A Traveler's Photo Journal

Viking Cruises did charter a flight for the cruise passengers, including us, out of Cairo. We ended up in Frankfurt, traveling there on a charter service out of Copenhagen.

Upon arrival in Frankfurt we were taken to a hotel and given dinner. Viking was trying to take care of its passengers, but we were still somewhat left hanging. We were told we had one night paid hotel in Frankfurt.

Again, due to booking our own flights, Viking did not provide any help in changing our British Airways bookings. But by relocating to Frankfurt, we had a new problem. If we did not board our Cairo to London flight on Saturday March 7th, our entire return would be cancelled. British Airways would not budge on this, and we got quotes of $6000 to rebook a flight home.

I’ve run into this before. It probably would have been better for us to ditch Viking and keep our return BA flight out of Cairo. Heaven forbid you “break the chain” of your original flight, even if a war is started. Another several hours were spent on the phone and e-mail with our travel agent, and finally, without any help from Viking, we were rebooked out of Frankfurt.

I am writing this at DFW in Dallas, on our way home.

What we learned; to be “taken care of” you have to let Viking book your flight.

We believe Viking overreacted, due to its demographic. We heard from a guide that other tours of the Nile were going ahead, and had not been cancelled. Egypt is still a Level 2 as far as the State Department is concerned.

We are here in Cairo as guests of Viking Cruises. Tuesday evening at 7 pm our Viking guides announced the cancellation of the planned Nile River cruise to begin the following day, March 4.

The Viking staff told us that it was not Viking or Egypt that cancelled, but that they were following the US State Department recommendations.

Viking initially gave us all one extra night paid at the hotel. If your flights were scheduled by Viking, they would find you a flight home. If, like us, you had booked your own flight, then you had to arrange for your own travel out of Egypt.

Needless to say, it was a scramble at that point. We spent several hours attempting to reschedule our British Airways original flight which had us departing Cairo on March 12th. We eventually were able to find seats on a Cairo to London BA flight this upcoming Saturday, March 7.

We had to pay a change fee, as well as for two more nights at our Cairo hotel. We also completed the UK ETA for entry into the UK Saturday evening and made a hotel reservation in London.

There was quite a bit of confusion and frustration due to the official US State Department Egypt travel advisories.

The Level 2 advisory for Egypt has not changed since July 2025. Neither my sister or I follow X, or Facebook, where the Trump administration likes to post their “official” government announcements.

We have found the people of Egypt to be very friendly. No one here is panicking. Tourists from some other nations are not evacuating. We booked a day trip to Alexandria for Friday and had accepted our situation and expected to depart on Saturday, disappointed but resigned.

We made to most of our day yesterday, our logistics day, and enjoyed the hotel spa and pool.

Then we got a call from Viking asking us to attend an “urgent meeting” at 8 pm last night. At the meeting we were told Viking has chartered a flight to remove all guests. We will be flown to Frankfurt, Germany and will be “taken care of” by Viking staff and put up in a hotel in Frankfurt at no expense to us until they can find us a flight home. This applied to everyone, regardless of how your original flights were booked.

So Viking Cruises has stepped up to the level of their reputation. My sister specifically booked Viking for that purpose. Initially we had felt abandoned by Viking, but no, in the end they came through.

So we leave Cairo today on a chartered flight to Frankfurt.

We have never felt unsafe here. The people have been friendly and welcomed us warmly everywhere we went. Even in the crowded and high pressure sales marketplace, it was all with a smile. One shop owner asked me what I was looking for. I said “Nothing.” He laughed and responded with “We have nothing!”

Our second day in Cairo was spent on the Giza Plateau, 15 miles southwest of Cairo, and the site of the brand new Grand Egyptian Museum, the Great Pyramids of Giza, and the Great Sphinx.

The museum took decades of planning and construction, and over $1 billion. My favorite museums, up to this point, have been The Louvre and the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, and the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. But now I must place the GEM in the top four. It is truly spectacular.

Gem.eg

You haven’t even entered the museum yet as you make your way up the grand staircase. It was designed on a scale befitting the pharaohs. The gods and goddesses line the stairs and guide you to the top.

At the top of the staircase, once inside, you are greeted with spectacles ranging from antiquity to present day high technology. There are ancient carvings, perfume bottles, and a room that depicts hieroglyphics in motion.

One entire gallery is filled with the treasures removed from Tutankhamun’s tomb, discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter and his team. My sister and I had the privilege of viewing the traveling exhibit in Seattle in 1978. Now 48 years later we are able to experience even more of the treasures in their home country.

You could spend days in the museum. We had four hours. The building next door houses the oldest wooden ship, 4000 years old, which beats out the Viking boats and the Vasa for oldest ship.

After touring the GEM and enjoying a gelato in one of the restaurants on site, we drove the short distance to the Great Pyramids of Giza.

We did the tourist thing of a very short camel ride for a photo op. The camels seemed to be in good shape and it was fun.

We drove to the base of the pyramids and you get to wander around for about 30 minutes. We did not go inside.

It was a very short distance to the Great Sphinx, the body of a lion and the head of a man, which faces east. It is believed that the head is that of Pharaoh Khafre.

It was terribly crowded and there is really only one good viewing area. We fought our way through the crowd to get the picture, and then quickly retreated. It was a bit overwhelming and the end of the day. It looked like there was some ongoing construction, which is needed.

As we made our way back to the bus, we experienced the true Giza traffic jam.

It was on the bus headed back to our hotel when we first heard that our cruise was in jeopardy. We were told we would get more information later in the evening.

My sister and I have had our plans for a Nile River cruise in the works for several years. We postponed from March of last year due to the damage and clean up to my Florida home from Hurricane Helene on September 26th, 2024.

We rebooked for this March with high hopes. On Sunday we arrived in Cairo for three days of Cairo activities, followed by plans to board a Viking Nile River cruise starting March 4th.

Yesterday we were informed of Viking’s decision to cancel all Nile River cruises for the month of March due to Trump’s illegal war in Iran. We booked our flights separately, not through Viking, so they pretty much cut us loose here in Cairo. See you later, bye.

We have had, through Viking, two days of touring the main tourist sites of Cairo.

We started our first day’s tour with a drive through Cairo, from our hotel to the Sakkara Step Pyramid and the necropolis. Cairo and the surrounding area is home to 25 million people, and 12 million cars. These cars do not necessarily stay within the traffic lanes or abide by the traffic lights and laws. I would not recommend renting a car. We were escorted through Cairo in a Viking motor coach.

We toured the Tomb of Kagemni in Saqqara, the most well-preserved tomb in Saqqara, dating from Egypt’s Old Kingdom, c. 2345 BCE. The artwork is truly incredible. Our guide, an Egyptologist, explained the meaning of the animals and symbols carved in the stone.

Also at the Sakkara (Saqqara) site, we saw the Step Pyramid, the first and oldest pyramid.

We toured a carpet making school, gorgeous silk carpets (very expensive) and had lunch. There is no issue in finding vegetarian meals here with plenty of hummus, quinoa, lentils, falafel, etc.

After lunch we headed to the Citadel to tour the Mosque of Muhammad Ali.

Back at our hotel at 4 pm, we had a quick nap, still adjusting to the new time zone, and then set out for an evening tour of the Khan el-Khalili market and dinner. We are here during Ramadan, so things really ramp up after sunset.

We followed our guide through the Khan el-Khalili market, passing several mosques, through throngs of Ramadan celebrants, dodging dogs and cats and eventually to our dinner location, a rooftop restaurant at a boutique hotel.

We made our way back to the bus after dinner, stopping for a little shopping in the market. We saw many cats and dogs. Some of the cats were sleeping in the shops, and looked as though they were taken care of. Many looked a bit less cared for, and many looked pregnant. The most heartbreaking for me was a small kitten trying to cross the busy main market street. We also saw a lot of dogs, which mostly looked homeless, sleeping in all sorts of places, sometimes in packs, sometimes alone. During our trek back through the crowded streets we saw three dogs walking in the center of the street looking very casual and unconcerned.

Our talented driver maneuvered the large motor coach through the crowded narrow streets to deliver us back to our hotel safely. He got a round of applause.