Hi Lesley
Well i can recommend either of the Baron hotels, lovely beach, also the new Thomson Sensatori, i stayed at the Royal Azure in sept and apart from it being large (for me)
the food was very good so long as you eat in the A La Carte restaurants, also quite a bit of life outside only a few mins by taxi, Naama Bay is 25 mins away and so long life doesnt overwhelm you it is a great little place with loads going on.
But do have a look at all the reviews both on here and Trip Advisor.
Phyll

Thanks Phyll

I did see the Baron but not sure which one. Someone also recommended Hilton Sharks Bay to me, however they are possibly staying at Tropicana Grand Azure next. I have also found Sierra which looks quite good because you can have AI drinks in two of the bars in Soho Square.

Baron is a bit pricey at £626 for a week. I'm looking for around £500 probably or under. I'm not sure how likely that is though. I'm not totally fixed on price, it's just what I think is reasonable to pay for a week away...

Hi Lesley

I think its really hard to get a good hotel in Sharm for £500 per person for a week, dont know if its cos its a long flight and maybe a big part of the cost is bound up in that. I was looking on various different tour operators sites and most were coming up at near £600 no matter how much I messed about with dates etc.

Sometimes Taba Heights, Marsa Alam, Hurgardha, Dahab etc come up a bit cheaper but Sharm always seem to be a bit more.

Doe

Hi Lesley

Package tour you are looking to be well over £500 and probably a bit over £600

Just out of interest I took a look this morning for you at doing flights and hotel individually and this is what I came up with on my first search using Lowcostholidays.com

I chose 27th Jan (some earlier dates were cheaper)

Thomson Charter Flight Glasgow - Sharm - Glasgow £324 (including Luggage)

5* Royal Albatros Moderna - All Inclusive 7 nts £169

Total £493 Per Person

The chosen 5* hotel above was certainly not the cheapest available, you would have to include a transfer cost but these work out very cheaply in resort.

There are many other options available re choice of hotel / board etc and many other companies that you can look at so you can price flight / hotel individually, you can also book your flight with one company and your hotel with an other (eg the above hotel might be cheaper with another company)

If you are willing to book this way you should be able to get just what you are looking for.

Check these to start you off

http://www.co-operativetravel.co.uk/cheap/last-minute-holidays/

http://www.lowcostholidays.com/

http://www.sunshine.co.uk/

http://www.holidayhypermarket.co.uk/Late-Holidays

http://www.dealchecker.co.uk/cheap-holidays.html

http://www.ulookubook.com/

http://www.onthebeach.co.uk/

http://www.travelrepublic.co.uk/

If they are not enough there are plenty more if you do an internet search

Good Luck
Graham

Ps If you don't already have insurance buy it separately not one via a holiday / tour operator as it will work out much cheaper that way.

Thanks Graham.

Prices seem to be fluctuating. I was looking at 24th January, and had the following prices from the Thomas Cook website:-

Sierra Resort Hotel (Sharks Bay) £480 (was £449 last week though)
Baron Palms £626
Hilton Sharks Bay £520 (was £500 last week)

I can't seem to beat those prices with the likes of lowcostholidays. I wonder if Thomas Cook have booked out rooms and need to shift them, or maybe they bump their flight prices up when selling separately (by the third parties).

For example, there's Park Inn AI has been £395, which is only about £60 or so more then flight only. I'm not sure they could really manage to give you an AI hotel for that price for a week!

I'm thinking maybe over xmas there will be some discounts on, maybe bookings will be a bit slow. However if the cold weather keeps up everyone might be wanting to get away to the sun!

Hi Lesley

Going on my own experience I would be careful on really popular hotels like the Hilton Sharks Bay.

Last year I was watching a holiday to the Red Sea Holiday Village for some weeks waiting for the price to fall down. Got to about 4 weeks before I wanted to travel and it disappeared off of the First Choice web-site, so I rang them up and every flight from Gatwick had gone and I had to travel from Birmingham (I had already committed to the time off work so wasn't flexible on dates and really wanted the hotel) which cost me me that having booked sixweeks before due to extra fuel and overnight hotel. Doh!

The prices you have for the sierra and HSB dont seem to bad to me.

Its not so bad if you are flexible on dates or havent got a fixed hotel you want.

We have booked to go to Sultan Gardens at the start of Feb. Total price £1040 including upgrading to a junior suite. We used http://www.flightline.co.uk/ and have used them several times.

Thanks for that. Tried flightline, prices looked ok then I realised it didn't include 2 cases and then it was the same or a little more then the first choice website (can prob also get quidco on there).

I'm now looking at Coral Sea Resort at about £440 each. There is also Reef Oasis which I think looks fab but it's well into the £600s.

Still not quite sure, so staying patient. There seems to be flight availability with both Thomson and Thomas Cook, so hopefully that won't be an issue.

Reef Oasis Blue Bay was very good, just returned. good food, very clean, excellent. Better than Tropicana Grand Azure

Well, I've finally booked, after changing my mind again!

We're going to Club Magic Life in Nabq Bay with Thomsons (package), £1092 for both of us which I felt was a really good deal. Includes priority transfers, 23kg of luggage and I really like the reviews on this place. Sounds like there's some imported alcohol available as part of the all inclusive, and that the tipping is done via boxes around the hotel, which might make the service more genuine. I'm not keen on the idea of the advance tipping that seems common. I'm not saying I don't want to tip, but I'd rather enjoy good service than have to bribe for it.

Well, really going to be getting all the info together shortly, so if anyone has stayed here I'd love to ask some questions...

Excellent news that you've booked...

I did a search on the site and found numerous topics you might want to read if you haven't yet.

Here's a link to the search results.
http://www.holidaytruths.co.uk/search.php?keywords=Club+Magic+Life&terms=all&author=&sc=1&sf=all&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search

Hope this helps

Van

Glad to hear you have finally found something that you like at a good price

Thanks both.

There's a lot of posts about the Club Magic Life in Bodrum, but doesn't seem to be any replies to questions on the Sharm one. There's a lot of reviews etc on TA, so I've used that for my info so far. The hotel is rated number 5 in Sharm on there, so hoping it is really good. Reviews also say there are some international brands in the bars on AI.

I'm just a bit surprised no one on here seems to be talking about it, it's got 500 rooms so is a decent size. Hope the weather warms up a little though, it's only forecasting about 23 for the next 10 days. Seems to be fairly reliably sunny though which is good. I just need to think about what clothes I need to take, since it looks chilly in the evenings.