Simon Willison’s Weblog

Nile Cruises: Does the “Oberoi Shehrayar” actually exist?

6th October 2010

My answer to Nile Cruises: Does the “Oberoi Shehrayar” actually exist? on Ask MetaFilter

Yeah, that’s the site he showed us I think. I’m leaning towards “bog standard Nile Cruiser adopts confusing name to try and get ahead of the rest” as the explanation at the moment. There are 270 cruisers on the Nile, after all.

Then at 11:54:

Another data point: http://www.luxurynilecruisers.com/tariff.htm is one of the top hits on Google for that ship... but the price list hasn’t been updated since 2007. Most of the reviews I’ve found are from years ago as well, I don’t think I’ve found one dated 2010 or 2009 yet.

Then at 11:56:

And another thing... most of the photos on this website (which he showed us) actually 404 if you click on them: http://www.safariegypt.com/egypt_nile_cruise/oberoiShehrayar/photos/Photo_01_OberoiSherayar.htm

Then at 14:44:

Update: we’ve seen the boat now, so it definitely exists! As far as we can tell it’s an ex-Oberoi boat, now operated by a different company (Miser travel). It looks like they’ve taken the “Oberoi” part of the name off the boat now (there are some faded areas on the side of the ship that look like they might have once held those letters) and don’t seem to be marketing it as anything other than the M/S Shehrayar.

We’ve gone ahead with the booking.