Our felucca trip was wonderful! We can thoroughly recommend our boatman, Osama, and crew, for future groups. Osama unexpectedly spoke terrific English, and his crew a smattering. It would have been an entirely different experience if we had not been able to chat with Osama, particularly as we were not with other travellers. He could not do enough for us, and went to ENORMOUS lengths for a member of my party’s 60th birthday, decorating the felucca with balloons, buying beer for us, cooking a special meal and somehow tracking down a birthday cake. And what a cake - a confection of fruit, chocolate, cream, sponge, candles, sparklers and jelly!!
We drove to the Valley of the Queens to visit Hatshepsuts mortuary temple. Even though it was only about 0830 in the morning it was already incredibly hot. We had a briefing from Mohammed and then chose to explore on our own, meeting him afterwards for a quick coffee. ( the benefits of 'Tailormade'!). We then moved on to 2 of the Tombs of the Nobles, afterwards we went on to Karnak Temple, where there were very few tourists. The Hypostyle Hall was deserted and we felt like extras in Agatha Christie's 'Death on the Nile' - it was so atmospheric! We got to Luxor Temple in time for sunset, and got some great night-time photos.
We were provided with blankets, not sleeping bags so were very pleased we had taken our own sheet sleeping-bags; we have silk ones which take up very little space and keep the mosquitoes off if its too warm for blankets or sleeping bags. The other things we would recommend would be earplugs and airline-style eyemask for sleeping, deet (though we had hardly any mosquitoes), tissues and hand-gel. It might also be worth mentioning how much people are likely to spend in tips, it was by far our biggest expense.
What else can I say? We feel your itinerary packed a lot in compared to published tours; thank you for making the most of our time!