Felucca overnight
Moses did it, all Pharaoes, most presidents and kings did it:
Sailing on the Nile
„The greatest luxury without any comfort“
Prices
Evening athmosphere
Overnight Felucca Tours:
Aswan-Individual provides private feluccas with captains serving you only. There is no sharing with strangers.
The prices given are for the service – you do NOT need to pay for each person.
Meals – of course – must be paid extra: 18 USD per person and day
Tea and coffee are included.
Softdrinks or alcohol is not included and have to be ordered to be bought extra.
Usual felucca size (1 – 4 guests):
1 day, 1 night: 98 USD
2 days, 2 nights: 138 USD
3 days, 3 nights: 185 USD
Bigger felucca size (5 – 8 guests):
1 day, 1 night: 117 USD
2 days, 2 nights: 175 USD
3 days, 3 nights: 235 USD
Pickup from felucca with chauffeur and vehicle
Transfer to Luxor with stop at KomOmbo and Edfu Tempel
140 USD for limousine (1 – 3 guests) incl. driver
205 USD for microbus (3 – 6 guests) incl. driver
Possibility to send a guide with the car to explain to you Komombo and Edfu Temple.
Procedures
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- Arriving at a ferry station
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- It was awsome!
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- Buying fresh fish
Please confirm 2 days before, so the captain can get your permissions in time at the tourist police
To do an overnight felucca tour it is necessary to get permissions from the tourist police in the evening before the trip.
For this the captain needs copies of your passports in advance.
(You can send them to Aswan Individual as pdf or jpg for us to print out – or bring them to your captain one or two days before your trip as copies on paper)
Please confirm 2 days before, so the captain can get your permissions in time at the tourist policeFelucca tour overnight in direction to Edfu:
1 day: Aswan – Daraw (only if wind is good: 1 day/1 night)
2 days: maybe (depending on the wind): Komombo (2-3 days)
3 days: maybe Silsila.
In the morning of departure the captain will get ice for the ice box, fresh vegetable, fruits, meat or fish. Then he will sail to your hotel to wait for you there.
Usual time of meeting: 10 am.
Check out after breakfast the 2nd, 3rd or 4th day.
(If you will stay at Anakato which is located far south from Aswan you will have to come to Elephantine by motorboat provided from Anakato).
Of course all sailing depends on the wind. Especially if you will get off the felucca on the way: i.e. to visit a village, the camel market on a saturday or sunday or go shopping fresh food with the captian somewhere.
For overnight tours the back of the felucca is filled with futons to sit or lie soft during the day and night. For the night wind shields are wrapped around this futon covered place, a mosquito net can be provided. The captains sleep in the front to make sure they don’t disturb you when you go to sleep.
Good morning
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- Shopping on the way
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- Best sleep ever
Advices
Felucca Sailing
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- Breathe
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- Marvel
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- Explore
Nice to have with you, good to know
Advices what to bring:
- Mosquito repellent
- Sleeping back (otherwise blankets are provided)
- Suncream
- Cap, hat or scarf in summer
- Warm pullover/clothes during winter for sunset and night
Your “Bathroom” is the Nile to wash, for brushing teeth water is provided (water being from the tap, brought in a big canister).
If you need to relief yourself, the captain will stop at a beach.
Please follow his advices which bush to choose to hide behind. There are farms along the Nile behind the dunes and of course the locals don’t like foreigners to use their fields.
Also – please be clean as cats: it is easy to shove some earth / sand aside with your feet, and then cover well (!) what you will have left. Probably you also would shout out loud, if this was your ground that foreigners would use, the wind playing with flying dirty toilet paper after their visit, or if there are smelly mines to step on. Also other travelers who will visit the same beach after you will be happy if they return to their felucca with clean feet (especially if they will be out after dark).
More “Rules”:
- Please take off your shoes as soon you get on the boat.
- Please don’t throw cigarettes in the water as each but is polluting many liters of Nile water.
Rules must be followed
Why copies of passports and when depart from Aswan?
The captain will arrange all paperwork without need of your presence.
The copies of your passports will be stamped at the tourist police on the previous day and the captains receives papers for their licenses, the captains themselves, stamped photocopies of your passports plus a red paper to be copied from the captain to give to the Nile Police on the first day of your overnight trip (all papers, see photo on top picture).
The next morning (first day) you start at about 10 am and when sailing out of Aswan the captain has to stop at the station of the Nile Police. There he has to leave the papers except one to have with him in case he will be asked from some Nile police on the way north.
Sometimes feluccas have to wait for the Nile Police until noon because the officer in charge is not there. Of course the captains feel sorry for their guests and also would prefer to start sailing north, but they cannot help it.
If your captain would see other feluccas waiting at the Nile Police, he would not stop to let you wait there, but sail rounds like back to Aswan, so his guests enjoy sailing instead of sitting on the felucca in front of the police station and wait for the officer to arrive and papers to be done. As soon the police officer shows up, the feluccas start to move and your captain will get the necessary papers from the police right away.
Thanks to our friends
Good to know
On the street some captains offer „for 20 only“.
Please be warned, that usually this will be in USD, English Pounds, Euro or other currency.
„20 only“ could be for the first hour only, every following hour could cost much more.
Prices could be for each person, or one hour is 40 minutes only.
The tour could be used to be intrusive and a second captain sell all kinds of souvenirs, etc. etc.
Phantasie has no ends.
Why do we tell you this? Because guests that sail only with Aswan Individual of course dont make the experience what might be behind offers from the street: „I am sure I could have got these things cheaper if I had been on the spot to sort it myself – however he (Waleed) provided an excellent service at probably half what a hotel would charge.“ (Nov 29 – 2011 in tripadvisor)
It is everyone’s own decision wether if you prefer to negotiate and fight on the street, or if you want to reserve with services and agreements written down by email in advance, reserved with people who have been recommended to you and are keen to keep their global reputation.
Also sometimes we are asked about felucca sharing.
This is NOT offered from Aswan Individual:
About 13 persons from different low-budget-hotels are collected to share one felucca. The food provided is very „easy“, of course there is not much privacy when one puts his toe in the nose of the next traveler while sleeping.
Aswan Individual offers all services exclusively for each guest.
Stay in contact still to do
The felucca was a laugh from beginning to end, Sero is a top cook, and made something different each day, including camel meat, white soup and other local dishes. Mido, Minshaweee and Hamadi looked after the boat under Captain Sero’s steely gaze and made constant cups of tea.
We went to a camel market, which was hot and smelly but definitely worth a visit. Sero’s family is from around there so he restocked in the local market – he seemed to know everybody, while we tried the local shops for tea and coffee.
Apart from that we had nothing to do on the boat except read books, swim off the side when the breeze failed and talk to the crew about everything and nothing then sleep out under the stars. Again top marks for a great time.
Four nights on a boat was exactly right for us, but our wives/partners did not come, and they might have struggled with the toilet arrangements, which are wash in the Nile, and look after everything else in the desert, which may not suit all tastes. I think that Petra said that it is possible to do any number of nights or have a day trip which might fit some people better.
Waleed arranged a car to pick us up and we drove back to Luxor.
Nothing more to say other than that Sero is an excellent singer, and that Hamadi can’t dance, but he really thinks he can. Don’t bring many clothes, you can wash as you go. You need some long sleeves and trousers and socks to cover up at night and stuff to swim in. I finished two books. There is a big ice box, and you can bring beers if you like, but it is too hot to have much more than a cold beer with dinner.
Checkout after 4 days felucca: „we had a memorable time, we all agreed …“
… But most of all we would like to thank Mustafa and Nasser for making the 3 day felucca trip so memorable. From the excellent crewing of the boat, the lovely food, the spotless state that Mustafa kept his boat in, to the visit of Nasser’s home near Edfu. Possibly the highlight for us though was mooring up over night at Sil Sila and the early morning visit of the quarries and tombs. We have seen Sil Sila many times from passing cruise boats, but have never been able to actually visit the sight. It was great! Allan and Kathy Morris (UK)
„The challenge — living on a felucca for three nights and four days was going to be a revelation. The meals were always a delightful surprise, Mustafa and Menshawy provided lovely Nubian dishes from tasty stews, vegetables and yes our Nile-caught tilapias fried and eaten to the bones with their popular rice and noodle staple.
Breakfast, snack, tea, lunch and dinner was a pleasant and delicious surpise. Service was par excellence. Sleeping on the top of the mid section of the boat, meant getting ready at each nightfall to have the sails come down, and the side canvasses be drawn for privacy and to protect us from the cool night. Jeff and I with our sleeping bags and extra blankets cozied in each time, while the Captain and his crew shared his private cabin.
Toilet needs were a different story. The males will always have the advantage, and the woman, alone, was me, had to find the most creative means to relive myself each time nature called. It meant finding a nook on shore, or a public toilet to proceed with what needed to get done. Showers, what showers? Thank goodness, it was a cool November which made it possible to be without the pleasure of a daily shower or bath.“ (This is only a part from Henrees beautiful poetic diary.)
