Cruising the Nile in stylish luxury

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  Oberoi Zahra, Nile, Egypt

  © Oberoi

Those great A-listers of the luxury cruising world, namely Roman Abramovich and Paul Allen, must feel as if they’re staying on a dinghy compared with the quality of the all-inclusive Oberoi Zahra Luxury Nile Cruiser. 

The 54 passengers who I shared a seven-night cruise with in February unanimously declared it as ‘phenomenal vacation, better than any other cruise ship or five-star hotel, food faultless, and the staff are the best in the world’.
 
Why is it so special?  The ship, only three years old, is so ultra-modern you would think you are in the latest designer hotel. The 25 main cabins are 300 sq ft, with a whole wall of window looking out over the Nile. Light German maple flooring is covered with Italian stitched-ponyskin mats, palest green linen or woven-leather walls, with one utilities wall of chocolate-coloured leather and wood.

Your bathroom, with a window on the Nile, has bronze Murano tiles and L’Occitane toiletries. The in-cabin internet is complimentary. You have not only the few-hour laundry and overnight shoe-cleaning that are de rigueur at luxury level but your room comes with a choice of sunhats and an excellent guidebook to Ancient Egypt.  There are also two highly desirable 530-sq ft luxury suites, with additional private decks and jacuzzis.
 

Flawless design

German-Singaporean designers Monika Zeiler-Lim and Lim Ho Guan have made public areas similarly sleek, futuristic, with space, enormous windows, fabulous leatherwork. The marbled atrium is two-floor, you have a library and cigar room, a screening room, and a 24-hour LifeFitness gym. The four-room spa, run by Thai therapists, is so popular you need to make reservations when booking your cruise. The rooftop is a day-long delight, centered around its 20-ft heated pool. Guests can lie on a sunbed, with head-shade of course, and watch the Nile slip by as one of the 97 really gorgeous staff offers iced water and grapes.

Led by general manager Ankush Mahajan, the team are all competitive followers of behavioural training. Before a new complement of passengers boards, one Tuesday in Aswan, the next in Luxor, Mahajan and his close aides have googled them, and shared names and correct spellings with everyone, even the engineers. This means you are called Mr Clooney, or whatever, from the moment you arrive. They do not overstep the limit, they anticipate. Has your suitcase suffered a broken handle? No problem, it is miraculously mended. Has your ankle somehow gained a little pimple? It is noticed, and a bandaid is discreetly brought.  This is the opposite of today’s Ghastly Hovering Butler Syndrome. Far from obsequious bowing and my-pleasuring, here everyone quietly anticipates, to get there before you, the guest, in an understated way.
 
Another reason everyone leaving a Zahra cruise wants to return is because of the Egyptologists who are your guides throughout the entire seven-night cruise. Even the best-known other companies may allocate 15 guests per guide. Here, on Oberoi Zahra Luxury Nile Cruiser, no more than six are given to one guide, and perhaps a couple of, say, Brazilians, might have their own, Portuguese-speaking of course.
 

Divine dining

Mahajan says a close second in the guest appreciation listing is food. When I walked with executive chef Ajit Raman around the restaurant, ‘best-ever, I want to take you home, faultless’ and other superlatives abounded.  If you have an early start, say 5.30 am for a flight to Abu Simbel, they have fresh juice and fresh-pressed coffee, and a personalized breakfast box to go, but in the main the daily buffet should not be missed. Everything possible is done on board. Try the guava juice as well as that orange, the natural yogurt and daily-changing big range of fruits, cold cuts and breads (the baker rises at three). Try the poached eggs on Norwegian smoked salmon and muffin. Most guests lunch up on deck, under mist-sprayed awnings. There are special menus for vegetarians and others, but they will also adapt the daily choices. One of your seven dinners is Egyptian, one is Indian, but everyone has been asked, one-to-one, if they would prefer something else. The other five dinners offer a big choice of à la carte, with memorable tempura, crab cakes and Australian striploin – and do not forget the chocolate profiteroles.
 
You do pay extra for alcohol (though there are two general cocktail-party evenings). Many simply go for glasses of the remarkably-good Cape Bay ‘Egyptian wine’, in fact from South African grapes and owned by Heineken. If you must, you can choose from a bottle list that goes right up to a 1996 Dom Pérignon at the equivalent of $1,227. You also pay extra for spa treatments, which are worth it and so relaxing after hours of footslogging it down into temples, and so soothing with the silky Nile slipping by outside. They offer Ayurvedic through to Oberoi specials, and the double rooms are particularly popular.
 
The main reason for sailing the Nile is of course to learn about, or more about, ancient Egypt, and thanks to our guide Adel Moukhtar, who is studying for a doctorate in Geneva, we had total immersion in the lore and philosophy of those kings, queens and gods going back to the days of earliest hieroglyphics, from about 3500 BC.

The guides move by land as Oberoi Zahra Luxury Nile Cruiser sails along, so, having left him in Luxor, there was Adel waiting for us when we next docked at Edfu, and again at Aswan. Although the ship runs identical, but in reverse, schedules, I think I would suggest what we did, board in the more-chaotic Luxor and finish in soothing Aswan, with your final night a really recommended pre-dinner participatory folkloric dance session. You disembark right to the quay, by the way. Lesser Nile boats moor up to four abreast but Oberoi Zahra Luxury Nile Cruiser has the luxury of having her own, exclusive, moorings.
 
Oberoi Zahra Luxury Nile Cruiser is owned by a division of Orascom.  The ship is 236 ft long, 45 ft wide, with a draught of merely seven feet. She carries her own laundry, and water filtration plants, and her three generators and three engines are Caterpillar and Rolls-Royce. You feel engaged as soon as you have signed on for a cruise, but the actual Oberoi Zahra Luxury Nile Cruiser all-inclusive experience begins on arrival at Luxor (or Aswan) airport, and continues through to airside at your departure airport.

Report by Mary Gostelow, Editor WOW Travel, http://www.kiwicollection.com/wow_travel.php