Our web technician, Angel, (that’s her real name by the way), has been working overtime adding new functionality to the main Nile Cruises 4u website and has now created a simple way for us to add video to the Nile Cruise Video page.

We have lots of video footage that we have taken over the years when we have been travelling in Egypt.  We’ve lots of footage of individual Nile cruise ships as well as footage shot in Cairo and at the Pyramids.

Until now we have not been able to add video easily but Angel’s set up a system that makes that job much easier so over the next few months we’ll be adding video as often as we can.  We’re also trying to find the time to create a whole video about our recent Nile Cruise and Cairo trip.  My video editing skills are a bit linited so I’m learning as I go along which is why it’s taking longer than I hoped for.  But I hope it will be finished in the next 6 weeks or so.

In the meantime please keep an eye out for the new videos.  You can always subscribe to our Nile Cruise RSS feed and if you use Google Reader you will be able to see whenever we add new content/posts and video to the site.

Hosted by the excellent Simon Reeve it follows his journey along the Tropic Of Cancer, a journey of some 25,000 miles.

Simon is a great presenter and you can tell he really enjoys what he’s doing and it comes across so well on screen.  The great thing about the programmes is that he doesnt’ “do” the normal travelogue things.  For instance in the first programme about his journey across Mexico he starts to follow the trail of the terrible drug wars that are now taking place in Mexico.  His involvment even gets him almost shot when the police team he is trailing get involved in a shoot-out.

The second programme, last night, saw him reach Africa and the little known country of Western Sahara.  Again he didnt’ go for the easy option but investigated the plight of the native Western Saharans who are fighting the Morrocans for their independence.  He met fighters and their leaders but was able to put a personal “face” to the conflict.

I was thrilled to see that next week, (Sunday 28th March) he reaches Egypt and it promises to be a really illuminative programme which I heartily recommend you watch or record to watch at a later time.

You can watch the first two episodes of “Tropic Of Cancer” on the BBC’s iPlayer.

Whilst we were cruising the Nile in late November we saw a lot of the ships that we sell and recommend.

Here’s a short video taken from the deck of the Royal Viking as the Jaz Royale Nile Cruise ship departed from Aswan. If you choose 720p from the menu bar of the video you get a better resolution, I think.

Cant’ complain as phone calls are the lifeblood of our business but I’m keen to get the video up on to the website as I’m sure a lot of people will get a better idea of what a Nile Cruise and Cairo trip will entail.

I’m thinking of staying up all night one day and bashing through it but as my eyelids start to droop around 11.00pm each evening my best intentions seem to slip away.

But I’ll get it done asap so please watch this space.

In the meantime here’s a photo I took of the boatman on our trip across the Nile to Kitchener’s Island.

Over the next few weeks there are some great bargains to be found starting at prices in the early £400’s for 4 star cruises and there are great savings to be made on such luxurious ships as the Royal Viking in August for just £699 but later on in the season, (October and November) things are getting tighter with a lot of dates on some of the more popular ships getting booked up already.

We’re booking a lot of Nile Cruise and Stay holidays where people are combining either a few nights in Cairo and/or a further period in El Gouna.  (You can learn more about El Gouna from our sister website www.elgounaholidays4u.co.uk), but as seats are starting to get harder to obtain I’d recommend anyone thinking of booking either a Nile Cruise or a Nile Cruise and Stay to getting booking as soon as possible so that your not disappointed.

At Nile Cruises 4u we’ve just upgraded to the Flip Mino HD Digital Camera and this video shows the set up that we use to create our Nile Cruise Podcast.

I mentioned in an earlier post how brilliant the Flip Digital Video Camera is.  Well a week or two ago I re-sold our original Flip Mino Digital Video camera on Amazon.co.uk for almost the same price as we had bought it for a few months earlier.

We sold it using the Amazon “Sell Yours” facility which is just brilliant.  In fact I bought the original Flip Mino from the proceeds of selling various books I had.  After I had sold about 15 books I had enough to buy the Flip Mino, which I was really pleased with.

But…almost as soon as I’d bought it I found out that Flip were just bringing out a High Definition version.  I then saw some of the results of the HD version and realised that I just had to have one.  So, after selling the original Flip Mino and a few more books I had enough to buy the new High Definition version.

And I’m really chuffed with it.

Here is a first attempt at using it for the blog.  It’s just a quick video I made describing the equipment I use to create the Nile Cruise Podcast.

Here’s the video:

Here’s the debut of our new offering!!

It’s really an experiment using our new Flip Digital Video Camera and a service called Overlay.TV which allows you to create videos and “overlay” clickable links to a destination of your choice. In other words I was able to “overlay” a “clickable” bubble which you’ll see as the short video plays which says “Click Here for more information…” When you click on it it takes you to the page on our main Nile Cruise website that contains further details of what I’ve been talking about in the video.

Clever eh? And it’s a free service. If you have an online business and use videos to market your business you might want to take a look.

Anyway, the video is my humble attempt at telling you, face to face so to speak, about the best priced Nile Cruise offers we have over the next 2 weeks. The prices are remarkable…£399 for a one week full board cruise aboard the 4 star “Fleurette” and £459 for a one week full board Nile Cruise aboard the 5 star “Da Vinci”. Both with a full excursion programme included. Departures are from Gatwick and Manchester on the 12th and 19th of January. (Manchester departures are £40 extra).

If you would like to know more about either cruise please call either Barbara or Colin on Freephone 0808 1089 100.

Here’s the video:

I’m not sure what vessel it is but it doesn’t’ look like a vessel that I know of but I thought it shows some nice footage of some of the sights you would see whilst cruising.

It lasts bout 10 minutes and is a little distraction to take your mind off what you might be doing right now courtesy of wen88888

Well, today I stumbled across this video of a belly-dancer providing some of the evening’s entertainment on a Nile cruise ship.

When Barbara and I travelled on the El Fostate on our last Nile cruise there was a belly-dancer too. Hope you enjoy the video…

I found this video of a typical excursion to Karnak Temple, Luxor and thought it would give you a good indication of how magnificent the temples and sites are that you can visit whilst enjoying a Nile cruise.

I was reading the excellent Web2.0 Travel Blog and came across this fascinating website that you might like to take a look at our even add your own contribution.

As it says on Web2.0travelsites…

“VeniVidiWiki.eu is a Google map wiki mashup for attractions around the world. Anyone can add a POI (point of interest) to the map and provide as much as possible of the following information:

* Name of place/poi
* Category – those shown above are listed as POI with Video — so they all have a video link; the full list of categories is listed on the left
* Description
* Website, and
* Photo and/or Video links”

If you visit the site, search for “Egypt” in the drop down menu and then use the navigation tool to scroll down so that the Egypt part of the map shows up you’ll be able to click on each map-marker and it will opne up into a video or other useful resource.

I thought it was excellent and, as I mentioned above, you might want to add your own contribution.