We stayed at the Fanara over New Year. The hotel was very clean, the staff were always very helpfull and they seemed to love the British. The food in the main dining room was good, the bun fight to get it was not. Unfortunately the other nationalities staying there didn't know how to queue or say excuse me at the buffet. The Italian style restuarant at the other end of the complex was a different matter though. It was more relaxed and the freshly cooked pasta was fantastic. The bar staff are great especially Mohammed No 1 at the pool bar. The hotel wasn't as luxurious as we had imagined a four star to be, so for that reason we would only give it three stars. It is very relaxing, but you need to get the hotel bus or a taxi if you want to go into town, as it is quite away out. It is ideal if you want to just chill on the beach or by the pool all day and have a few quiet drinks in the evening. We didn't watch the organised entertainment, the bar staff were a caberet themselves!

This was our second visit to this hotel and it didnt fail to impress us we were immediatle greated with a welcome drink and cold towel and quickly taken to our room with luggage following within a matter of minutes.

Our room was quite large very clean and tidy and we even had a fruit basket and a nice letter waiting for us to welcome us back to the hotel and every other day we have our towels made in to all sorts of shapes and animals with flower petals scattered all over it was lovley

We couldnt even believe that certain staff members remembered us from last november and when you think 12 months and 900 different guests a week thats not bad going, we were treated like royalty we were even invited to champagne cocktails for returning guests on wednesday evening and we were also asked to attend tree planting's for two different couples who had returned for the 12th and 16th times where all senior hotel staff and the manager attended it was lovely.

The hotel was very clean, very tidy with empty glasses etc... being collected within minutes of you finishing your drink even around the pool there are no empty glasses left about.

The food in the hotel was fine we never went hungry there are always going to be meals that you dont want to eat as they are trying to cater for all nationalities so you cant complain as they really try with the food but we had no problems in two week whats so ever.

The pool however this year was rather cold by the end of our first week as they do not turn the heating on until 17th November but due to there being hardly anyone being brave enough to get in they turned it on two weeks early and within a few days it was very warm and had plenty people going in.

The weather was fantastic in the mid 30oc eventhough prior to us getting there it was only saying it was late 20oc but it was very hot when the breeze dropped.

The sea was fantastic this year we went to the Coral and it was amazing you only had to walk out to your waist and the fish are there truly fantastic.

I went on the cairo one day trip flying from Sharm el Sheikh at around 6am and returning at about 10pm it is a very busy and interesting day at first the thought of being up at 3.30am didnt appeal but it was well worth the money and the early start and I soon caught up with sleep the following day round the pool but it is well worth a visit to give you a taste of the history.

We also went on the semi-submersible boat which takes you out further to the coral without you having to get wet the trip was a little expensive for what you got but to actually go out and see the coral so perfect and fish that live deeper in the water it was again well worth seeing.

All in all we had a fantastic two weeks and we would not hesitate in visiting this hotel again for a third time and if we can get to ten who's to say we wont have our own tree planted in our names but we would reccommend this hotel with no worries.

We certainly will return.

This was my third time to sharm el sheikh having stayed previously at the golden resort and conrad hotel.

The good

Lovely hotel grounds and our room ( after we paid for sea view upgrade ) was lovely - great walk in shower, very powerful, two single beds ( just what i wanted as it was a holiday with my son) very clean and a lovely view of the pool, gardens and sea - even though it was far away!!! Ours was room 1325. We had a fridge and digital safe.

The entertainment team at this hotel was by far the best ive had ( or expected to have ) in egypt - you normally get the visiting twirling man and belly dancers!!! . It was for an hour every night in the ampitheatre which was lovely outside.

free bus to naama bay

The not so good...

In the brochures when it says if you have walking difficulties this hotel may not be suitable - BELIEVE IT!!!! There are loads of steps to get to the beach and in the heat of august it was pretty hard going!!!

This hotel needs a swim up bar !!!

The floor is slippy around the pool areas and although everyone knows this and we should all really take care there was a nasty accident when someone slipped and cut their head open.

The staff need to learn more english - although we had a mini bar they left no bottle opener for the beer and soft drinks ( fanta, coke sprite) and every time we asked they just didnt get what we needed!! we were given 2 bottles of water and sent from person to person for 2 days till our rep finally got them to understand what we needed!!!

The coke from the bars is watered down
The staff favour the bigger tippers ( we do tip ) when there are people waiting to be served at the bars
Our mini bar was only stocked properly once as we were in the room at the time
In my bed My sheets were one day covered in bits of broken tiles?????


The terrible

THE FISH BITE !!!!! There is a public beach next door and when my son and i were snorkelling an egyptian guy came up to us in the water with a bum bag on with bits of food for the fish in it. He tried to get several people , myself and son included, to feed the fish in the water. He kept telling us that the fish were more beautiful further out to sea and im sure he was going to try and sell us a snorkelling trip!!!! Now im no expert but when i was in the maldives in may this year we had a water bungalo and there was loads of fish which we could see from our balcony but we read some literature that was in our room saying that IF YOU FEED THE FISH IT MAKES THEM AGGRESSIVE!!!!!!! My son was bit 3 times in the space of a few seconds and it drew blood!

THERE IS NO JETTY !!! Even though there are pictures of this beach with a jetty - it is next doors and you cannot get to use it.walking on the coral should be a definate NO but at this hotel it really is unavoidable!!! The water is too shallow to swim over it . There is a man standing on the beach shouting at everyone through a loudspeaker "dont step on the coral "every few minutes!!!!!!!

The food - It was good that the bus to naama bay was free as we ate there every night !!! Hotel food was either undercooked or overcooked, the cold food was warm as they dont keep it chilled and the hot food was lukewarm unless you went to grab it every time they came out with some fresh stuff. The choice was horrible - Octopus - not that ive ever eaten it but ive seen it served up plenty of times but i always thought octopus was meant to be small - here the bits were a good foot long and were still oozing blood when i opened the tin !!!!! The liver was just browned on each side and raw in the middle. The deserts are on a plate with no covers and not kept cold by any means so they were just running off the plates. The chicken was very hard and stringy. The lettuce had brown bits all over it. The food at la gazella was better ( nice pizza and chicken was good ) but the service was poor - we got up to get our own drinks after a 20 min wait. The restaurants have no air conditioning.

We ate with the bedowins the second day, dannaneer steakhouse in naama bay the 3rd day, 4th day hard rock cafe, 5th day ras mohammed boat trip day time ( food was good ! )but we booked our evening meal at la gazella at the hotel and this was good food but poor service , 6th day thai house 7th day hard rock cafe again. We were soooo sick of getting the bus to naama bay i think it spolit going for me. After being up all night on the loo and being very sick after one lunch at the hotel i couldnt face the food there again. Funny enough i wasnt sick the whole time after eating out??? I loved going to naama bay on my last holiday but not every night on and off the shuttle bus!!!

Trips we went on were the star gazing trip which my son enjoyed very much . You get to look through some very powerful telescopes and take photos of jupiter with a digital camera. The bedowin food was GOOD!!!!!

we also went on a snorkelling trip to ras mohammed ( which i had done the previous july )
The trip wasnt as good as last year as far as what we saw in the water but the guides were TERRIBLE. I have been on trips enough times now to know that they should go through some basic safety signals at the start and this was not done. Where we swam i would argue that it was unsuitable for kids in rubber rings with life jackets or people who cant swim. There is supposed to be a guide at the front of the group and at the back - the guy who was supposed to be at the back ended up in the middle - leaving some of the younger kids and inexperienced swimmers behind. We came to a place at one point where we were yelled at to get into single file as the coral was high and there was only a small gap between for us to swim through. I deliberately waited till last as a kid of about 7 was left lagging behind just to make sure he got through before me. The guide who was supposed to be at the back was busy pulling a chinese woman along by a lifering as she wanted to snorkel but couldnt swim. Then we headed back to our boat - only the guide in the front took us to the wrong one so we had to swim around this boat to get to ours. The current was very strong trying to swim around the boat it kept pulling you to it and the poor guy with the lifering was pulling 2 women and a child. Boy he must have been strong!!! We did hear that a woman was left behind on the same trip by the same guys the day before and they had to go back for her!!!!!!!!!!! This trip was through Thomson .

Finally Thomson - after we had only just booked the mirabel beach resort just 4 weeks before we were due to go - we found out that it wasnt ready and there was no jetty - they wouldnt give us a refund - so we changed to this one as we had seen pictures of a jetty on this hotels beach - only we found out when we got there that the jetty didnt belong to the fanara and we couldnt use it. The rep introduced herself as susan and told us shed been in egypt 18 months. we thought she was ok and we booked our trips and then she was gone. We looked for her for the rest of the week only to find out after ringing the helpline that our real rep was sarah and susan was just covering for her as she was sick. All week we had been looking round for the wrong person. There are noticeboards on the wall saying who is your rep and meeting times etc and there was none with either susans picture or sarahs . There were foreign tui notice boards but none for england. After i phoned the helpline on the saturday i mentioned this and on the sunday a new poster appeared with sarahs picture and the visiting times!!!!!


This is a nice hotel building and the entertainment team are very good but they need to get their act together over the food as that would stop me from ever going here or reccommending it to anyone. They need to teach the staff some basic english phrases and THEY NEED A JETTY!!!!!

For anyone who is going there - especially with young children - please be careful if anyone tries to give you bits of food to feed the fish- as they will bite you - My son wasnt the only one we met 2 other families that had been bitten aswell. Someone needs to do something about this as people will be afraid of going in the water and that is a real shame

On arrival at the hotel we were greeted by a very pleasant gentleman, who very promptly gave us our checking-in form to complete and then our room key. Our luggage was brought to our room incredibly quickly.

Room was cleaned every day and different towel sculpture welcomed us every afternoon on our return to room after a hard day spent sunbathing! Room came equipped with TV, fridge, safe, hairdryer, aircon, walk-in shower (no bath).

Swimming pool and surrounding bathing area excellent. Use of free beach towels. Short walk to private beach via some steep steps. Excellent snorkeling.

Organised activities throughout day although too lazy to take advantage of any! Staff very helpful and always busy maintaining cleanliness of resort - most impressed. Food was acceptable although nothing to get excited about. Entertainment was average - usual stuff really. Free shuttle bus to and from Naama Bay every evening.

We really enjoyed our stay at the Club Fanara - we wanted a relaxing week away with no worries and that is exactly what we got. We stayed at the Coral Sea Resort last year and we rate the Club Fanara much much higher - especially in terms of cleanliness! Not too many Brits during our stay which was actually quite nice!

It was very clean and staff were friendly.

Smoke bombs were set off at night which were fantastic to stop mosquitos so it was best to go after this for dinner.
Food was good but quite similar each night at the buffet there was alot of flys.

Al a carte was fantastic great service different menu the and no problem about how often you went or even if you hadnt booked they were accomidating.

Entertainment was better than most all inclusive hotels I've been to and fantastic for childern .

Food at buffet was good selection but there was lots of flys landing on it.

Staff were friendly & helpful no harassing you for tips all the time.You can even sample the local shisha pipe which is fun.

Al A carte was much better than the buffet great service & can visit more than twice & the wine keeps flowing with alternating menus.Wasnt to far from the town & shuttle bus was free.

Entertainment wasnt to bad good if you ve got children it great amuzment.

Avoid beach for your own personal safety if your a woman as locals harass you as its next to a public beach & hotel takes no responsibility for it as your in the sea but as far as im concerned touching someone uninvited is never allowed! Tour Operator have said looking into this problem. Other hotels have cornered off area to avoid this happening.

Would visit resort but not beach which is a shame as the fish were amazing to watch ,was also made of shingles no sand which was diasappointing.

We arrived at the Fanara after a very early rise to get to Manchester Airport then followed by a very cramped and stuffy flight to Egypt but all of that was forgotten as soon as we walked into the Fanara where we were greeted by reception staff then sat down in the reception area where we then received Cold face towels and a refreshing cocktail which went down a treat.

In the space of ten minutes we where checked in cooled down and being escorted to our room with luggage following behind.

Our room was great very very clean, decoration very nice no flaking paint or anything like that, the bathroom was very good with a nice large walk in shower,the room was cleaned daily with towels and all bedding being replaced every day we also had a wonderful balcony with a sea view to the left and the mountains to the right where we saw wonderful sun sets each night.

The bar areas are good very spacious and plenty of staff to serve you who are always willing to help and after the first few days even take your order at the table and bring you your drinks so you don't even have to move.
The main bar at the reception side is very nice it also has a terrace outside which is candle lit at night and is just a very relaxed place to end a perfect day.
There is also another bar at the pool end which also has plenty of tables overlooking the sea and this is a nice place to watch the sun set at night but make a note about 45mins before the sun sets it gets very busy with people having the same idea to get a beer and watch it set so go early.

There are two main restaurants in the hotel but there is another that serves snacks etc... during the morning and late afternoon but also has a full buffet at dinner time.
The two main restaurants are generally themed each night ie: one will serve fresh food the other Italian, but there are also international,Egyptian, British and med themed nights too but no-one will go hungry as there is something for everyone.

There are two pool areas in the hotel one at the top end which alot of people in the resident area use and the other area is at the main end here there are 4 pools all with plenty sunbeds and umbrellas so there is no-need to put towels on first thing in the morning.

The evening entertainment here isn't fantastic but the staff really do try we played Bingo one night which was great fun and then they had a Casino night which was also good and free but as long as you are not a party all night person or want noise and singing all night this hotel is fine they will serve all inclusive on the bar until midnight which we found to be fine as you are up early in the morning.

The staff at this hotel are superb they cant do enough for you anything you ask for or need you will get it was even my partners birthday in the resort and the Chef made him a birthday cake and then all the waiters brought it out at night singing Happy Birthday in about three different languages which was really good fun.

This hotel is brilliant and we are already in the process of choosing the dates to re-book it for next year, we have seen temps as high as 30oC in mid November but i would this that the summer months can be too hot as they can get to 45oC in Sharm el Sheikh so later on in the year to early April are probably a better time to go.

Im a travel agent myself and I booked this hotel on recomendation from my sister. My husband read the write ups on the hotel and was concerned on the comments on the food and cleanliness, I told him that we would make our own minds up.

We found the rep Zoe and the hotel staff very helpful and friendly and very good with the kids.

The entertainment team were very good and the head of the team a tunisian was extremley funny yes they do speak alot in french but if you join in you are made more than welcome and they do speak English.

You just have to make the effort to join in we did which we dont usually and we had a great time the casino night was great as were all the other nights the entertainment stops around 11pm and the disco isnt up to much so if its all night entertainment you want dont go there.

We visited other hotels in the area for a look round all 5 star but we went back to ours happy in our choice especially if you have kids with you.

My only slight critisism would be the food the variety I thought was good with lots of differant themed nights but if you didnt get there quick enough the food was quite cold, but my rep Zoe explained that as its an international hotel they cater for various tastes and the English like there food very hot but there we are in the minority.

This would not stop me going again to this hotel as with all all - inclusive hotels theres always complaints about repitition of menus and food quality but i thought the quality was very good.

The area is excellent and I would tell any one to go to a hotel in the ras umm sid area instead of the Sharks bay area as theres more to do and its in a sheltered area so its not windy like it is in Sharks bay.

Theres a place just down the road from the hotel called Fantasia this is worth a visit and also down the street at the side of Fantasia theres a restaraunt called Columbus that serves great food I havent tasted steak in pepper sauce as nice in my life and only

Stayed for one week end of October 2005. Lovely hotel, plenty of variety of food and excellent quality. No problem with any staff.

Entertainment team worked hard day and night. Kids club well run. Beer OK but local spirits and wines left a lot to be desired.

Water is included in the all inclusive which I think is a rarity among other all inclusives.

Rooms clean, not dated or tired. Small fridge in room, air conditioning and hairdryer. Lovely pool areas, more than enough beds to go round, though sometimes it was difficult to find a bit of shade.

Cleaners try to dry the tiles around the pool all day but when the tiles are wet they are slippy - wear flipflops when generally walking about! Don't take beach towels - you can get them free of charge and change them as as often as you like. You can also get books and games on loan.

There is a nightclub on site and we were situated very near it but it stopped playing music at around 1 am. The hotel grounds were very quiet at night (I think this is because drinks have to be paid for after 12).

Very good holiday. Would definitely return.

Our first visit to Egypt, and first time all-inclusive, and we were really impressed with both. Everything we had read or heard about the Fanara was spot on.
First class in almost every aspect.

Being a fussy eater, the layout of salads,pastas' and vegetables, although very well presented, were not for me. The different themed countries food nights(one for every day of the week), at the two restaurants only supplied different sauces to the inevitable beef and chicken always on the menu.(over two weeks became boring).

Rooms were cleaned daily(and by men). Staff were helpfull. Safety deposit boxes were free. Beach towels supplied daily.

Night entertainment could be better.