I just got word about a new Nile River cruise that actu­ally hear­kens back to the days when daha­biehs — lanteen-rigged sail­boats — were the main method of trans­porta­tion on this water­way. These sail-powered ves­sels were used exten­sively up until the 19th cen­tury when steamships made their debut in the area. The pop­u­lar­ity of daha­biehs waned as they were slower than steamships and so fell out of favor with many. Today, these sail­ing ships have been retro­fit­ted for high-end travel up and down the Nile.

Aber­crom­bie & Kent is now offer­ing pri­vate travel aboard the new lux­ury daha­bieh, Zein Nile Chateau. This ship is part of A&K’s Tai­lor Made Pri­vate Travel pro­gram. These inti­mate boats are per­fect for small groups. And, since daha­biehs are smaller and more agile than tra­di­tional Nile River boats, they can visit more areas than their competitors.

Zein Nile Chateau was purpose-built for the lux­ury mar­ket with two expan­sive suites and four state­rooms. Unlike other daha­biehs, the cab­ins on this sail­boat are air-conditioned. Pub­lic areas include the din­ing room with floor-to-ceiling glass doors, cigar lounge, library, sun deck, oasis pool, and out­door lounge designed for stargazing.

Trav­el­ers may char­ter Zein Nile Chateau. Seven-night itin­er­aries start at $29,600 for up to 12 peo­ple. An expe­ri­enced Egyp­tol­o­gist trav­els with all Aber­crom­bie & Kent Nile River tours and with just 12 trav­el­ers on this ship, you’re sure to enjoy a per­son­al­ized jour­ney down the Nile.

For more infor­ma­tion, talk with your travel agent or con­tact Aber­crom­bie & Kent at 1-(800) 554‑7094.

—Andrea M. Rotondo for LuxurySafariExperts.com

Photo cour­tesy of A&K Egypt — Sarah El Akkad

If you’ve been plan­ning a trip to Egypt, you’ve prob­a­bly read a lot about the new Uni­world ship River Tosca that  sails the Nile River. She’ll be out of ser­vice from Feb­ru­ary 1–March 19, 2010, and here’s what the com­pany CEO is say­ing about it:

A Mes­sage from the Pres­i­dent & CEO of Uniworld

Dear Val­ued Uni­world Travelers,

There has been quite a bit of infor­ma­tion writ­ten about the River Tosca since it launched a cou­ple of months ago, and I wanted to take this oppor­tu­nity to per­son­ally give you an update on where things stand.

Over the last sev­eral years, we have seen a grow­ing inter­est in Egypt, which is a glo­ri­ous des­ti­na­tion. As a com­pany, we saw the need and oppor­tu­nity to pro­vide trav­el­ers to Egypt with a Nile River cruise ship that would be of a sim­i­lar high stan­dard as our ships in Europe. Uni­world com­mis­sioned the River Tosca with the goal that it would be one of the most lux­u­ri­ous ships to sail the Nile.

Unfor­tu­nately, we expe­ri­enced some unex­pected chal­lenges in intro­duc­ing the River Tosca and we are not happy with the cur­rent qual­ity of work­man­ship fin­ishes in sev­eral areas of the ship. The most obvi­ous exam­ples are the floors in the state­rooms, main stair­well and cor­ri­dors which were dam­aged and scratched dur­ing the instal­la­tion; the mosaic tiles in the restau­rant; and the paint and wood­work in the state­rooms. We have there­fore made the deci­sion to dry dock the ship for seven weeks to cor­rect the cur­rent defi­cien­cies. The ship will there­fore be out of ser­vice between Feb­ru­ary 1, 2010 and March 19, 2010.

We do have an alter­na­tive ship, the Miriam, which we will use while the River Tosca is dry docked. Uni­world has suc­cess­fully used the Miriam prior to intro­duc­ing the River Tosca and the ship is a good sub­sti­tute. The crew from the River Tosca – includ­ing the Hotel Man­ager, Exec­u­tive Chef, and Exec­u­tive House­keeper, all Uni­world employ­ees from our Euro­pean oper­a­tion, will be onboard the Miriam. We will also bring onto the Miriam some of the spe­cial ameni­ties cur­rently avail­able on the River Tosca, such as bed linens, robes, slip­pers, and bath prod­ucts. We will be offer­ing a com­pen­sa­tion pack­age to those clients sail­ing on the Miriam as we under­stand that some of our guests will be dis­ap­pointed with the ship change; how­ever, we will work very hard to ensure they still have a won­der­ful vaca­tion in Egypt.

We are also going to proac­tively reach out to our guests who are trav­el­ing prior to Feb­ru­ary 1 to update them on the sta­tus of the River Tosca.

This was a very dif­fi­cult deci­sion because we know that this will have an impact on our val­ued guests – some who have cho­sen to travel with Uni­world because they wanted to expe­ri­ence the new River Tosca. It is also a dif­fi­cult deci­sion because, even with the cur­rent defi­cien­cies of the ship, the over­all feed­back we have been receiv­ing from guests who have already trav­eled on the River Tosca is very pos­i­tive. The Cairo pro­gram, the Tour Man­agers, the excur­sions, the food, and the ser­vice onboard the ship have all been very well received. And of course the des­ti­na­tion itself is fab­u­lous. It is how­ever the right deci­sion for us to make.

Uni­world has built our very good rep­u­ta­tion today on being a very reli­able river cruise oper­a­tor and we are com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing our guests with a fan­tas­tic vaca­tion expe­ri­ence and value – in every region where we oper­ate. When we re-launch the River Tosca in March, we are con­fi­dent that we will achieve this com­mit­ment in Egypt.

After sev­eral years of suc­cess­fully launch­ing ships in Europe, the expe­ri­ence in Egypt has been a hum­bling one for me and the entire Uni­world team. I want to per­son­ally apol­o­gize to any of our guests who we may have let down and please know that we are work­ing hard to achieve our stated goal of oper­at­ing a lux­ury prod­uct in Egypt.

Kind regards,

Guy Young
President & CEO
Uniworld River Cruises, Inc.

Okay, British Air­ways won’t take you to Africa for free, but with a new pro­mo­tion they’ve announced with part­ner credit card Chase Visa, they will give you 100,000 bonus miles that can be used to travel to many amaz­ing African  gate­ways, including:

Egypt (Cairo, Hurghada, and Sharm el Sheikh)
Kenya (Nairobi)
Mau­ri­tius
Morocco (Mar­rakech)
Namibia (Wind­hoek)
South Africa (Cape Town, Dur­ban, Johan­nes­burg, Port Eliz­a­beth)
Tan­za­nia (Dar Es Salaam)
Uganda (Entebbe)
Zam­bia (Liv­ing­stone, Lusaka)
Zim­babwe (Harare)

So how do you get this prac­ti­cally free trip to Africa? By sign­ing up for an unprece­dented bonus mile deal: earn 100,000 miles with a new British Air­ways Visa Sig­na­ture Card from Chase.

Card Ben­e­fits

• receive 50,000 miles after your first purchase
• spend $2,000 within three months of open­ing your card and receive an addi­tional 50,000 miles
• earn 1.25 miles for each $1 spent
• earn 2.5 miles for money spent on BA purchases
• spend $30,000 in a cal­en­dar year and you’ll receive a 2-for-1 com­pan­ion award certificate
• $50 off a British Air­ways flight if booked before Decem­ber 31, 2009 (for travel before the end of 2010)

This promo is espe­cially entic­ing since British Air­ways offers what they call “House­hold Accounts.” This means you can com­bine miles with any­one liv­ing at the same address. That makes man­ag­ing miles SO much eas­ier! You’ll retain your own Exec­u­tive Club mem­ber­ship but your mileage bal­ances will be combined.

You may use British Air­ways miles on any OneWorld air­line, including:

Amer­i­can Air­lines
Cathay Pacific
Finnair
Iberia
Japan Air­lines
LAN
Malev
Quan­tas
Royal Jordanian

Other British Air­ways part­ners also include:

Aer Lin­gus
Alaskan Air­lines
Brus­sels Air­lines
Caribbean Air­lines
Mexicana

This British Airways/Chase Visa promo is def­i­nitely some­thing to look into, espe­cially if you’ll be trav­el­ing to Africa in the com­ing years. I know that’s how I’ll spend my miles! Apply for the card now.

—Andrea M. Rotondo for LuxurySafariExperts.com

There’s a new lux­ury travel com­pany offer­ing cus­tomized, upscale vaca­tions to Egypt: Travel2Egypt.

This endeavor is an off­shoot of Travelive.com, and pres­i­dent Panos Chal­vantzis explained why this new ven­ture is focus­ing on Egypt: “Egypt offers great value for money with five-star accom­mo­da­tions and excep­tional ser­vice. From its cul­tural and his­tor­i­cal trea­sures, to serene Nile Cruises, to beau­ti­ful beaches along the Red Sea, Egypt is a des­ti­na­tion that com­bines leisure and relax­ation with edu­ca­tional tours, his­tory and archeology.”

Travel2Egypt offers cus­tomized vaca­tions as well as six sug­gested itin­er­aries that com­bine Cairo stays with Nile River cruises, and Red Sea beach retreats.

For more infor­ma­tion, visit Travel2Egypt or call 1-(888) 377‑5483.

—Andrea M. Rotondo for LuxurySafariExperts.com