"We have recently returned from our holiday at Pickalbatros Jungle Aqua Park (Neverland) in Hurghada. Traveling with two young children, we chose this resort for its child-friendly reputation. While there is so much to love about this property, our experience was heavily impacted by a chaotic arrival and a serious safety failure that resulted in an injury to our baby. For these reasons, we have rated this stay 4/5
The Highlights: Exceptional Staff & Amenities
The absolute saving grace of this resort is its ground-level staff. The team members here are wonderful, incredibly warm, and they went out of their way to interact with our children and make us feel welcome.
We stayed in the 2000 block area in one of the bungalow rooms. Once we settled in, we found the location to be absolutely perfect—a fantastic, central spot where we could reach the main pool in minutes, and both water parks and Midway Street were less than a 5-minute walk away. Our housekeeping team was top-tier, keeping the room spotlessly clean and surprising the kids with a different, creative towel sculpture every single day.
The facilities themselves are top-notch. The pools are beautiful and perfectly suited for babies and toddlers, the entertainment team keeps the energy high day and night, and our children absolutely loved the rides at the Midway fairground.
We also want to give a massive shoutout to Osama in the Alfredo restaurant. Knowing our anxieties around meal times, he was brilliant every single evening, literally searching high and low across the restaurant to find a functioning highchair for us.
The Lowlights: Check-In Disarray & A Dangerous Safety Issue
1. Arrival and Check-In Chaos
Our holiday got off to a very stressful start. The check-in process was incredibly slow and disorganized. After a 20 minute wait, we were initially assigned a room that did not match what we had booked. After having to argue our case at reception, and wait another 30 minutes, we were escorted to a second room, only to find it completely uncleaned from the previous guests—there were dirty tissues in the bin, empty water bottles, and cigarettes left lying around. We were finally moved to a third room, but then had to wait over half an hour for a baby cot to be delivered. By the time our baby was finally able to go to sleep, it was around midnight. This was even more disappointing after staying at Pickalbatros aqua park Sharm last year, where from arrival we were in a satisfactory room with a cot within 25 minutes, so we're really surprised by this poor level of service at arrival.
2. Severe Safety Issue with Highchairs (Child Injury)
The most serious issue of our stay regards the restaurant highchairs. Across the entire hotel, the highchairs are severely poorly maintained. The vast majority of them are missing either their front trays, their safety straps, or both, making it impossible to secure a baby safely.
Tragically, our fears were realized when our 9-month-old baby fell completely out of a faulty highchair and landed directly on his head.
While the immediate restaurant staff (the waiters and chefs) were incredibly sympathetic and helpful, we were shocked by the initial response from upper management. Despite the injury being a direct result of the hotel's faulty equipment, management initially informed us that we would have to pay out of pocket to see the resort doctor. They did eventually do the right thing and agreed to cover the cost, and Georgia from Guest Relations was an absolute star. She escorted us to the clinic, helped us at the pharmacy, and checked in on us.
Final Verdict & Management Resolution
Ahead of our final day, we spoke with Guest Relations regarding our worries about managing our baby's recovery and cold compresses on checkout day. Management did step up here and provided us with a complimentary late checkout, which was an immense help to our family.
This resort has all the bones of a 5-star destination: the layout is brilliant, the water parks are incredible, and the frontline staff work tirelessly. However, hospitality requires a duty of care. Management urgently needs to audit, repair, or completely replace the highchairs across all dining sectors before another family goes through what we did. We would likely return here, but not before the highchair issues are addressed or our children are old enough to not need them."
