Cruise On Nile

[getonwithit]

Am heading of for a weeks cruise down the Nile and we are very excited can anyone give tips on food on the boat I have read so many mixed reviews !
Obviously won't drink the water unless in sealed bottle but not sure about
Any salads , meat , fish and ice cream ?
Has anyone been ? Thanks

[boxtops]

Anyone I've known has been advised to steer well away of all raw salads, and icecream - anything that might be made/washed with local water, which will give you the trots. Only eat cooked stuff. Take some rehydration salts with you in your first aid bag, just in case....

[boxtops]

Plus ice of course, good point, yumm.

[Mosaic]

Unfortunately the Nile cruise boats are notorious for outbreaks of food poisoning, more so than land-based resorts. I have watched food supplies being brought on board at Luxor - the quaysides where the pallets are stacked are riddled with rats even in daytime. Many of the employees lived in homes that lack running water and soap, and understanding of catering hygiene needs is hit and miss. Importantly, the paper currency is very dirty and is suspected to be a source of outbreaks. Some supplies of hand sanitising gel might help reduce infection from currency. If you do cop for a bad dose, the local medication is 'entocid' (pronounced entoseed) which is available from any pharmacy but is not licensed for sale in the EU. I have known people live on digestive biscuits during their cruise - bit extreme but there's nothing at all like a visitation by the Thunderbox Fairy to ruin a holiday.

[atalanta]

I went on one of these in August this year. There were salads including stuff like tomatoes, which I ate with no ill effects. None of our group had any ill-effects, and we all chose different dishes at every meal. The main problem with the food was the fact that there was a chef preparing individual main courses to individual preferences in the middle of the buffet, and huge queues built up at every meal time.
Just think about it - if these boats were getting reputations for rotten food/food-poisonings, the tour companies would stop using them. It is very much in the tour companies' interests to ensure that their travellers are not made ill by food. Their reputations depend on having happy tourists going home telling everyone what a good time they had. Also, if travellers get ill, the tour-guides have a terrible time sorting out hospital visits, treatments, etc.

[atalanta]

PS - when you go there, you will see dozens if not hundreds of cruise-boats moored to the banks and not moving. ( Egypt has had a huge drop in visitors) If one company cannot feed travellers healthily, there will be vast numbers of others for the travel companies to choose from, and the boat-owners must know this.

[Bazile]

We must have been lucky ( having said that we only had a few hours cruise on a boat ) .

We ate the food given ( cant recall now what the food was ) and had no problems , which by the sound of it was luck more than anything else

[puzzled54]

Ask your tour guide if the boat uses filtered water to wash the salads and to make ice, if they do, should be fine. I have been to Egypt a few times and not had any tummy problems, but have not been on a big cruise ship. As mentioned before, use hand gel after handling money. Also, make sure you use bottled water to clean your teeth.