Luxor Sunrise Balloon Ride over the Nile and Mountains

The listing is specific about one thing, which is what you can see from the basket. The Nile directly below. The mountains behind the west bank, taking the first light while the valley floor is still grey. The sun itself comes up over the east bank and puts the city in view. What the listing does not do is explain the VIP in its title. No private basket, no smaller group, no named extra is written down, so read those letters as branding until the operator says otherwise. Pickup is from your Luxor hotel or your cruise ship just before dawn. You cross the Nile to the west bank, where the balloon is waiting. There is a safety briefing and an introduction to the pilot and the ground crew before you climb in, and then the balloon rises. The west bank at that hour is empty of the crowds that fill it later in the day, and the drift takes you over the monuments of Thebes. At 88.24 euros this sits in the upper half of the Luxor range, on a rating of 4.3 from 240 reviews. Another flight listed here crosses the same west bank at the same price with a higher score off a much smaller sample, so the two are worth putting side by side. Commercial ballooning in Egypt runs at Luxor, at dawn, over the Theban west bank, so the ground under every flight is the same. Price, basket and what the operator commits to in writing are what change.