"We’ve just returned from an amazing stay at Pickalbatros Laguna Vista and honestly had such a lovely experience.
Cleanliness & grounds
The hotel is spotless. Our bungalow was cleaned to such a high standard every day, waters were always replaced, everything was tidied beautifully and the kids absolutely loved coming back to see what towel animal had appeared on the bed.
The same goes for the rest of the hotel – lobby, communal areas and restaurants were always immaculate.
There are constantly gardeners working around the resort too and it really shows. The grounds are beautiful and there’s such an eye for detail everywhere you look.
A special mention for Shady Sabry ❤️
Shady was our hotel communication/helper during the stay and genuinely deserves a special mention.
He WhatsApped us every day with the itinerary and was always there if we needed anything. Despite it being a huge, busy hotel, he would recognise us whenever he saw us and always stop to speak.
It sounds like a small thing, but he made you feel like an individual rather than just another guest in a massive resort.
Toward the end of our holiday I became unwell due to a medical condition and Shady was absolutely brilliant. He helped arrange for us to stay in our rooms later and offered room service and anything else that could make things easier for me.
Friendly, thoughtful and genuinely seemed to care. Huge credit to the hotel.
Food 🍕🍛
We ate mainly between Tagine, Culina and Soprano.
Our daughter is autistic and we found Tagine and Culina could sometimes get quite loud, but we discovered that sitting outside on the Soprano level was perfect for us. From there we could easily grab food from all three restaurants while sitting somewhere calmer and more comfortable.
The food across all three was lovely. There was genuinely something for everyone: meat, fish, rice, vegetables, pasta, salads and desserts at lunch and dinner, plus pancakes, continental options, meats, cheeses, omelettes etc. at breakfast.
I had the Indian-style curry several times during the holiday and absolutely LOVED it.
Soprano also has pizza, which is always a bonus with children.
My only extremely serious complaint… their own version of Nutella was absolutely not for me. 😂 I ended up buying actual Nutella from the Metro shop for an amount of money I’m choosing not to disclose.
Outside Tagine and Culina there are also grill stations serving things like chicken, fish and shawarma, with the meats changing on rotation. Definitely worth checking out.
Sidi Ali Grill 🔥
Sidi Ali Grill down near the beach was another highlight.
Rotisserie chicken, kofte, grilled chicken and loads more. Such a lovely experience and the food felt almost on par with going for an à la carte meal.
We didn’t actually do the à la carte restaurant during our stay because this scratched that itch perfectly.
One warning for parents of very selective eaters though: no chips! 😂 So if your child survives exclusively on beige food, plan accordingly.
Beach bar = picky eater heaven 😂
The beach bar was probably every picky eater’s dream.
Pizza, nuggets, chips and then rotating options including burgers, chicken and kofte kebabs, plus crepes and waffles.
Winner all round.
But honestly, what made this area for us was the staff. From the bar staff to the chefs, they were SO friendly, brilliant with the children and would do anything for you.
We never felt hovered over or pressured for tips either.
If you are friendly and polite with the staff, you genuinely get that kindness back tenfold. We tipped throughout the holiday and then gave some of the staff a larger tip at the end simply because we were so happy with the people who had basically become our holiday friends.
Entertainment 🎪
The kids’ disco is fun but very short – around 15 minutes – and I definitely think this could be improved with a few games or a slightly longer session.
Also, maybe it’s me being a snowflake, but one of the song choices had my head snapping around like 👀🤣 so perhaps the playlist could do with a quick review beforehand!
That being said, we LOVED the personalised Albatros song. It adds such a special bit of magic and the kids loved it.
The evening ice cream and popcorn is also such a nice touch – and it’s not rubbish ice cream either. Think KitKat, Oreo etc. The good stuff!
Circus night was INSANE. Absolutely packed, chaotic in the best way and so much fun for the children. Easily 10/10.
The fire show was good fun too, although don’t go into it expecting full-on fire breathing.
We’re not massive adult-party-evening people, so we normally disappeared after the kids’ entertainment rather than staying for the later nightlife.
Our bungalow 🏡
We stayed in a bungalow and it was much more spacious than we expected from the photos.
The air conditioning was AMAZING and the room became our midday escape when Egypt decided to remind us we were, in fact, in the desert. 😂
A massive bonus for us was being able to screen mirror our phones to the TV. Hotel TV options are usually pants, so being able to put something on for the kids in the evening was genuinely a 10/10 feature.
Pools, slides & beach 🏊
There are plenty of pools to choose from and the slides were a huge hit.
Some of our favourite areas were actually the quieter pools, including the one with the swan pedalos and the pool with the polo goals. These areas were much calmer – just bring your own ball if you want to use the goals.
The beach and jetty were lovely too. You can see fish swimming around you in the sea and there are life jackets available for jumping from the jetty.
The sea stays shallow for ages, which is fantastic with children, and the water was ridiculously warm. Can’t credit the hotel for that one though… thanks Mother Nature. 😂
Spa 🧖♀️
We booked the Cleopatra Spa package after speaking to some of the spa team around the pool.
They do approach guests around the pool to advertise treatments and, depending on who approaches you, a simple “no thank you” might need repeating once or twice. It wasn’t a major issue for us, but worth mentioning.
The actual spa experience was worth every penny.
Two adults booked and our two children were included free. We had the steam room, sauna, coconut scrub, face mask, jacuzzi and juices, and the children got to join in with all of it.
Then while we had our massages, the children were able to use the jacuzzi/pool supervised so we could actually relax.
As parents, that is priceless. 😂
Our daughter also had two half-up braids done at the salon. It cost around £20 including a hair wash and blow-dry, compared with around €80 we’d previously paid for virtually the same thing in Spain. Really impressed.
Excursions
Hassan from the excursion team was another lovely member of staff.
He helped us book a desert safari with a camel ride and wasn’t pushy at all. After booking, he would still stop and ask about our holiday and even offered to help us organise trips that weren’t part of their usual excursion packages.
Again, another member of staff who made the hotel feel really personal.
Overall
We had such a lovely holiday here.
The resort itself is beautiful, clean and full of things for families to do, but the biggest thing we’ll remember is the staff.
So many people went out of their way to make us feel welcome, remembered the children and genuinely seemed to care whether we were having a good holiday.
There are little things I’d tweak – mainly making the kids’ disco longer and possibly reviewing one or two playlist choices 😂 – but they are tiny points compared with everything the hotel gets right.
Between the pools, beach, slides, food, entertainment, beautiful grounds and genuinely lovely staff, we had a fantastic stay.
We would absolutely return. ❤️
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A few Sharm top tips 🇪🇬
💵 Tipping: If you want to tip, try not to use coins from your own country. Foreign notes such as dollars can usually be exchanged, but foreign coins are much harder for staff to turn into usable money. Small Egyptian notes are ideal.
📱 Download a currency conversion app: This was genuinely useful. It makes it much easier to check what you’re actually being charged in pounds before paying, especially when using card machines.
🛍️ Be careful with the shop directly outside the hotel: We didn’t have a great experience there. We found it expensive and on one occasion the amount shown on the card machine was wildly different from the price we thought we were agreeing to. I only caught it because I had the conversion app open. Definitely check the amount carefully before tapping your card.
🛒 Walk a little further for shops: If you turn right when you leave the hotel and head down the road, we found the staff in the shops there much friendlier. Keep going and you’ll eventually reach Metro, which was great for snacks, drinks and familiar bits. Things like an ice cream or Red Bull could work out at roughly 50p, compared with the £2.50-ish we’d expect to pay at home.
🚕 Getting around: We used inDrive, which works a bit like Uber, and found it incredibly cheap and easy for getting around Sharm.
🏛️ Sharm Museum: 1000% recommend visiting. We went independently and it was almost eerily quiet – I think there were only about two families in the whole place. Such an underrated trip and absolutely worth leaving the resort for.
😊 Manners go a long way: This applies beyond the hotel too. Be friendly, polite and respectful and you’ll generally receive so much warmth back.
🍫 Emergency home comforts: If you’re particular about certain foods, it’s easy enough to pick up familiar brands locally. Just maybe don’t ask me how much I paid for a jar of Nutella. 😂"
