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Nile Cruise Dahabiya recommendations

Posted by on

Help!

Going to Egypt dates flexible but March 2026. I am looking for a 4-6 day cruise. I want a Luxor to Aswan or Aswan to Luxor cruise. Hopefully with a company that will include a trip to Abu Simbel (I expect to by additional cost if a side trip and not part of the itinerary). I am open to the tour including or not including Luxor, I want small group, good tour guide and amenities. I'm thinking a dahabiya but would do a larger boat as long as it wasn't more than 20 or so people in the tour group. You know like Rick's tours. That is the vibe I'm looking for with the exception someone else is carrying my luggage up the stairs to my room 😉. I'm female, traveling alone in my late 50s. Took a Europe through the Back Door tour in 1993.

Thank you!
Lisa

Posted by
2196 posts

I did this OAT tour in 2023:

https://www.oattravel.com/trips/small-ship-adventures/middle-east/egypt-and-the-eternal-nile-by-private-classic-river-yacht/2021/itineraries?icid=global:adventures:top-trending:trending-adventures:ego

It includes 5 nights on a dahabiya and goes to Abu Simbel. The total time is 15 nights in Egypt, so that might be longer than you want. But the maximum group size is 16, and they do carry your luggage for you.

If you're interested, send me a private message, and I can save you some $ on your first OAT tour.

Posted by
1 posts

Lisa:

I went to Egypt with Adventures with Sarah in 2024. Loved it. While researching Egypt I stumbled upon Egypt Adventures Travel on YouTube. Gus has a lot of great videos on Egypt. He also runs tours. He does use dahabiyas that cruise the Nile. When I go to Egypt again, I will use his company. I believe he has one tour coming up shortly and one next year. Check out his company. https://www.egyptadventurestravel.com/egypt-group-tours

Rebecca

Posted by
1247 posts

In January 2022 two friends and I went on a two week trip with Djed Egypt Travel. They have their own small fleet of dahabiya boats and our trip included four nights from Luxor to Aswan on the dahabiya. The boats hold up to 12 guests but we were the only three people on that particular boat at that time. It was a wonderful, truly magical trip with fabulous guides, food and adventures. Djed will work with folks to do almost any itinerary possible in Egypt. If you do a search on this forum, you will read of multiple forum posters who also had very positive experiences with Djed. Our trip included a trip overnight (via van) to Abu Simbel. If you look on their website you can see plenty of photos of the boat. Also, here is my trip report of that trip:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/two-wonderful-weeks-in-egypt-a-travel-report

Posted by
7 posts

Thank you to all who responded.

jmauldinuu - I read your post and I have emailed DJED with my suggested itinerary. I'm a bit boxed in to when I can go as I will be leaving Egypt for Turkey and my flight home is 3/31 so I need to save at least 2 weeks for it as I'm going to Cappadocia and Ephesus.

I'll be asking questions about Turkey look for my posts on the Turkey forum 😀

Posted by
1 posts

I tried working with Djed travel but was ultimately too frustrated with them.
1/ we were unable to schedule a call due to the time change difference. It was 10 hours and there was absolutely no flexibility on their part.
2/ they emailed that they would not book a day flight to Abu Simbel. We had to use their vans.
Reason was “cancellation of flights “. Flat out lie.
3/ went to DAI and we have a fantastic trip planned for 4 of us. Went through WendyPerrin.com. Trip starts in a bit over 2 weeks.

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