NEWS / PRESS

The New York Times Magazine
THE SOPHISTICATED TRAVELER, part 2/ November 10, 1996
Winter escapes
Cruising to the Rescued Treasures of Nubia
By Elizabeth Peters

……….."The Eugenie was the first boat to cruise the Nubian Sea, as it is sometimes called, and it is certainly the handsomest. Externally, it resembles an old paddle-wheeler; each of the 54 staterooms has a private balcony, and the décor of the public rooms ranges from the tastefully opulent to the whimsical……………..
I had the Imperatrice suite, one of the two suites on the ship, which is purely gorgeous."

Financial Times
Weekend December 31/January 1, 1995
The forgotten desert lake
By Mark Nicholson

"But Lake Nasser is an odd, forgotten place. It yawns, glittering and incongruous, way off into the desert...the biggest man-made freshwater lake in the world, full of perch and crocodiles, but by man virtually uncharted in its 30 years. Eugenie, though, is its queerest fish. It is an elegant, white, perky-looking craft, 73m long with 50 cabins, each with its own balcony.....The whole decorated as if Terence Conran had designed a set for Death on the Nile....

Beneath a Nubian sun, a low tableau of distant, mysterious peaks and bluffs, hidden lagoons and virgin dunes glide by....
After a day's sailing grows the odd sense that this enormous empty expanse is a private lake for Eugenie and you....

Short guided tours at one of the stops create the fiction of an appetite for the uncharacteristically - for Egypt - good food at lunch.
Tea and Frank Sinatra in the lounge at five. A general evacuation into the roomy cabins for a snooze or perhaps a sauna or steam bath. Then dinner."

The Sunday Times
TRAVEL, 2 February 1997
The drowned world
By Anthony Sattin

……….."there was little chance that Nubia would have been drawn to your attention. Until now, that is. For two Egyptian brothers have launched a boat that cruises between Aswan and Abu Simbel and are putting Nubia back on the map……………..

After three days on the Eugenie, I was beginning to find the lure of this never-ending cycle irresistible as we spent our days in motion and our nights in consumption (for what would an Egyptian cruise be without significant servings of food?). So seductive was this routine of cabin and meal, sundeck and temple, the company of passengers and the solitude of the landscape, the desert to the side and the empty lake fore and aft, that it came as something of a shock, on the third night, to see lights ahead of us……
As we got closer, reality set in and I saw that these were streetlights on the road along the top of the dam."

DIE WELT
Welt Report, Mittwoch, den 27. April 1994
Eine Nil-Kreuzfahrt wie zu Agatha Christies Zeiten
Von Peter Schmalz

"Mustafa: "Wer hier mitfaerhrt, soll das gefuehl haben, Agatha Christie wohne nebenan." Die 300 Kilometer nach Abu Simbel gestaltet er zum Happening. Mit Dutzenden von Fakkeln laesst er Tempel und Festungsreste erstrahlen, den Passagieren an Deck wehen Aida-Arien herueber, die Ankunft in Abu Simbel ist abends, wenn die Ramses-Figuren im weichen Licht warm leuchten. "

The Christian Science Monitor
October 7-13, 1994
Paddle-Wheeler Sails Into History
By Deborah Pugh

"This offbeat adventure is ideally suited for the amateur or professional Egyptologist who wants relief from the crush around the ancient sites farther north in the Nile Valley. Here, one can explore monuments rarely seen by the public……………
The décor mixes the austere designs of ancient Nubia with the comfort of an English club, complete with antique furniture……………
Nubia is a beautiful region, potentially a powerful magnet for bird watchers and those simply looking for a restful holiday in exquisite surroundings."

EGYPT TODAY
The Dream Boat ,September 1994
By Lee Keath

"The cruise adheres to the theme that space is luxury, the idea that this entire empty land is at your service. The ship takes its passengers into the 'wilderness', but brings along an evening whiskey and a splendid brunch buffet….
The audience on deck applauds warmly… It's a unique show, but the Eugenie is a unique cruise."

Al-Ahram weekly
Travel
Monthly supplement, January 2005
'Painfully beautiful'
By Fatemah Farag

"This is a trip which takes you back in time………The Eugenie has all the grace of old world travel... And here I must veer off track and comment on the service. It was impeccable…we found the people who run and staff the Eugenie unfailingly friendly, obliging and helpful…………
No surprise then, when two days into our trip, one of my companions remarked that this cruise was the only five-star experience he had had which he felt was actually worth the money…. So I had to agree - it does not get much better than this."

Travel Today Arabia
January/ February 2005
Sailing the Nubian Sea
By Kate Durham

"The boat's klaxon sent waiters scurrying across the sundeck with trays of fruit juice cocktails. As we glided across the invisible line of the Tropic of Cancer, we lifted our glasses in a toast to the geographic milestone. 'Tropic' and Egypt don't usually come up in the same conversation, but there we were on the M.S. Eugenie, one day into our lake Nasser cruise…..
We were back to the Eugenie in time to clean up for the cocktail party, followed by the four-course dinner. The food on this cruise is extremely good, with a variety of salads, soups, entrees and an absolutely decadent dessert table….. That night, after the show, we dined by candlelight on the open-air deck as the boat cruised back and forth in front of the spotlit facades of Abu Simbel……
The Lake Nasser cruise definitely moves the experience up a few notches, and is one of the most relaxing ways to sample Egypt's out-of-the-way antiquities."