Nile cruise, dahabiya or felucca?
They are three different holidays that happen to share a river, not three price points for the same one. Choose on four things: how many people are aboard, where the boat is physically allowed to moor, how much of the day you control, and whether there is a bathroom.
The difference is not the cabin
Almost every comparison of these vessels is written about interiors, and interiors are the least interesting difference. What actually changes your week is draught, mooring rights and the Esna lock — three unglamorous things that decide what you see.
Gebel el-Silsila is the clearest case. It is a sandstone gorge and quarry where much of the stone for the great temples was cut, it is genuinely worth an hour, and a large cruise ship cannot tie up there. That single constraint is most of what people are buying when they book a dahabiya.
What "sailing" actually means here
A dahabiya is a sailing vessel and much of the appeal is that it sails. It is also true that on this stretch of river the wind is unreliable and the schedule is not: a boat that must reach Luxor on Thursday will be moved by other means when the wind does not arrive. Tugs are common. Engine assistance is common.
Neither of those is a scandal. Being surprised by them on day two is the problem. So we do not print "sails the whole way" on any vessel unless somebody has verified it, and where an operator says it we label it as their statement.
A felucca is the honest one on this point: one sail, no engine, and when the wind fails you drift or you wait. Nobody is pretending otherwise, which is part of why the multi-day trip suits some people completely and others not at all.
The bathroom question, asked plainly
A multi-day felucca usually has no toilet aboard. You go ashore. You sleep on the open deck under blankets, and so does the crew. For some travellers that is the appeal and for others it is a trip they will spend three days enduring.
The failure mode is not the boat. It is being sold rustic arrangements as luxury, and this site will not describe a felucca that way.
So which one
First trip to Egypt, ten days for the whole country, temples explained without arranging anything: take the cruise, and do not book it expecting sailing or solitude. Couples or small groups who want the river itself to be the point and will pay more per night for fewer people: dahabiya. Anyone at all, for an hour at sunset from the Aswan corniche: felucca, and it is the best cheap thing in this city.
Downstream, Aswan to Luxor, for most people. It is usually a night shorter, and it builds — you start with the smaller southern temples and end at Karnak, which is the right order for a first visit.
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