The Nile Ruby by Kayley



Mia and I on the sun deck on the Nile Ruby.

            My family and I stayed on a cruise ship to see the sights from Aswan to Luxor for three nights and four days. The cruise ship was called the Nile Ruby and it was awesome because it served good meals, the rooms and facilities were clean and comfortable, and the sightseeing tours were well planned. I really liked the meals and the bed and the sightseeing was not as stressful as usual because all was planned for us.

            The cruise ship had a buffet for meals and the meals were free but the drinks weren’t.   We weren’t allowed to bring drinks into the eating area. We learned that on the first night when Sarah brought a Fanta into the eating area and the waiter guy told her not to bring drinks to the area and put it under the table. For the first dinner there was fish, rice, watery lentil soup, and cooked veggies. Mommy and Mia said that the fish melts in your mouth, but I didn’t get around to trying the fish because I was too busy with desert. The meals got better later in the cruise like the second to last lunch was really good. There was stuffed chicken and pasta with tomato sauce and a zucchini casserole. My favorites were the pasta and the casserole. The deserts were all really good, or at least the ones that I tried. The jello was really refreshing because there wasn’t much flavor but they were cold. Also, there always were strawberries. Sometimes the strawberries were bruised, but over all they were good.

            The rooms that we slept in were very clean and the beds were comfortable. Each bed room had a double bed and a twin bed. Mommy and daddy bought two rooms.  Sarah slept in mommy and daddy’s room, and Mia Zander and I shared a room.   The bathrooms in both rooms were kind of small, but the shower was nice.  On the top deck of the boat, there was a small swimming pool with a wading pool attached. Also on the deck there were a lot of deck chairs and an eating area.  I think the cruise ship was a really nice boat.

Kids by the top of the obelisk at Karnak Temple.

            Every day we went sightseeing.  Some of the time, the boat had planned a driver and a guide, but sometimes we were on our own. The sightseeing always started at 8:30 am and sometimes ended after lunch or before. And sometimes we had to have a late lunch.  Before we went on the tour boat, we saw Abu Simbel, the dam, and the Edfu temple. I already did a blog on the Abu Simbel, so you know how that went.  We didn’t go inside the Edfu temple because we didn’t think we had enough time so we ended up waiting for an hour extra because we had to wait for the other people. Mommy freaked out about having to wait and started honking the horn until the driver took us to the hotel. The Aswan High Dam wasn’t really interesting but really expensive. The dam sloped down to the water on both sides and was made out of concrete. Also there was a road on the dam and in the median, there were some information signs and one showed a diagram of what the dam was made out of. The dam turned out to be made out of a bunch of different types and sizes of dirt and rock.  I think there was some clay in the middle. The longest day of touring was the last day and that was in Luxor. In Luxor we saw the Valley of the Kings, Karnack temple, Luxor temple and family factory for alabaster.  The tour of the alabaster factory was kind of like the carpet weavers in India because the guide told us how alabaster is carved into pots, bowls, and little figures.  He also told us the difference between the handmade products vs. the machine made products.  The machine made products were much thicker, heavier and shinier.  The hand carved products could be used as light shades, they were so thin.    All the activities the cruise ship planned for us were interesting and very educational.      

            Overall, the cruise ship was an awesome experience.  The meals were pretty good, the rooms were clean and comfortable, and the sightseeing activities were eventful in their own special ways.  My favorite part of the cruise experience was either the meals or the Karnak temple because the meals were yummy and the Karnak had some really cool architecture and art.