s skyline and the Pyramids, The Four Seasons Hotel in Cairo’s Gizah district features a full-service spa and outdoor pool. The Nile River is just 100 metres away.
All rooms at The First Residence Cairo feature stylish colonial décor and panoramic city or Nile views. They are equipped with a flat-screen TV, a BOSE entertainment system and a DVD player.
Facilities include a top-floor spa offering a wide range of health and beauty treatments. It also features a sauna, hot tub and fitness centre. Guests can also try their luck at the on-site casino.
Light refreshments are offered at the Tea Lounge. Guests can feast on traditional Syrian/Lebanese cuisine that is served pool side in Aura. There is also La Gourmandise which is a trendy brasserie eatery located in the heart of The First Mall.
Sofitel Legend Old Cataract Aswan Hotel, Aswan, 5*
Located in the Nubian Desert on the banks of the Nile, opposite Elephantine Island, Sofitel Legend Old Cataract offers elegant rooms and suites. It features outdoor and indoor pools.
This Victorian building with the pink granite facade has modern rooms with private bathrooms. Each of the air-conditioned rooms is decorated with wooden furniture.
Sofitel Legend Old Cataract has 4 restaurants serving international and oriental dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The Oriental Kebabgy Restaurant has a terrace with panoramic views over Nile. The hotel’s 4 bars offer refreshing drinks. The Promenade has views over Elephantine Islands, while The Bar is an evening piano lounge in a classic oriental setting.
Guests can visit the hotel’s spa and relax in the sauna, the hammam, or the hot tub. They can also use the fitness centre or enjoy massage treatments.
Marriott Mena House Hotel, Cairo, 5*
Nestled near the Grand Egyptian Museum and overlooking the Great Pyramids of Giza, Marriott Mena House, Cairo is surrounded by 40 acres of lush gardens. The hotel features a spa, fitness center, and a pool. The rooms are adorned with handcrafted furniture.
All accommodations at Marriott Mena House, Cairo have air conditioning and include luxurious fabrics, a seating area and LCD TV. Each room and suite has a spacious private bathroom with a bathrobe and slippers.
Breakfast is available in the dining room facing the garden. Dining choices range from Italian specialties at Alfredo Restaurant, while Daily Buffet Breakfast and unforgettable vistas with its cocktails served at 139 Pavilion.
Recreational Facilities include a winter heated swimming pool tucked away in the landscape gardens. The Giza Pyramids are less than half a kilometer from the Marriott Mena House. The concierge can arrange horse and camel rides to the pyramids.
Glamorous, intimate and quintessentially Egyptian, Zein Nile Chateau was the first dahabiya of its kind, a loving recreation of its 19th-century predecessors, and one of the most charming sights on the river today – wood-clad, slender and low, with billowing sails fore and aft, and an ever-graceful air.
With capacity for just 12 guests, it is available exclusively for private charter, its diminutive stature enabling it to dock where typical river cruisers can’t, for a truly bespoke adventure. This is what sailing on the Nile was always meant to be.
Dahabiyas have existed on the Nile, in one form or another, for thousands of years – and depictions have even been found in pharaohs’ tombs. Zein Nile Chateau was the first of its kind, crafted with dedication to capture the romance of vessels that would have sailed during the 19th-century heyday of Nile cruising. There are modern comforts, of course, and some contemporary interior styling, but as you cast off upriver or downriver past views that haven’t changed in hundreds of years, you will feel that Golden Age glamour.
Soak up some rays on the Arabian-themed sun deck, take a dip in the mosaic-tiled pool, savor award-winning cuisine in the opulent dining area, and sip on a cool cocktail as you bask in the beauty of the passing scenery. Retire for the evening and settle into one of six suites designed to root you in a chapter of Egypt’s past. The lounge is further enlivened, on occasion, by the presence of oud musicians, belly dancers and whirling dervishes.
A cruise aboard Zein Nile Chateau is effectively two adventures in one – one that takes place on and around the Nile, and another that takes place three times a day (four, if you count afternoon tea) in the riverboat’s elegant dining room.
The award-winning onboard chef delivers impeccable cuisine reflecting not only the unique flavors of the region (try the excellent kushari, a spicy mix of black lentils, rice and chickpeas with tomato and fried onion) but also the full diversity of the Middle East. A well-rounded complement of familiar international options is available, too, and there is a carefully curated selection of wines and spirits to provide just the right accompaniment to every dish, occasion or whim.
Air:
International and domestic airfare not included.
Note: there is a necessary domestic flight from Cairo to Aswan (not included in the price), that we will coordinate. Pricing varies, and we advise of the price at time of flight purchase.
Passports:
Your valid passport should have at least two blank visa pages and should be valid for at least six months after your planned departure from the country you are visiting.
Note: Passport pages titled “Endorsement Pages” are not visa pages.
Visas:
Most travellers require a visa to enter Egypt. Please visit the Arab Republic of Egypt’s website here for more information on how to obtain a single-entry 30-day visa.
While we will assist when possible, please note that passport, visa, and vaccination requirements vary from country to country and are the sole responsibility of the traveler.
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