Just to clear up the extreme reviews that this hotel has been given I thought I would give a totally unbiased report based on the facts.

The hotel was possibly the cleanest place I have ever been to. The groundskeepers start pruning and watering the plants and grass at about 7 or 8 in the morning and are completely silent. They mow the grass and scrub all of the pathways around the resort daily. They even pick up all of the rubbish that some of the ignorant guests leave lying around on the beach and by the pools. As a result the resort is spotless.

The food in the main restaurant is as would be expected for an all inclusive buffet minus the chips that some people crave. They also provide the widest range of fresh pastries I have seen, with traditional Egyptian food and often Chinese, Italian and seafood. The food that I ate during my stay was hot and all of the food containers were heated throughout meal times and changed regularly. One downside to the main restaurant is that the food can get same-y as some of the same items are used for breakfast and lunch.

I found that the beach bar was excellent for a nice unhealthy lunchtime snack with fries, burgers, hotdogs, fish and chicken on offer; however the fries did tend to be cold on occasion.

The restaurants on offer for the evening meals were excellent. The service is fantastic, the choice is decent and the food delicious. I found the food in Bedouin tent restaurant was not to my taste, however the setting was amazing and the good thing about this resort is that if you don't enjoy your a la carte meal, you can always go to the main restaurant afterwards to fill up.

Drinks service in the restaurants was excellent; the waiters can read the guests very well and seem to be able to tell if you want to talk and joke with them or if you just want some privacy and a quiet meal.

The location of the hotel is fantastic, completely silent away from the hassle and noise of Naama bay, but with regular free shuttle buses into town running as late as 3am if you fancy a night on the tiles.

One downside is the lack of service during the day; between 1pm and 6pm there are no buses, but a taxi only costs

Just returned from Egypt. Four times in Sharm el Sheikh although first time at this Hotel.

Hotel was excellent. Staff more than willing to help in any way.

The a la carte restaurants were excellent, especially the Chinese, but you do have to book in advance.

Hotel rooms are clean and spacious.

The hotel itself is very large, the visitors vary from English, Russian, German, and Italian etc. We found no problems with rudeness from any visitors - treat as you would like to be treated yourself.

But - if, like us, you are going to Sharm mostly for snorkeling - this is not the location for you. The reef is a long way (730 paces) out on a rickety pier, which is not well maintained, from the beach and even when you reach the end of it the water is only knee deep.

This holiday was one of the best we have had, mainly due to the friendliness and attentiveness of the staff.

The hotel's lobby area is fabulous, newly built with an impressive domed glass ceiling.

The bar here was our favourite, with all waiters giving excellent service, although special mention must be given to Ibrahim, Mustafa and Sayed who made sure our glasses were never empty! By the end of our stay we were firm friends.

The lobby also houses three specialty restaurants - Italian, Chinese and Arabian Nights. Again, the service is excellent, and the food delicious. You need to book these up to 48hrs in advance, but it is worth doing as there is no charge and the food in the main restaurant is only average in comparison. You can also eat at the Tropicana (beachfront) restaurant for breakfast and lunch, and they do a BBQ each evening. The fish specialty restaurant is also down by the beach, again the food and service was excellent. There is a "Bedouin tent" on the beach where they serve traditional style food - it was very dark so weren't sure what we were eating, but it tasted OK! - and you can smoke a Shish pipe if you like (we didn't, but it smelt nice as you walk past!)

The hotel is now twice it's previous size, the new pool and lobby being furthest away from the beach, and it's a 15min walk from front to back (our room overlooked the beach so we got to know the walk very well!). There are a lot of steps, some of which aren't lit up at night so you have to be careful - a friend missed her footing and ended up with a twisted ankle, not serious but quite painful for a couple of days (and no, she wasn't drunk!)

The beach is nice, plenty of sunbeds with mattresses and beach towels provided, and windbreaks as the breeze can get a bit chilly. The floating jetty fell to bits while we were there (after I'd managed to fall down a missing bit) but was repaired and seemed in much better condition the second week. There was a big reef with good snorkeling if you waded out straight ahead, but the staff would only let you out there at certain times due to the tides. Otherwise there is a little reef to the left of the jetty where you can see parrot fish, angel fish, and all sorts of others that I don't know what they are! I'll post some pics when I've worked our how to...

There is a bar at each pool and a beach bar open 10 - 5, the Terrace bar by the main restaurant open 12 - 12, and the lobby and Billiard bars open 10 - 2am, so plenty of places to drink, plus drinks are served in all the restaurants. The AI package includes local beers, wines and spirits, although most spirits had a strange aftertaste.... orange and kardekah juice were freely available, with soft drinks served by the glass and bottles of mineral water were also free.

The staff were excellent, always friendly and willing to help - we have no problems or complaints with any aspect of the service. It was a little unsettling to find a male cleaner polishing the sinks when you came out of the ladies loo though...... but they were incredibly clean, so I can't complain!

All in all, we had a fantastic time and are even considering swapping our booking for September to this hotel from the one we've already booked!

The hotel is beautiful and very big, they've got loads of cleaners working in all the restuarants,around the pools and in the main reception area day and night. Each block of rooms have got at least 3-4 cleaners in them cleaning the rooms of a day.

They've got a chinese,italian and arabian nights restaurants which are in the main reception. You have to book these restaurants in the morning for what day you want,you can only book 2 at a time.The main restaurant is very big and have plenty to choose from,they don't really have much for kids if they like chips and that but they do have a beech bar that serves all that kind of food.They was just finishing the upstairs of the restaurant when we was leaving.

The hotel is situated on the front of the beach which was really good.It's about 10 minutes from the airport and about 15 minutes away from Naama Bay which is the shopping centre,you have to pre-book the shuttle bus at reception in the day.

The staff are really nice and very friendly,they do anything to make your stay enjoyable.They have got plenty of waiters to see to everyone as soon as possible.I can't believe how nice they was.

The entertainment was ok but it's something they really need to work on for the future.They don't really cater for kids of a night but they do have a kids club of a day.
I would certainly recommend this hotel to anyone who is thinking of going,it's well worth it.

The hotel was fantastic. We had a wonderful room near the beach and all staff and facilities were excellent.

We found the food to be lovely,and there was a good range of different foods. the al a carte restaurants were really nice and we used these on more than one occasion.The main restaurant had good food but was busy.

The cleaner was lovely our room was always spotless as was the rest of the hotel.we have booked to go back in july with our two older sons.

New areas of the hotel reception are wonderful (finished only recently). The rooms were kept spotlessly clean, although towels were not always replenished in line with the amount of people in the room!

The food didn't even rate as "average" in our book. Unfortunately, the main restaurant is happy to serve the same food each evening, without it being hot, or listed as to what it is. On one occasion I watched the "chef" bring out a new terrine of "hot" food without even needing to wear gloves! We tried the a la carte restaurants, but again the food is prepared too far in advance and isn't served warm enough (my taglietelle was crisp on top where it had been kept warm under the grill).

The beach bar, again, prepares food in advance - we saw them cooking the burgers and chips at 11.30am (the bard doesn't officially serve food until 1pm).

The hotel staff were very friendly, but haven't had adequate training for the restaurants or bars - some don't know how to lay a basic table and the bars are happy serving coke and cocktails in wine glasses.

The location of the hotel is great in terms of that it is on the beach. Unfortunately, no mention was made in the brochure we booked from that it would be in the flight path of every plane coming in/out of Sharm el Sheikh.

The entertainment was pretty non-existent. What we did see was very average.

Just returned from honeymoon. Fantastic hotel - real wow factor.

All inclusive IS all inclusive here - whatever you want, whenever you want it.

Hotel is beautiful - rooms clean, common areas clean and all well decorated, gardens fabulously maintained. Hotel is right on beach but, due to being spread over a large area with the new (and very impressive) reception being furthest away from the beach, if you have a room at either end it is quite a walk from end to end (albeit through very nice and calming surroundings).

The staff were excellent and genuinely wanted to talk with guests (especially when they had an opportunity to improve their English). Tips were accepted gracefully but not expected by the staff - they were there to please and did so.

The entertainment was typical of all this type of holiday - passable but we preferred to go for a latte in the "old" reception bar.

Five pools give plenty of choice if you don't want to visit the beach. The central pool is very well designed with lots of bridges/waterfalls etc.

There are several other restaurants in the hotel, all of which are in the All Inclusive deal but you have to book in reception (up to 2 days in advance). Superb Chinese, Italian, Arabian, Fish, Bedouin Tent (on beach) - only doubled up once in the week we were there.

We would definitely visit this hotel again - they have got it right with the five star treatment.

Got back Thurs from Grand Azure. The hotel is clean, rooms are spacious and gardens spectacular.

The staff are extremely friendly and helpful.

The pool areas and slides are spectacular however the water was far too cold to enjoy, towards the end of holiday one of the pools was heated so that pleased the children immensely it meant they could enjoy the water without freezing themselves.

The a la carte restaurants were superb and we ate in them on most evenings as we found the food in the main restaurant a little disappointing it was sometimes warm and even cold. However there was plenty more to compensate this in the day we ate breakfast at the Tropicana restaurant on the beach and we ate lunch either there (fresh pizzas, kebabs) or at the beach bar (chips and red sauce for the kids)

Talking of kids although we had a fantastic holiday there was very little entertainment for the kids the children

This hotel was the best we have ever stayed at and we normally stay in 5* in the Caribbean. The hotel was spotlessly clean at all times. The room were spacious, cool, room facilities were excellent. The food was delicious, the choice was varied every day and at no time did we go hungry. The specialty restaurants were also excellent. Bars and drinks were again very good but top marks to the Lobby Bar and Waterfalls Pool Bar. Service quite slow at the Terrace Bar and Beach Bar.

The hotel staff are the most friendliest genuine people we have met. Although they do not expect to be tipped we found we had prompt service throughout our stay by tipping some of the bar tenders now and again. UK hotels could do with sending their staff for training to the Grand Azure.

Entertainment was not very good - quite monotonous but we do not go on holiday for the entertainment and much prefer to have a drink and chill at the bars - which we did!

The snorkelling at the hotel was out of this world - never seen so many colourful fish. We did a few trips including quad biking and camel riding which was great fun. Look out for Leo from Naama Sun Club to book these.

The Grand Azure has three pools and water slides. All pools are brilliant but the best is the Waterfalls pool which only opened last June - the pool, staff and bar are all wonderful.

The beach is also very nice and there are always more than enough sunbeds at the beach and at all pools.

We would definitely recommend this hotel to anyone thinking of going to Egypt and in fact are already looking into booking it next year.

My boyfriend and I stayed here last june, we had a fantastic time. So much so that we've booked up to go again this June.

The hotel is only about 20 mins from the airport, so if you are doing your own transfers as we did, dont pay any more than 5 english pounds, as thats all it costs, so dont let them try and rip you off!!

The grounds are kept lovely, We even saw them combing the fringes on the rugs in the lobby at 7am!!! The town is well worth a look, the evening is a better time to go as its not so hot, but you do get hassled by all shop keepers to 'looky looky' in there shop!!!

The food was ok, I found things to eat every night and I'm the worlds fussiest eater!!! We had no tummy upsets at all.

The pools are lovely and always kept clean, we spent all our time at the fountain pool, its fantastic, swim up bar, water falls etc.

The staff are really lovely providing you are nice to them. We did tip our maid and we got good service, clean towels and linen every day. They even tidied up our mess on the floor (I wanted to bring him home with me!!)

Since we went last time they've built a new reception and restaurants, so we really cant wait to go now. Hope you all have as good a time as we did.