"I stayed here with my husband for 11 nights from 10th May. The hotel grounds & out to the beach are all flat, which is good if you have any walking issues. There are only stairs up to the restaurant.
Our room was located in the centre of the resort. We did get lost a couple of times due to everything looking the same. We had a ground floor room, there was only one floor above us. The room itself (deluxe) was quite spacious. Two double beds & lots of storage space. Walk in waterfall shower, safe, tv, (one news channel), fridge & kettle. Plenty of bottled water left every day. We never heard any noise from above or either side of us. Cleaned daily by the lovely Mahmoud. We see him every day. He always chatted to us & left us lovely towel animals or hearts and petals on our beds. Thank you.
There were not many beds around the pool but we always found somewhere & you don’t have to get up at 6am to reserve them. Beach towels are free and you can change them as often as you like. The beach beds were comfy, but some days the wind was so strong we couldn’t stay there as we were getting sand blasted. You can get a camel ride along the beach with the lovely friendly Oscar.
The entertainment team were always about, they are very active, happy and friendly. They didn’t bother you if you didn’t want to join in the fun. But you are constantly bothered by people trying to sell you trips/massages etc. We did put up a red flag on the umbrella notifying that we didn’t want to be bothered, but some would get annoyed as they pay to be based at the hotel & are not allowed to talk to us. We were there for a much needed break and if we wanted a massage or pedicure we would go & ask for one.
The staff here are AMAZING. They run around all day making sure we had drinks. They move your sunbeds for you, put your towels down, your umbrella up. They are happy to do this, even in the heat & it was so very hot. A very special thank you to Emad for looking after us so well. He was absolutely great. Such a nice guy & happy in his work. Also thank you to Salah and all the pool guys, Ali from the al a carte restaurants, where the food was good (delicious pizza) & Mahmoud in the restaurant who chatted with us. Everyone works so hard, but all take the time to be polite & ask if you need anything.
All the food was beautifully presented at all meal times. But for us the food was a big let down. It was always the same. I admit that I’m a fussy eater, but my husband not so. We never went hungry but for example, there were BBQ’d kofta kebabs twice a day, every day. To the guy who cooked, I salute you. He cooked outside on the balcony in the blazing sun, the heat was incredible. Lots of stews. All the chicken or turkey was very dry. Only see mayonnaise a few times and the butter tastes of cheese.
There were a lot of children always running around unaccompanied or being pushed around the restaurant in high chairs, it was beyond a joke sometimes. The desserts looked good, very pretty, but tasted very bland. There was no ice cream, which was disappointing, but there was a poor substitute at the pool bar. I thought it was awful, strawberry or mango flavour, it had a very plastic taste.
The evening entertainment, which was outside was not good. Mainly just singers, they were awful. We see a couple of dance shows and a fire show which were ok, but some major improvement needs to be done here. We didn’t stay till late as the heat in the evenings was intense & the passive smoking we endured was unpleasant.
The hotel grounds were maintained to a high standard. The gardeners do a great job and always said hello to us.
We did a buggy/quad safari trip which we booked with a guy within the hotel. We were collected from the hotel and driven to a secluded location about 20 minutes away. The driver was a maniac and frightened the life out of us. The safari itself was ok. But we had to stop so many times for them to take photos of us, which is something that we didn’t want, or ask for. I took my own photos. When we got back they tried to sell us the photos for 80 euros! We said no. So it dropped to 70 euros. They would send them on a link to our WhatsApp. They were very intimidating, but we never asked for photos to be taken, they took about 80! We were wearing a full balaclava, could have been anybody. We refused to pay. We couldn’t wait to be picked up, even though the ride home was going to be scary. We did complain to the rep & he was very apologetic and said he would look in to it as 70 euros was far too much to pay. He did and came back to us with an offer of 25 euros. We still declined.
The hotel has nothing around it at all, only a couple of rip off shops at the front of the hotel. Its all hotels, half built hotels and piles of rubble.
In all we enjoyed our time here & totally relaxed. The staff make this hotel."
