LUXURY PRIVATE NILE SAILING
Sail the Nile on a Private Dahabiya, Not a Floating Hotel
There’s a moment on the second morning that catches most people off guard. You wake up, step onto the deck with a coffee, and realise the loudest thing you can hear is the sail.
No engine. No announcement over a tannoy. No queue for the breakfast buffet.
That’s the difference between most Egypt cruise packages and ours. We’re Turquoise Dahabiya, and we sail one boat — a 42-metre traditional wooden dahabiya with room for just 16 guests. Everything below is what we actually run, with real routes, real durations, and real starting prices, so you can work out which journey fits your holiday before you ever send us a message.
Whether you’re flying in from New York, London, Toronto, Sydney or anywhere across Europe, the question is usually the same: how many days do I have, and how much of Egypt can I see in them? Let’s answer that properly.
Our Egypt Cruise Packages at a Glance
We run six Nile cruise packages. They range from a three-night taste of Upper Egypt to a thirteen-night voyage that ends beneath the Pyramids.
| Package | Duration | Route | Starting price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sacred Waters | 4 days / 3 nights | Aswan → Esna (finishing in Luxor) | From €750 |
| Serenity Retreat | 5 days / 4 nights | Luxor → Esna → Aswan | From €1,000 |
| Elegant Scape | 7 days / 6 nights | Luxor → Qena → Aswan | From €1,500 |
| Egypt Solar Eclipse Cruise 2027 | 8 days / 7 nights | Aswan → Luxor | From €3,300 |
| Royal Nile Escape | 11 days / 10 nights | Luxor → Cairo | From €3,000 |
| Golden Horizons | 14 days / 13 nights | Aswan → Cairo | From €3,500 |
Every one of them sails on the same boat, with the same crew and the same full-board arrangement. What changes is how far you go and how much of the river you see.
A quick note on the prices above: they’re starting prices, shown as “from” on each tour. The exact figure for your trip depends on your dates, your cabin and your group, which is why we quote by enquiry rather than publishing a fixed rate that turns out to be wrong for you.
Ready to See Which Journey Fits Your Dates?
Tell us your travel dates, preferred package and group size, and we’ll confirm availability and your exact price.
What’s Included in an Egypt Cruise Package?
This is the question we get most often, and for good reason — “all inclusive” means wildly different things depending on who’s selling it.
Here’s exactly what we include on our cruise packages:
And here’s what we don’t include, stated plainly:
Included
- Full board throughout. Breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, prepared fresh on board.
- An expert archaeologist guide for all sightseeing — not a general guide who learned the script, someone who actually studied this.
- Entrance fees to every attraction listed in your itinerary. No surprise ticket windows.
- All transfers in a modern, air-conditioned deluxe vehicle.
- Complimentary soft drinks for the whole journey.
- Onboard activities and evening entertainment (included on Sacred Waters, Serenity Retreat, Elegant Scape and Golden Horizons).
Not Included
- Gratuities for the crew and guides, at your discretion.
- Any personal expenses.
- Alcoholic drinks.
- Flights. Our Royal Nile Escape states this outright — international and domestic airfare is excluded — and none of our other packages list airfare among their inclusions either.
We’d rather you knew that before you booked than discovered it at the airport. If you’re searching for Egypt cruise packages with flights included from the USA or UK, ours aren’t structured that way. You arrive in Egypt, and we take care of everything from the moment we collect you.
Life On Board: The Boat Itself
A cruise package is only as good as the thing you’re sleeping on, so let’s be specific.
Turquoise Dahabiya measures 42 metres long and 8 metres wide, and carries a maximum of 16 guests across 5 cabins and 3 suites. That’s the whole boat. For context, a standard Nile cruise ship carries somewhere between 100 and 300 people. When we moor beside a village, we’re a small group of curious visitors. When a large ship moors, it’s an event.
The Upper Deck
The upper deck is where most of the day happens. There are lunch tables, Arabic sofas and chaise lounges, and it’s the spot where afternoon tea gets served while the riverbank slides past.
There’s a small swimming pool on board — genuinely useful after a morning walking around temple grounds in the Upper Egyptian sun.
Your Cabin
The Superior Suite comes with a spacious living area, a luxurious bathroom and a private balcony with river views. The Standard Room is spacious too, with a comfortable double bed and its own luxurious bathroom. If you’re travelling as a couple, or this trip is a honeymoon, the suite with the private balcony is the one to ask us about first.
The Food On Board
The food is locally inspired and traditional, cooked by skilled chefs using fresh, high-quality ingredients — including mineral water for cooking. It reflects authentic Egyptian flavours while still catering to familiar tastes, so nobody at the table goes hungry out of caution. We also run cooking classes on board if you’d like to take a bit of Egypt home in a more useful form than a fridge magnet.
The Short Escapes: 4 and 5 Day Nile Cruise Packages
If you’ve got a week in Egypt and you want Cairo and the Nile, these are the packages that make the maths work.
Sacred Waters — 4 Day Dahabiya Nile Cruise, Aswan to Esna (from €750)
Three nights on the water, beginning in Aswan and ending on the Luxor West Bank. It’s our shortest and most affordable Egypt cruise package, and it still packs in four major temples.
| Day | What you’ll see | Overnight |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Philae Temple on Agilkia Island, board the dahabiya, sail to Kom Ombo Temple | Maniha Island |
| 2 | Gebel El Silsila quarries, optional kayaking, Bassao Island village, Al Fawza Island | Al Fawza / Al Saraj Island |
| 3 | Temple of Horus at Edfu, afternoon sailing, Badr Village near Esna | Badr Village |
| 4 | Temple of Khnum at Esna, transfer to Luxor, Valley of the Kings | — |
Departure is from Aswan, one hour before sailing, and we finish by transferring you to your Luxor hotel or Luxor International Airport. Maximum 16 guests.
Serenity Retreat — 5 Day Nile Cruise, Luxor to Aswan (from €1,000)
Four nights, and the mirror image of Sacred Waters. You start in Luxor with two of the biggest sites in Egypt on day one, then drive to Esna and board.
| Day | What you’ll see | Overnight |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Karnak Temple, Valley of the Kings, drive to Esna, board and sail | Al Hagz Qebli |
| 2 | El Kab rock-cut tombs, Temple of Horus at Edfu | Al Ramady |
| 3 | Bassao Island village, Gebel El Silsila, optional kayaking | Maniha Island |
| 4 | Kom Ombo Temple, Al Hardiab Island, arrival in Aswan, Philae Temple | Aswan |
| 5 | Breakfast on board, check-out and transfer | — |
On the final morning we can arrange an optional excursion to Abu Simbel, the temples Ramesses II carved into the cliffs. It’s the sort of finale that tends to reorganise your photo album.
Which way round should you sail? Honestly, either works. The Luxor to Aswan cruise packages and Aswan to Luxor cruise packages cover much of the same stretch of river; the difference is where your flights land and which city you’d rather end in.
Plan Your Nile Journey
Six packages, one boat, sixteen guests at a time. Tell us your dates, the package you’re drawn to and how many are travelling, and we’ll come back with current availability and your exact price.
The Classic: 7 Day Private Dahabiya Nile Cruise (from €1,500)
If we had to pick one journey that shows you what a dahabiya is for, it’s this one.
Elegant Scape runs seven days and six nights from Luxor to Aswan, and it’s the only package in our range that heads north to Qena first before turning back south. That detour matters — it’s what gets you Dendera.
- Day 1 — Karnak and Luxor Temples, then sail north to Qena.
- Day 2 — Dendera Temple, dedicated to Hathor, then the village of Garagos on the sail back toward Luxor.
- Day 3 — Luxor’s West Bank: Valley of the Kings and Hatshepsut’s Temple, then south to Esna.
- Day 4 — Through the Esna Lock, the Temple of Esna and the town’s streets, then El Kab’s cliff tombs.
- Day 5 — The Temple of Edfu, then Bassao Island, mooring near the sandstone cliffs of El Selsela.
- Day 6 — El Selsela’s ancient quarries, Kom Ombo Temple, and the camel market at Daraw.
- Day 7 — Arrival in Aswan and Philae Temple.
Six nights, ten-plus sites, and a route that can run Luxor to Aswan or the reverse. For travellers weighing up 7 day Egypt cruise packages against a week on a large ship, the comparison isn’t really close — you’re getting village walks, a camel market and two temples most cruise itineraries skip entirely.
The Long Journeys: 11 and 14 Day Cairo and Nile Cruise Packages
Here’s something almost nobody offers: sailing the Nile all the way to Cairo. Most Egypt cruise packages turn around at Luxor or Aswan. Ours keep going.
Royal Nile Escape — 11 Days, Luxor to Cairo (from €3,000)
Ten nights aboard, travelling north through a stretch of Egypt that sees very few visitors.
- Days 1–2 — Karnak and the Valley of the Kings, then Dendera’s astronomical ceiling. Overnights at Qena and Nagaa Hammadi.
- Day 3 — Abydos Temple, one of Egypt’s most sacred sites.
- Days 4–5 — The Red and White Monasteries and the Sohag Museum, then the cliff-top Deir Dronka Monastery above Assiut.
- Days 6–7 — Tell El Amarna, Akhenaten’s revolutionary capital, and the necropolis of Tuna El Gabal.
- Day 8 — The rock-cut tombs of Beni Hassan, and Gabal El Teir, a site believed to have hosted the Holy Family.
- Days 9–10 — Beni Suef’s markets, then the long sail into Cairo.
- Day 11 — The Giza Pyramids.
Two things you should know upfront: this trip operates with a minimum of 10 confirmed bookings, and timings are approximate because they depend on sailing conditions. We’d rather tell you that now than apologise later.
Golden Horizons — 14 Days, Aswan to Cairo (from €3,500)
Thirteen nights, and our most complete Egypt cruise and tour package. It runs the opposite direction — Aswan all the way north to Cairo.
You’ll cover the classic Upper Egypt temples in the first week (Philae, the High Dam, Kom Ombo, Gebel El Silsila, Edfu, El Kab, Esna, Karnak, Luxor Temple, Dendera), then the sacred Temple of Seti I and the Osireion at Abydos. From there the boat heads into territory most travellers never see: Tel el-Amarna, the city of Minya, and a day trip to Fayoum Oasis, home to the Valley of the Whales and Qarun Lake.
The finale is Cairo — the Great Pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx, and the Grand Egyptian Museum, where Tutankhamun’s golden mask sits waiting.
Egypt Solar Eclipse Cruise 2027 (from €3,300)
On Monday 2 August 2027, the Moon’s shadow crosses southern Egypt and produces 6 minutes and 23 seconds of totality over Luxor — the longest total solar eclipse visible anywhere on Earth. Maximum eclipse falls at approximately 1:10 PM.
We built an eight-day, seven-night cruise around that single afternoon.
| Date | Day | Highlights |
|---|---|---|
| Wed 28 Jul 2027 | 1 | Arrival, Philae Temple, High Dam, Unfinished Obelisk |
| Thu 29 Jul | 2 | Abu Simbel — temples of Ramesses II and Nefertari — then sail north |
| Fri 30 Jul | 3 | Kom Ombo Temple, Temple of Horus at Edfu |
| Sat 31 Jul | 4 | Esna Lock, arrival in Luxor, Karnak and Luxor Temples |
| Sun 1 Aug | 5 | Valley of the Kings, Hatshepsut Temple, eclipse briefing on board |
| Mon 2 Aug | 6 | Deir el-Medina, Medinet Habu, eclipse viewing 11:00 AM – 3:00 PM |
| Tue 3 Aug | 7 | Dendera — the Temple of Hathor and its zodiac ceiling |
| Wed 4 Aug | 8 | Breakfast, check-out, departure from Luxor |
Viewing is planned from the Luxor West Bank or the dahabiya itself (to be confirmed). This package includes seven nights in a private double en-suite cabin, all meals, your archaeologist guide, entrance fees and transfers.
The itinerary is built around eclipse day, so the timing is fixed — minor additions are possible on arrival day only. And since the boat holds 16 people and the eclipse happens once, availability is deliberately limited. If 2027 is on your calendar, this is not a trip to think about next year.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Guests Say
Real feedback from travellers who sailed with us on the Nile.
Ready to Pick Your Journey?
Six packages, one boat, 16 guests at a time. Whether that’s three nights between Aswan and Esna, a week from Luxor to Aswan by way of Dendera, or thirteen nights that finish at the foot of the Pyramids, the experience is the same in the ways that matter: no engine noise, no crowds, and a crew who learn how you take your tea by the second morning.
Fill in the enquiry form on this page with your travel dates, the package you’re drawn to, and how many of you are travelling. We’ll come back with current availability, the exact price for your group, and an honest answer about which itinerary actually suits your time in Egypt — even if it isn’t the one you first had in mind.
The Nile Has Waited Five Thousand Years. Your Cabin Can’t.
It can wait a few more days while you decide — but send us your dates now and we’ll hold the conversation open.
