Well I figure some of the people on this site are going to hate me for what Im about to write, but I am just giving my honest opinion, For all the people who have never been to Sharm before please dont worry, and my advice to you is to go and enjoy your holiday and make your own mind up. We have been to places before that have had terrible reviews and Iv spent the best part of 6 months beforehand fretting about it only to find out when we got there that everything was fine and we loved the place.
So here goes,
Left for Sharm on 2nd June for 2 weeks AI at the Dreams Beach resort. Flight was on time and uneventful. Just before landing the cabin crew announced that when we get off the plane to make sure we have our passports, immigration cards and $18 for a visa.
After a short bus trip we are hearded into a Thomas cook que and told to stand in line with documents ready. I asked the rep what we were standind in line for to which he replied Visa! Visa! Visa! I told him we didnt need one we were Sinai only, he insisted that yes we do and to stand in line, again I said WE DONT NEED A VISA SINAI ONLY and flipped my passport to the taba stamp from our last visit. People in the line started asking why we didnt need a visa and as I started to tell them we were yanked out of the line and taken to passpoert control where we got pushed to the front by the rep and had our passports stamped and out the other side in a flash. Guess they didnt want everyone else on the flight refusing to buy Visas.
Waited over an hour for our luggage and then ran the gauntlet between terminal buliding and coaches hanging onto our suitcases like grim death while porters tried pulling them off us. A brief 15min drive and we were at the Dreams Beach.
Check in was chaotic, people arriving, people leaving, luggage everywhere. Finally got our key (yes and old fashioned yale lock key not the credit card type) and found our room. All rooms are in blocks (clusters) and there are an awful lot of them. The place didnt look how I anticipated, It was very much like a 1950's holiday camp. Paint and plaster peeling off walls, paths dirty with spilt paint and bird muck.
Got into the room (ground floor) took one look and just burst into tears. The room was tiny, 4 beds rammed next to each other with no space in between, so we were all effectivley sleeping in one big bed. Place didnt just look tired and frayed at the edges it looked down right desperate. The mini bar didnt work and neither did the t.v. although there were 4 of us we only had 2 bath towels in the bathroom. the hot water didnt work. The view from our balcony was the back end of another cluster of rooms and a bit of the car park. My husband was furious as he had ordered flowers chocolates and champagne to be in the room as a suprise for me on arrival but there was nothing.
We also discovered that we were going to be unable to sit on the balcony or leave the patio door open for more than 2mins or we were infested with ants. My husband had to get out of bed in the morning and kill the cockroaches first so the kids and I could get out of bed. How the hell Thomas cook get away with rating the hotel as 4+ star is beyond me.
We asked to move rooms but were told the hotel was full and they had nowhere to put us. Reported all the problems and were told someone would be along to fix them. After 4 days of reporting the same problems everyday the workmen eventually turned up.
The sunbed situation as I had read in previous posts was a joke (albeit not a funny one) beds crammed next to each other without and inch to spare like sardines. If you didnt get up at 7am to put your towels out then forget trying to get a bed for the rest of the day, and my idea of a holiday is NOT having to get up before 9am.
The pools were ok, heated and had a great waterslide which the kids loved. The only problem was the constant blasting of music all damn day. You couldnt sit peacefully and read a book, the noise was ridiclious. People were constantly walking round the pool hassling you to go on glass bottom boat trips, book the bedouin night, have a massage, I just felt like screaming leave me the hell alone.!
FOOD & DRINK - I never want to see pizza and chips again in my life. The pool bar served it every single day for lunch. And flan, lots of flan, lots and lots and lots of flan, I have nightmares about flan.
You could eat in the main buffet restraunt for lunch and have........pizza and chips. salad, and they had a pasta station which was really quite good so we ate there.
Evening buffet was repetative, rice, pasta, potatoes salad and flan. Not very nice at all. By far the best place to eat was the pool bar which transformed itself into an a al carte restraunt in the evening. We actually had some really good food there and it was nice to have waiter service and not fight your way through the cattle market.
Breakfast was ok, only 2 choices of pastries and 2 choices of bread. Yoghurt was not in individual pots but huge glass bowls. Fruit consisted of sliced oranges. The pancakes were made fresh and were delicious, they also had an egg station where you could get fresh made omelettes etc.
The hot snacks at night in the lobby were a joke, one small tray on anemic sausages and bread rolls but no butter. Dont waste your time.
STOMACH UPSETS - both my husband and I lost the last 4 days of our holiday due to mummy tummy, Immodium did nothing to ease it and we ended up paying £50 each for 4 days to have the doctor give us an injection. Thank god the kids didnt get it, and thank you Steve and Netty for taking our girls to the pool with you and to eat for the last 4 days and looking after them so well while we were stuck in the room sick.
Drinks - You could only have locally produced spirit which all tasted the same and all was like paint stripper. We stuck to the beer, which they pour from draught and serve in half pint plastic glasses, but they only half fill them. There was nowhere to sit in the evening and have a drink. The lobby bar was a joke, just a bar stuck in reception with only one poor guy serving and a que of 20 people waiting. It reminded me of an airport lounge. You couldnt use the pool bar as that was now a restraunt, and they had a terrace outside main restraunt with chairs tables and a singer but no bar. whats the point in that? The only place left to sit and have a beer was the bedouin tent which would have been great if they didnt turn it into a disco after 9pm and blast out gangsta rap till your eardrums burst. The coke etc the serve is like syrup. they dont have drink stations where you can go and help yourself, you have to que for everything.
Thomsons and Thomas cook ahve the monopoly on the hotel, it was 90% british, 5% german and a few dutch and italian. No russians thank god!
When I spoke to the rep about the visa situation in the airport and that they were wrong for making guests pay for visas that were un necarrsay the reply I got was, Well, if they havent got a visa they cant book trips, says it all in my opinion.
Near the end of the first week some friends we made told us they had been to the sister hotel( dreams vacation) and that it was quiet, no music blasting, loads of room loads of spare sunbeds and the food was much better. We spent the rest of the holiday using the facilities down there. I had read in a previous post that you cant use your all inclusive band down there but you can, we ate and drank there everyday and even got our pool towels from there.
SNORKELLING, this was one of the things that we had been most looking forward to and one of the things that dissapointed us the most. Not because the fish werent breathtakingly beautiful, but because of the destruction that people are causing to the very fragile enviroment. There is no control whatsoever about people in the water, people were swimming far to close to the reef, kicking off huge chunks of precious coral, feeding the fish with bread rolls, and basically having no respect for the delicate balance of their surroundings. Unless there is some form of regulation or conservation programme put in force then I believe the entire house reef will be dessimaited and dead within 5 years if things continue they way they are going.
Namma Bay - well what can I say? I guess I should start with the positives. There are some fab restraunts and I would recommend to people who dont know whether to go b&b or AI to go b&b and eat out everynight. We had a great meal at the chinese next to the hilton fayrouz ( we all really liked that hotel) we had a grat indian at the camel bar tandoori, the lebanese restraunt was good and we also ate at the buddah bar. ( beware in th budda bar that after 11.30pm they class it as a nightclub and drink prices double)
We also liked the beach front prom walk between the movenpick past the hilton and down to the marriot. It was peacful, we were never hassled down there and it was nice to stop off at all the different hotels for a look around and a drink along the way.
The strip itself was not for us at all, we were hassled all the time, and I often felt quite scared and intimmidated. The girls were terrified of going into shops after a bad experience of being dragged in one and then having the door locked behined us. they only let us out when my hubby came to find us and statred banging the door down. If it wasnt for the eastern music the smell of shisha and the extortionate drink prices you could be in benidorm. The building that is going on is on a vast scale, Im not sure how the infrastructure is going to support all the extra people. Russian prostitues and drug dealers were everywhere. my husband was offered women and drugs even with me and the kids standing there! The place was like a mini Vegas "wanabee"...... In the desert, full of neon ights, plastic palm trees and casinos. I bet within 2 years there is a hotel built in the shape of a pyramid and a shpinx. To be truthful I found the whole place to be tacky, But thats just my opinion, please dont hate me for it.
To top it all off on our last day at check out we were busy handing in room keys etc and the security guards took our luggage to a store room. It was then that I noticed he had also taken my hand luggage, I asked my hubby to get it back as it had passports etc in. When I opened the bag my purse was open and all the cash I had in it had been stolen. 200.00 LE and £120 sterling. The bag had only been out of mu site for less than 3mins. I was devastated. The hotel said they would search all the staff but did nothing to try and find my stolen money. My hubby insisted that they call the police and they refused. The thomson rep turned up and I told him what was going on and to my suprise he just waved a hand said no no no no need for poilce just fill this form out I will sign it and claim off your insurance when you get home. I had to hold my hubby back from almost killing him. I have never been so glad to get on a flight home in all my life. It has to be our worst holiday ever.
The sad thing was everyone on our coach was saying what an awful place it was and what a terrible time they had, they all left with such a negative view of Egypt and its people. Im so glad that we had such a wonderful time in Taba and had the benefit of knowing how great Egypt can be, how wonderful and kind the people are.
We will never go to Sharm again, its just not what were after in a holiday, but we will definatley return to Egypt, but we will stick to quiet places such as Taba or Soma bay. You live and learn as they say.
I have been as honest and objective as possible, and have tried my best to give the positives as well as the negatives, I have just written it as I found it, Im sure plenty of you will disagree with things I have said , and Im sure plenty of people loved the hotel and loved Sharm. So please dont hate me and chase me off this forum
Any specific questions dont hesitate to ask, I will try my best to answer them with an open mind an open heart and open eyes.
