Yachtiano

Yachtiano is a 45.5-metre vessel built in 2024 — the youngest boat in the Egyptian fleet and the least like a classic safari boat. On paper she is a dive boat; in practice she is a small floating hotel: a six-metre pool jacuzzi for thirteen people with a glass wall set into the hull side, a spa, two restaurants, two bars with darts and air hockey, water slides, water skis and kitesurfing. The operator is Yachtiano Management, based at the New Marina in Hurghada, with a single vessel in the fleet.

The name needs explaining straight away, because it will otherwise confuse you. The hull carries Yachtiano in large Latin letters and, right beside it, “Ocean Dream R.S.” in Arabic together with registration number 1081. It is one and the same ship: Ocean Dream is her Egyptian registered name, Yachtiano the trading one. That is also where the ocean-dream filenames in the photo libraries come from, and the OCEAN DREAM · RED SEA lettering on the air hockey table. There is no second boat behind any of it.

The vessel has seventeen cabins and thirty-four berths — that is what the specification and the operator’s own text say. But not all of them are sold: the booking system shows thirteen cabins numbered 01–13 and twenty-six places, and across all sixty published departures the four plain category A twins on the lower deck never appear once. Count by the booking system: thirteen cabins, twenty-six guests. You can hear it on the dive deck too — the operator says he can take up to thirty divers and keeps a guide-to-diver ratio of one to eight.

The cabins are laid out by deck like a hotel. Lower deck — four A+ cabins (numbers 10–13), twin beds or a double at your choice, a standard window; this is the base category, the one the weekly price is calculated from, and the only one the operator will share between two same-sex guests. Main deck — four B suites (06–09) with a double bed and a panoramic window, a 250 euro per person supplement. First superstructure deck — four C suites (02–05) with a king size bed, a walk-out private balcony and a whirlpool bath in the bathroom, a 400 euro supplement. Top deck — the single D penthouse (01), fifty square metres with a dressing room, curved panoramic windows and its own jacuzzi on the balcony; the supplement is 1000 euro per person. Every cabin has a private bathroom, air conditioning, a safe and a hairdryer, and from A+ upwards a hot water station and a coffee machine.

Safety deserves a separate paragraph, because the boat has something almost nobody else does: in October 2025 the operator announced a recompression chamber installed on board. Add the ENOS system for locating lost divers, a fire alarm with foam extinguishers, CCTV, emergency exits from every deck and removable panoramic windows as a secondary escape route.

The money side is unusually simple for Egypt. The weekly price includes the fuel surcharge, return transfers from Hurghada airport, meet-and-assist at the airport plus lost luggage help, full board, soft drinks, a dive or kite package with tanks and weights, and nitrox at 29–32 per cent. Exactly one mandatory sum is collected on board in cash: a route supplement of 275 euro per person, the same on all four itineraries and in both 2026 and 2027, into which the operator folds permits, port fees, reef tax and marine park fees. The visa costs 30 euro through the operator, but you may equally get it yourself on arrival — he does not insist. He mentions crew tips nowhere at all: neither an amount nor an obligation. There is Starlink Wi-Fi on board, but it is paid — 15 euro per person and “subject to availability”.

Payment on board is requested in cash, euro or US dollars; cards are accepted with a 3 per cent bank fee.

She runs year-round out of Hurghada and back to Hurghada on four programmes. “Yachtiano Delux” is the signature mixed week: diving, kiting, snorkelling with dolphins, water skiing, wakeboarding and an island barbecue; it has no experience requirement at all, offers intro dives, and is the only Egyptian itinerary in our catalogue you can join with a whole family and with non-divers. “North” and “North & Tiran” are the classic north — the SS Thistlegorm, Ras Mohammed and Abu Nuhas, 22 dives and more in a week, requiring Advanced Open Water and 25 logged dives. “Kite North” is a kiting week around Abu Monqar, Tawila, Geisum and Ashrafi, for which the operator describes the level in a single word, “advanced”.

Two further programmes — “Brothers, Daedalus & Elphinstone” and “North & Brothers” — sit in the operator’s itinerary menu, but not a single departure is scheduled for either in 2026 or 2027. If the Brothers and Daedalus are what you want, this boat does not currently run them.

Practical points. Check-in from 17:00, the first night alongside at the New Marina, departure around 8 a.m. the next morning; check-out at 10:00. The operator reserves the right to spend the last night in a 4-star hotel rather than on board, and to change the departure and arrival port if the vessel’s schedule requires it. A trip is confirmed once twelve full payers are booked — if the group does not fill, the operator may cancel free of charge up to four weeks before the start. Single occupancy costs 60 per cent on top of the cabin price.