Where do you start with the Hawaii!!!!

I travelled with 2 other families, 10 people in all consisting of 6 adults and 4 children with 2 of the children under 4 years old.

On arrival at around 9:30pm we tried to check in. The reception staff asked us to wait and at that point we were taken off by the excursions manager. We thought to sort our rooms out but instead we were told how important it was that we attend the meeting at 10 am the next day. We were tired and just wanted to unpack, get some food and have an early night! After waiting around an hour, the restaurant had closed and we still had not been shown our rooms!

We started to sense something was wrong! We went back to reception but were told to wait, but by this time the kids were hungry and tired and our moods were darkening. We eventually were told that our rooms were taken and the hotel was full even though we had booked the holiday nearly a year in advance……We were livid!!!
We were all taken (on foot) to their sister hotel the Caesar Palace where even though we had booked 4 rooms they expected us to fit into 2! We eventually agreed that for one night 8 of us would stay in the 2 rooms. However, me and my partner couldn’t so they would need to find another room for us. They eventually took us back to the Hawaii (on foot) and we were given a basic room (we had all paid extra for a superior room with sea view)

Our friends, that were in the Caesar did not get their rooms until 11:30pm but it didn’t end there. They were woken up by reception staff at 2:30 am and 3am to sign some forms!!! Utterly ridiculous, they only left them alone when they angrily told the staff they had children sleeping and that they were not to knock on the doors anymore and would sign in the morning.

Back at the Hawaii we got our room at 12am. We had a drink in the bar and then went up to our room at around 1PM. We were told our bags would be there but of course they were not! Eventually after calling reception twice, A happy bell boy who said he’s name was Ali Baba turned up at 2:45am with our cases. By this time I was in no mood for his joviality and sent him away, not with the tip he seemed to think he deserved but with a flea in his ear.

The next day we walked back to the Caesar as we were told to do by the night manager to sort things out and we were refused entry!! After a lot of shouting and us having to give up our passports to security, we managed to meet our fellow travellers and at that point arranged a meeting with the hotel manager at 10am to sort out the problems.
10:AM Basically everyone at the Caesar was told to pack their bags and head on back to the Hawaii as they were going to sort the rooms out. You can’t imagine by now how fed up I was with that walk!

Another 2 hours at the Hawaii reception and we were all finally given our 4 sea view rooms a full 17 hours after we arrived, although the hotel manager tried to make us sign forms that suggested we were upgraded. This simply was not true we only got a (day late) what we had paid for.
The next 13 days passed without incident, the waiters restaurant manager , pool/bar staff and entertainment staff were great, the hotel was mainly geared toward Egyptian cliental so don’t expect much English music or entertainment. The hotel is nicely set out but we did need to be entertained more.

Our contentment disappeared on the last day…….as we were leaving at 5:30 pm and we had to check out at 12am. We asked reception whether we could have the room a little longer. At first we were told we could for an additional $25 until 3pm then the manager got involved and it was a firm NO. Not only that at 12am they took our wrist bands away, so we could not eat or drink until we left and that’s in a hotel where you can’t buy food or drink and it was pushing 40 degrees! We had 2 children with us under 4 it’s outrageous . This has never happened to me before and I’ve visited a lot of fully inclusive hotels in lots of different countries and this is a first. We tried to point out that we arrived on the Tues at 9:30pm but was unable to go to the restaurant until Weds eve because we were mucked about so much. I must admit we got very irate and our language was colourful but we did not threaten violence but the Hotel manager did threaten to kick one of our party!!!

To sum up I would not go back to this Hotel again, not if it was free and this is purely down to the hotel manager and the hotel policies. When you have reason to complain you might as well go talk to a banana as nobody seems to care or take responsibility! The day manager’s name is Mustafa but he clearly couldn’t manage a tea party in a dolls house!

And lastly when I checked out I had to pay for an excursion which I did by card. I’d worked out I had been overcharged. When I pointed this out about 2 hours later I was told the card machine was out of service, they did not have any cash so I would have to leave the money as a tip for the reception staff, talk about adding insult to injury!

Having spoken to the rest of my party, who also agree, we would not book this hotel again, not in a million years! In fact this whole experience has put into doubt as to whether we would ever go to Egypt again, shame but there it is!