I do not want a holiday camp atmoshere with party games and dressing up as Egyptians or any other naff entertainment.

Well, im not sure a Nile cruise is for you then! There may be boats that dont do that sort of thing but i dont know of any. Participation is not mandatory. What might be "naff" to you might not be to someone else. There are smaller boats that possibly fall in to the specialist category and even felluca boat holidays which are very small boats where you literally sleep under the stars. Im not sure what sort of standard entertainment you are looking for? The Rolling stones or Coldplay perhaps? As i said an Egyptian cruise may not be for you lol.

I'm fairly certain that most of the cruise boats have one night on board where you can dress up as an 'Egyptian' and play party games etc., but it's not mandatory so you don't need to take part if you don't want to.

You might want to look at a dahabiya cruise, but I can't comment at all on them as I've never done one of those and can't say what, if any, entertainment they do. However, there are a couple of threads currently running on the forum about them, so it may be something you'd like to look into.

Check out the Voyages Jules Verne boats....maybe a tad more expensive but well worth the extra

I have been on NIle cruises with anything from nine to ninety-six passengers on board and, whether the cruise lasted three, seven or ten nights, there was ALWAYS a party night. However, as has been pointed out already, attendance is not compulsory - I either sat out on deck (you are unlikely to be the only one not partying) or went to bed early.

Note also that the Manager goes through the passports (or so I understand) , noting any forthcoming birthdays during the trip so that the Birthday Boy (or Girl) may be surprised after dinner by some of the crew processing around the dining room, playing musical instruments, before the presentation of the Cake. If any passengers will be celebrating an anniversary (for example) they may well request something similar on their special day. It is just a bit of harmless fun and does not take long - but it would be churlish to refuse a small slice of cake.

I've just read your post again Denise, and forgot to mention that you don't need to dress formally either on Nile cruises - they are not like the ocean liner ones at all. Smart casual is fine for dinner so unless you really want to dress up in a posh frock, you don't have to do that either.

We went on a Nile cruise 3 years ago and absolutely loved it - so much so that we're taking my Mum & partner in December as we really want them to experience it. We were on the Emilio Domina Prestige which was lovely but when we walked through the others (when docked to get to shore) they all seemed nice - although can't comment on the bedrooms/food/cleanliness. Most seem to have about 70 rooms, I did notice the smaller boats seem to be more expensive.

We're on Ms Magic this time on an all inclusive basis - alcoholic drinks are quite expensive so you might wish to consider that option. Even if you don't drink much they are about £5 each (they were in 2009) and it soon adds up if you have wine with dinner, a cocktail afterwards and a drink lunchtime/during the day. It's better than worrying what your bar bill is going to be at the end if you like to have a few drinks.

They had entertainment nights but you don't have to join in. Some of the evenings we watched and they turned out to be good fun and other nights we outside on the deck.. By about 10pm most people have gone to bed because of the early starts.

The Egyptian night is just one might and you might be surprised how much you enjoy it and get caught up in the atmosphere of it all. If not then its not a compulsory thing and easily skipped.

I didnt really fancy "walking like an Egyptian" or being wrapped up in paper toilet paper to look like a mummy, so chose to have a quiet drink on deck and an early night , It certainly didnt detract from the enjoyment of the cruise