Luxury Egypt With Children: How to Plan a Family Trip

Yes, Egypt suits children when the family trip is shaped around them. Keep touring days short with a private guide, choose a hotel with a pool, such as the Marriott Mena House at Giza or the Sonesta St. George Hotel Luxor, and pick a Nile ship with a pool on deck. Ending with free days on the Red Sea gives everyone time to rest.

Is Egypt a good trip for children?

It can be, when the plan follows their pace. The sites are the ones children read about: the pyramids at Giza, the royal tombs in Luxor and the Grand Egyptian Museum, where the complete Tutankhamun collection, more than 5,000 objects, is displayed together for the first time since the tomb's discovery in 1922. What tires children is usually the schedule rather than the sites: early starts, long transfers and the midday heat.

A private trip lets you change the schedule. On land, the guide, the vehicle and the driver are for your family alone, so a visit can end when the youngest has had enough. On a Nile cruise ship the ship is shared with other guests, while the guided visits ashore are private where the journey lists private guided sightseeing.

Shorter touring days

• Fly between Cairo and the south. A scheduled flight from Cairo to Luxor takes about an hour, and Cairo to Aswan about 1 hour 20 to 1 hour 25 minutes. The overnight sleeper train from Giza to Luxor is timetabled at 9 hours 25 minutes to 10 hours 10 minutes. Domestic flights are not included in any journey; they are booked and paid separately.
• Unpack once. On a cruise the cabin stays the same while the ship moves between temples: 4 nights in one cabin on the Classic Egypt and Nile Cruise journey.
• Keep afternoons free. Ask for touring in the morning and the afternoon at the pool or on deck. Every journey's length, hotels and pace can be adjusted before you confirm, subject to availability.
• Build in days with no touring. Egypt, the Nile and the Red Sea, 11 Days follows the temples with two free days at a Hurghada beach resort.

Hotels with a pool

After a morning at the temples, a pool gives children an afternoon of their own. The table lists the hotels the journeys propose in Cairo, Luxor and Aswan, and what each hotel's own published facts say about its pools.

Only the Sonesta St. George Hotel Luxor describes a separate children's section. This page does not promise a kids' club or babysitting at any hotel: if you need either, say so in your request and ask for it in writing. The hotels themselves are compared for Cairo and Giza and for Luxor and Aswan.

A Nile ship or a dahabiya with children?

A cruise ship is often the simpler choice with children, mainly because of the pool and the space on deck. On the site's journeys, The Oberoi Philae sails the 4-night cruises and The Oberoi Zahra the 3-night Aswan to Luxor cruises, with Sonesta St. George I as an alternative. Both Oberoi ships have an 11-meter temperature-controlled pool on the upper deck, and Sonesta St. George I has an oversize pool with a shallow-water extension. The Oberoi Zahra also has a Luxury Suite with Two Bedrooms of 92 square meters that sleeps 4.

A dahabiya is a sailing boat with between four and 10 cabins, so the deck is shared with a few other guests, or with no one else if your group charters the whole boat, which is possible where a vessel is free for your dates. The Nour El Nil boats have 10 rooms and suites each and sail from Esna to Aswan over 5 nights, with time for a swim from a Nile island. Minimum ages for children on board are not covered by the sources behind this page, so ask the boat before you choose.

The full comparison is in dahabiya or Nile cruise ship.

Ticket and age rules at the sites

Entrance fees for every site named in the itinerary are included in the journeys. A few rules still matter for children:

• Free entry under six. The Grand Egyptian Museum admits children under six free every day of the week, and the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities museum pages list free entry for children under six.
• Students. A student ticket needs a valid student ID, and the student's age must not exceed 24.
• Inside the Great Pyramid. The Giza Plateau ticket does not cover going inside the Great Pyramid, which needs a separate ticket. Say in advance if a child wants to go in.
• Hot-air balloon in Luxor. Balloon operators in Luxor set a minimum age of six, with the child accompanied by an adult; this is the operators' policy. The balloon is an optional tour that the Classic Egypt and Nile Cruise journey lists as not included. The UK Foreign Office advice, updated 4 August 2026, notes that some UK tour operators have stopped selling balloon flights; read it on gov.uk.

For safety more generally, read what the official advice says, and check your own government's current advice before you book.

When to go with children

Heat shapes a family trip more than anything else. These are average daily highs:

For a family the cooler months are the easier ones. Christmas and New Year drive higher hotel and Nile-cruise occupancy in Luxor and Aswan, so a school-holiday trip at that time is worth requesting early. The month-by-month detail is in when to visit Egypt for a luxury trip.

Which journeys fit a family

On the 11-day journey the Red Sea nights are at The Oberoi Beach Resort, Sahl Hasheesh, on an all-inclusive plan, which gives children time to rest after the temples.

What is included, and how to ask

The journeys include meet and assist at the airport, private transfers, private guided sightseeing with a guide speaking English, Portuguese, German or Spanish, and entrance fees for the sites named in the itinerary. Domestic flights and tips are not included in any journey.

When you send a request, give the children's ages, your dates and the number of nights. The written proposal names the route, the hotels and room types and any Nile vessel; nothing is booked until you accept it and it is confirmed in writing.