Dahabiya collection
Mahogany-hulled, white-sailed and built for a small number of guests, the Iris runs full board between Aswan and Luxor at 5-star standard, with a guide and driver of your own throughout.
From £1,380 per person
Of the three boats in our Nile dahabiya cruise collection, the Iris carries by far the widest cabin range, which is really the whole case for choosing her: four grades rather than two, so a couple stretching to a Royal veranda suite and a couple happy with the simplest room can book the same boat, the same crew and the same itinerary.
She has a small pool built into the upper deck, useful after a hot afternoon at the temples, and she keeps to the same working principle as every dahabiya in our fleet: a handful of guests, sails rather than an engine roaring all night, and moorings picked for their quiet rather than their size.
On board, the arrangement is full board with visits to Philae, Abu Simbel, Kom Ombo, Edfu, Karnak, the Valley of the Kings, Hatshepsut's temple and the Colossi of Memnon built in, tickets included, plus your own guide and your own air-conditioned car for the whole trip. Weighing this against a bigger ship? Our dahabiya versus Nile cruise guide covers the trade-offs.
The name itself is worth a mention: you will meet it written as Iris in most SEV material, though the boat class as a whole turns up online as dahabiya, dahabeah and occasionally dahabieh, three renderings of one Arabic word that simply describe a Nile sailing boat of this kind.
None of the spellings changes the booking; search whichever way you land on us, and the boat, the itinerary and the crew stay exactly the same.
Location on the boat, and whether you have your own veranda, are what separate the four grades. Working up from the simplest:
How many cabins sit in each grade, and the exact shape of each day, are details we confirm once you have a date and a cabin grade in mind, along with whether that grade is actually free on the day you want.
She suits travellers who want the choice as much as the cruise itself: a honeymoon couple who want the top grade, repeat visitors after a slower look at sites they already know, or anyone who would rather sit still in front of a temple than tick it off a list.
Because the range runs from a modest Double Deluxe to a full Royal veranda suite, the SEV team can fit almost any budget onto the same boat without changing what the cruise actually involves: full board, your own guide, your own driver.
Route matters here too. Southbound from Aswan is the short run, 3 nights, Fridays only; northbound from Luxor stretches to 4 or 7 nights, Mondays only. Travellers with a fortnight or more in Egypt tend to take the longer route for the extra time on the water; a shorter stay usually means the 3-night option.
Tell our Cairo team your dates and the rest of your itinerary and they will steer you toward the right one.
No two days are scripted the same way, and the SEV team only fixes the running order once your dates are set, but the rhythm holds steady across the whole cruise: mornings tend to be given over to whichever temple is next on the route, timed so you are walking around stonework before the heat properly sets in, with the boat itself doing much of its moving between stops rather than during them.
Afternoons slow right down. Some guests read on the upper deck, some doze, some simply watch the bank go by, and on the Iris there is that small pool to cool off in if the sun gets the better of you. Evenings are for dinner on deck as the light drops and the sails come down for the night.
It is a very different cadence from a large ship's, where entertainment is scheduled to fill the hours between ports. Here, the point is largely the unscheduled time: a Royal-cabin veranda that lets you watch the riverbank without getting dressed for it, or a Double Deluxe cabin that puts you on the same deck as the dinner table. Either way, you are never more than a short walk from the rail.
Most guests booking the Iris fly from Heathrow, Gatwick or Manchester, routing through a European or Gulf hub to Cairo before a short domestic leg down to Aswan or Luxor, wherever the cruise starts. We do not book the international flights ourselves, but the SEV team is glad to sense-check your connection times once you have a date in mind, so you are not cutting it fine between landing and boarding. It is also worth checking the FCDO's current travel advice at gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice before you commit to dates.
Long before package holidays, wealthy travellers simply hired a boat and stayed as long as they liked. Florence Nightingale did exactly that in the winter of 1849, sailing a dahabiya from Cairo to Abu Simbel and writing long letters home about it years before her nursing career made her famous; her Nile journal is still in print for anyone curious.
That world of private sail travel, rather than a fixed cruise timetable, is what the Iris and her sister boats are built to recreate, with rather better plumbing than Nightingale would have had.
A dahabiya's real distinction from a large cruiser is simply scale: sail rather than a bank of engines, a short guest list rather than several hundred, and moorings along quieter stretches of bank rather than the main landing stages. Those are general traits of the format rather than figures specific to the Iris herself, and they are the reason people choose this way of travelling over a bigger ship.
October through April is when the valley is most comfortable for sightseeing, cooler mornings and evenings bracketing warm, bright days; June to August turns properly hot, valley-wide. We would point most first-time visitors toward fitting UK school holidays around this window rather than the other way round. For a wedding or honeymoon, the smaller-boat format lends itself naturally to two people wanting the boat to themselves; see our honeymoon in Egypt guide.
For a general steer on what a Nile cruise costs, our Aswan versus Luxor departure guide is a useful companion piece. Before you book flights, check the FCDO's current advice at gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice.
Per person, full board, by cabin grade and route length.
Large figures: 2026-2027 season departures. “Festive”: Christmas, New Year and Easter departures.
From £1,380 per person
Per person, full board, visits, entry tickets and private guide included
From £1,590 per person
Per person, full board, visits, entry tickets and private guide included
From £2,240 per person
Per person, full board, visits, entry tickets and private guide included
Runs four times a year: 1 Oct to 21 Dec 2026, all of Jan 2027, 1 Feb to 30 Apr 2027, and all of May 2027.
Three fixed dates only: Christmas (Mon 21 Dec 2026), New Year (Mon 28 Dec 2026), Easter (Fri 26 Mar 2027 southbound, Mon 29 Mar 2027 northbound).
Prices converted from euros at the European Central Bank reference rate of 2 October 2026; your quote confirms the final amount.
Sailing south to north, mooring times on the day set the running order, but broadly it goes:
Full detail on either destination is on our Aswan and Luxor pages, with a day-by-day breakdown on our Luxor to Aswan itinerary.
A closer look at what is actually aboard.
Mostly history and layout: the Iris has more usable deck space, so the owners split it into four price points rather than two. It is the one boat in our collection built to flex with budget.
No, the core package is fixed: full board, all eight site tickets, a guide and a car, whichever cabin grade you book.
Fridays only, going south to north in 3 nights; Mondays only, going north to south in 4 or 7 nights. There is no flexibility on the day itself.
Yes, on the festive rate table: Christmas, New Year and both Easter dates, one departure each, and they get booked up early.
Yes. It sits well away from the river, so that leg of the trip runs by road from Aswan, car and guide included, rather than by boat.
October to April for the weather; well ahead of time if you want Christmas, New Year or Easter, since those dates are limited to one departure apiece.
The framework, yes; the hour-by-hour order gets confirmed nearer your departure, once mooring slots and cabin grade are locked in.
