"Safari" is doing three different jobs in Red Sea tourism, and Hurghada is where the confusion is worst. Search for "diving safari Hurghada" and you get desert quad-bike trips, week-long liveaboard boats, and ordinary day trips with the word bolted on for the algorithm. Here is what each one actually is.
Desert safari — no diving involved
In our own catalogue, "Safari" is an activity category and it means the desert: quad bikes, jeeps, camels, Bedouin camps under the Eastern Desert sky. It is a good day out and it has nothing to do with a tank of air. If a "desert safari" result showed up when you searched for diving, that is why.
Liveaboard safari — a boat you sleep on
In diving specifically, a "safari" or "liveaboard" is a boat you live aboard for several days or a week, diving three to four times daily and sleeping on board between sites. It is how divers reach the remote southern reefs and the offshore pinnacles that a day boat cannot get to and back from in one day — Elphinstone at length, the Brothers, Daedalus, and reefs well south of Marsa Alam.
We sell liveaboards on request rather than as instant bookings. Tell us your dates, group size and experience on the liveaboard safari page, and we come back with the boats that are free that week and a real quote. Everything else in our catalogue is day trips and multi-day packages that return to your hotel every night.
What we actually sell: day boats and multi-day packages
Every day trip and package on this site sails out in the morning and comes back the same evening — you sleep in your own hotel bed, not on the boat. The "safari" feeling — several days of diving, different sites, one continuous trip — comes from booking a package rather than single days:
- 2 dives, 1 day: €39 (Hurghada) or €80 (Marsa Alam)
- 4 dives, 2 days: €83 (Hurghada) or €151 (Marsa Alam)
- 6 dives, 3 days: €121 (Hurghada) or €209 (Marsa Alam)
- 8 dives, 4 days: €156 (Hurghada) or €263 (Marsa Alam)
- 10 dives, 5 days: €191 (Hurghada) or €322 (Marsa Alam)
- Up to 20 dives over 10 days: Hurghada packages run to €369
A different reef every morning, the same boat and crew, home for dinner. For most travellers on a one- or two-week holiday, this is the practical version of a "diving safari" — all the variety, none of the logistics of living on a boat.
What about "Elba Reef"?
If you searched for this alongside "safari": Elba is not a site in our current catalogue, and we would rather say so plainly than list something we cannot brief you on properly. Send us the dates through the request form and we will tell you honestly whether we can arrange it.
Which one should you book?
- One or two weeks, staying at a hotel: a multi-day day-boat package. Browse packages.
- Serious about reaching remote offshore reefs and have the extra budget and days: ask us about a liveaboard safari.
- Want a day off the boat entirely: that is the actual desert safari — quad bikes and a Bedouin dinner, no wetsuit required.
Whichever it is, tell us which one you meant when you ask — "safari" alone gets you three very different quotes.
