hi

the sauna is good and is in the health club and you dont need to make a booking as they are never busy trust me its a sauna outside mate but it has a nice cool breeze too.

Rajan whats the weather like in the evening (for a mard girl like me who is nearly always cold?!!!). does it go quite cool? did your lady need cardies or long sleeves in the evenings?

Rajan
What were the drinks like of you didnt upgrade - were the non-international brands ok?
Also, what did you think to the restaurants - did you try the italian and did you have to book in advance.
The bus that goes to Naam - does it run late if you want to go at night, or is it best to get a taxi.
Mosquitos - are there a lot around?
And did your mobile phone work?

Phew....thats enough to keep you busy for a while! Sorry to be a pain, just thinking of things the nearer it gets!!! 2 days and counting now!

hi everyone
i have been watching this site for a while now , but i have been too scared to post anything until now !
it's a great site ! love the posts from skully / kkazz /marg / spongebob / joe 90 /rajan87 /dsj37 /nice nic etc, etc .
i fly out on the 30th june from manchester and cannot wait .
i also have 3 kids like skully and kkazz (about the same age too )
it's good to see rajan87 had a good time , it puts my mind at rest !

maybe we will meet up and have a few jars ?
until then keep posting fantastic reviews !
all the best liz x

hi folks,

the weather in the evening is amazing with a nice cool breeze and no you dont need cardigans or long sleeves so please dont think of carrying extra weight. trust me you wont get to wear it. the drinks are local vodka , gin, but they do serve johnny walker red and black label whisky. you got your normal stella brewed id egypt. pepsi, seven up and miranda which is like fanta. and you got botteled water from egypt source in corporated by vittel so you can be reassured its good.

the italian is good but the day we were there had a bit of a problem. but you do have to reserve all the speciality restaurtants a day in advance.

the shuttle bus goes to naama bay on the hour and vice versa from naama to grand azure. the last bus is at 11.30 at night from naama.

the taxi from there to the hotel is only £5 so dont pay more than that.
and if you are using taxi from airport to grand azure its only £7. but they will ask more so please negoitate before you jump in.

in namma bay anything you buy, make sure only pay half of the asking price if they so no just walk off and he will ask you to pay whatever you want to. there are no mosquitos so please dont buy any stuff as we did and never ended up using it. luckily still got receipt from superdrug.

and the mobile do work definately know T mobile does and o2 as me and the wife both carried ours with us. dont know about the charges as will get the bill soon. when in egypt if you wana ring home add 0044 as a prefix.

hi nice nic,
i see your from manchester , are you a blue or a red ?
and do you like oasis ?

hi lizzscafe
i'm a big man u fan but i'm from a family of mixed reds and blues so theres always lots of tension during the footie season! i like some oasis stuff but its my bloke who's really in to them - he's going to see them at the dirty blues' ground on 2nd july. he likes them so much that he'd rather go there than go to london with me when i win live8 tickets!!
when are you off on your hols?
rajan thanks for all that information, i'm sure you've made a lot of people very happy with your positive feedback

nic

well i am going this sunday, thanks for all the comments over the last few days, like other people have said, it restores my faith in the hotel!

poor rajan, how many questions!!
i am going to ask only one question rajan!.... did your superior room come as normal or did you pay more when booking your holiday?

thanks
Glove1

...anyone flying out sunday from gatwick on Excel Airways??

Hiya Everyone

Well I finish work today - I'm off on Thursday and it cannot come soon enough.

I will post a full review on the hotel and the place when i get back for those of you going a little later on.

See ya soon

hi glove the room was standard and we didnt pay anything extra for it. glove i gather you are going by excel on sunday. i dint wana put you off but just so you are warned mate its the worst flight because i flew on sunday too. expected dep is around 1300 hrs but they dont have baggage handlers so the flight is delayed to normally 1430. and when you arrive there its nearly 2300 and by the time you get to azure its 0000 midnight.a suggestion go straight for your meal as restaurtant shuts at 1230. and when you come back to gatwick you arrive around 0100 hrs in the morning and honestly you have to wait for one hour again just to get your luggage again same problem with the baggage handlers. i am going to complain to excel airline about it. other than that mate it was a brillant holiday.

Hi Rajan

You mentioned local vodka and gin is there any local white rum as I only drink bacardi and coke?

Thanks Marg

Hi All,

got back on Monday night. Got quite a few photo's to upload, but a bit knackered at the moment.

Firstly, the upgrades. It is well worthwhile upgrading from your standard room to the Junior Suite, but personally, i wouldn't recommend upgrading the wrist band. The wrist band upgrade entitles you to the following extra: 1 free haircut, 1 free laundry, 2 of all Beer/pop/fruit juice/water in your fridge, breakfast in the exec lounge (waiter service instead of help yourself), drinks in the exec lounge over 24hrs without charge (there is a charge that can be levied in the lobby bar for 2am to 10am drinking), 1 free introductory pool scuba lesson with Werner Lau, 1 free face massage. Of all of these, we only used the free laundry and the mini-bar, plus breakfast (but we would have used the normal breakfast only it was further away)

TIP: Tip your maid, we tipped ours with about 200LE (£20) over the whole holiday and for this, he used to fold all our clothes back into the wardrobe, fresh towels etc.

TIP: If you only have a fridge in a standard room, use room service! They will deliver beers/pop/water for nothing (or they did for us!) and you can also get burgers/chicken sandwiches/chips etc from them for nothing. (this only applies from 10am to 12pm, there is a charge for late night stuff)

TIP: Lock you door at night, or else you can get an early morning house keeping visit! This is done by turning the lock at the back of the door handle. Also, you will get a telling off if you leave you patio door open during the day, as they cannot then guarantee you won't lose anything.

The Pools. We had a few problems around the main pool, the main one being that we were having to get up at 6am every morning to put our towels out to get a decent spot. If we waited past 7am, you ended up walking miles away from your room (you don't want this for reasons i'll explain later!). This did seem to get better later on though, but, i felt that a bit firmer management by the hotel to enforce the no reservation rule for sunbeds would have helped (christ, if you tipped the towel boys enough, they would reserve the sun beds for you!!). The waiter service was also a bit hit and miss, as mentioned above, where sometimes you did get the beer and others you didn't. The pools themselves though are immaculate. All three pools have swim up bars, but they were getting quite busy with a lot of kids hanging around them quite a bit.

The staff. The staff at the hotel were all very nice, although mostly male. They can sometimes be a bit 'rude' if you will, where if there was a girl sunbathing topless, needless to say that it was quite 'staff' busy in that area! But apart from that they were fine.

The Beach. Very nice, although you can't really just pile into the sea for a dip (there are cooling showers provided) as you have to get quite far out to get any real depth. There are quite a few jelly fish but at the moment they are harmless and you can brush pat them with ease (check with the reps or dive centre though, as i believe this can change during differen't seasons.)

The Restaurants: We found the food to be above average, but that was about it. The best food we had there was the 'Arabian Nights' restaurant. You can book 1 day in advance for the restaurants, but we were told you could only use them once a week each (we managed 3 times in the italian though without a problem). For lunch, you can either get sandwich/chips from the main pool, kebabs/pizza/salad from the tropicana restauruant near the beach (the best option in my opinion!) and also burgers/hotdogs/chips from the beach restaurant. The main restaurant also does a buffet you can use which is adequate also.

TIP: You can mix & match from the tropicana/beach restaurant, so fresh baked pizza & chip was a fave!

Misc: There is a shop on the beach, it sells beach shoes for 40LE (try bartering!) they are a must for snorkeling, which is also a must! It also sells sun cream, ice creams, inflatables etc.

Delhi Belly!: We both suffered from this, and it is also why i am so tired whilst writing this. I've just spent 8 hours in A&E here in the UK as my Girlfriend has a very serious bacterial water infection. She's been admitted and is currently on morphine as it's that painful. Don't let this put you off though, it's just a warning that things can get serious. If you do get a problem, go across the road to Sharms Pharmacy, they will sell you a broad spectrum intestinal antiseptic and also a 'Poo' blocker. This works far better at getting rid of the problem than Imodium/entrocalm/diacalm etc. If it lasts for longer than 2 days, let your rep know and also see the doctor (who is very, very good!). The doctor cost us about 700LE (£70) for a course of antibiotics, 2 consultations and a few other pills/medicine. I also suffered from the dreaded delhi belly, but not nearly as bad as the GF. Nearly every familly i spoke to over there had at least one person affected by this problem.

I'll upload all the pics and lots more info as soon as i can, just off back to bed to catch up on some sleep.

Parting words for now. ENJOY! Apart from the delhi belly, i would say it is the cleanest/friendliest hotel i have ever stayed at.

kefkef,
see you had a good holiday , sorry to hear about your girlfriend !
do you think that it is the bottled water perhaps ?
so suprised that so many people having deli belly , it's quite worrying actually ! as a lot of people have small children over there !
hope your gf is okay !
good review by the way , it's answered quite a few questions i suppose for many people !
cheers liz x

hi marg ,

i only drink ginger beer so it looks like it's going to be a dry holiday for us !

keep it real

see you all soon

Can anybody help me we fly out on Thursday 23rd June - (getting very excited now)

I have been told that i don't need to take any Malaria Tablets, but my partner has been told that he will have to take them has anyone else been told if they need to take any tablets.

Looking forward to the hol and love the site for the reviews

Might see some of you there

Hi Gemjas

No you dont need Malaria tablets ,there is a thread on vaccinations check it out and itll tell you what most people have been recommended to get by their doctors im sure no one has been advised to take malaria. Some people have been advised on a couple of different jabs but most have had the same ones.Ther is one place in Egypt which says malaria is present cant remember the name but its so far away from anywhere which we would be visiting that tablets are not needed.Ther maybe a web site address on the vaccinations thread that someone has posted which tells you what is needed if you scroll thruogh youll find it.

Debs

Ps ive just had my jabs and was not told malaria tabs either.

Have a read through this gemjas....

CLICK HERE

Philippa

Hi

Pippy to the rescue the link queen does it again!!
I thought there was a kind of goverment site telling officially what was needed as it did say somewhere in Egypt had malaria i remember the carrot asking Swiss .

Debs

Sorry Briar way here.