Sharm El Sheikh, my experience in June 2008 (Sharm el Sheikh)

Member Name: heynonnynonny

Product:	Sharm el Sheikh
Date:	31/10/09 (38 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great holiday.

Disadvantages: It is what you make it

Egypt was my first ever holiday abroad in 2008 and I will try to provide you with as much information as I possibly can..

Sharm El Sheikh is definitely an upcoming new holiday spot, with more and more people visiting it each year. It is sometimes considered as North Africa or the Middle East due to it's location but it definitely is Africa. Located in Southern Sinai on the Gulf of Aqaba, it's roots are that of a small fishing village. It began development in 1982 and is continuing today, you will notice that it is about half way there in terms of development.

It contains the following sub towns, Nabq Bay, Ras Um Sid, Ras Mohammed, Na'ama Bay and a couple more I cannot remember.

My particular stay was in Ras Um Sid a rather more quiet district of Sharm. We visited in June and the temperature fluctuated between 37 to 43 degrees in the day. Gosh it was absolutely steaming. As my first time abroad I was very nervous about the expected temperatures, now let me assure you, it is bliss. Not at all stifling or heavy. No stickiness. There is no doubt that it is extremely difficult to walk very far in that kind of heat so we took taxis if we were going for more than a five minute walk.

Of course taxis are plentiful and the drivers are ace, such a good laugh, agree a price upon entering, and I recommend arranging the same one to pick you up if you know what time you are coming back.

The vehicles you will travel around in are very very cool and air conditioned. Often you will be provided with a small water if on one of the many trips you can do.

Taxis lead me on to the subject of roads. I have never known anything like the roads, they are long straight roads and you have to go for ages in one direction just to turn around and go back, you will see what I mean when you go. The main road here is Peace Road which goes for miles. Sharm is known as the city of peace so a fitting name. It is so called due to many international meetings and conventions held here.

In the evenings the temperatures in June were brilliant. Very bearable to move around in. My friend asked if she should be taking jumpers etc for her visit in June this year, I just laughed and told her not to bother. Vest tops and cool linens all the way for Egypt.

Just a word of warning, do not go into any of the perfume shops if you wonder outside the hotel. Just don'tgo into any of the shops. They do their best to get you in and will make it very difficult to leave without purchasing, we lost a large chunk of money cos the OH wanted to go in one when the man was calling us in. I called him many names after we got out.

Things to do=
I won't lie. In Sharm we found very little to do apart from Il Mercato and Na'ama Bay. I will detail my experiences of what we found to do. Our holiday consisted of taking trips out with the holiday company reps.

We travelled with Longwoods who are specialists in Egypt and Israel and thoroughly recommended. So this was our itinerary=

Ras Mohammed National Park, we took the boat trip option so therefore never set foot on the actual land unfortunately, I would have liked to though. This trip consisted of going out on a quite nice boat to the waters surrounding the park, a very good family trip, we have no kids but there were kids enjoying themselves. The boat stops at 3 snorkelling spots and it was a real joy to watch from the boat as I am a non swimmer and therefore I stayed on the boat.

I had never been on the sea before and it was a great experience with knowledgeable guides and divers. Lunch as provided on the boat. Absolutely fantastic. The food in Egypt is just gorgeous. I say lunch it was more like a banquet. Very plentiful!!!

Cairo and Giza, we flew to Cairo although could write a seperate review on this so will keep it simple, took a whole day, roughly 2 hours travelling there and back on the plane. Coach optional although 9 hours overnight on a bumpy road for a saving of fifty pounds, well I know someone who did this and regrets it, honestly the plane is far better. I only recommend this trip for children aged over 12 as it is extremely tiring. An absolute must do if in Sharm.

Israel and Dead Sea, an absolute must. An overnight trip and returns very late the next night. Absolutely fantastic. Again not for the younger kids. We had to take a day outafter this as it was so intense. We passed through the Taba border and it was absolutely steaming hot it was way hotter there than Sharm.

Buggying/Quadding, brilliant, although you go a lot slower than expected, hilarious laugh as we chose a buggy instead of going it alone on quads, lots of other people to dodge as there seemed to beloads of people there. Great fun, loved it.

Stars and Bedouin night, this was crazy!! Knowledgable astronomer then we made bedoiun bread and sat in a large circle with candles and dancing, it was such a laugh we loved it.

Blue Hole and Dahab, Blue hole is one of the most famous snorkelling sites in the whole world and of course even though I am a non swimmer I wanted to make the most of my time in Egypt, so whilst everyone went toddling off I sat on cushions onthe floor talking to the guides drinking sweet traditional bedouin tea. A must try. Then we went on to the town of Dahab and visited a fixed price shopping centre, and a fantastic market where I was so proud of myself and haggled on some spices, haha.

Il Mercato=
This is a fixed price shopping centre with no danger of hassle and it felt a bit like a shopping centre at home. Therefore it provided a very relaxing shopping experience. It was about 4 min taxi ride up the main road from the hotel. Easily accesible from all over Sharm via taxi.

We did go to Onions for lunch in Il Mercato - very cheap and lovely food!!

Very recommended for a visit and to get a bite to eat. Onions was fantastic.

Na'ama Bay=

This is the centre of Sharm really, one huge tacky tourist trap. The Egyptians love tourists only because of the fact we are so easy to rip off, so they think. I felt rude ignoring people at first but some of them were so vile I had to else I would have ended up in some kind of argument.

Lots of shisha cafes and chill out areas, perfume shops, lots of things you will recognise such as McDonalds etc, many eating places some of which are meant to be amazing, and there is a big hotel in the middle of it, quite why you would want to stay here is beyond me, however the whole place was very clean, obviously quite new and spacious and very easy to spend a couple of hours whiling away the time especially if you get stuck in a shop. Advice, keep away from people who ask you into their shops. Just say no.

We were bed and breakfast but on hindsight wish had done half board as ate in hotel mostly, due to the fact once we got there we didn't really fancy going into Na'ama bay to eat. We ate in Na'ama bay the last night. After a great meal at Hard Rock Cafe (we chose here as we couldn't handle searching around for anything else) we waited for the hotels bus outside the duty free shop - it never arrived so we went in a shop right by the pick up point and basically the men in there do not let you leave without taking your money. They charm you in and they started tying clothes on me and putting loads of stuff in carrier bags etc and physically wrapped the bag in my hand.

They demanded more money off my boyfriend after he gave them £20 for something (which originally he was selling to us for £95) and stopped me from leaving the shop by which time I was upset as they had our money. I ended up trying to find police I was that scared. On hindsight, never again. Eventually we got our goods and left. The hotel bus eventually turned up 40 mintues late. No explanation. I was pretty digusted needless to say. My fella reckons the driver of our bus gets paid to turn up late so the shopkeepers can extract money from the people who are waiting for it to turn up. Absolutely vile experience.

I cannot recommend Na'ama as it almost spoilt my holiday due to one nasty shop keeper, you just get approached all the time like some sort of walking money bag.

The same thing happened to my friends also, although there are a lot of great reviews on the place so go and make your own mind up.

I felt it was stressful and tacky and wish I had not bothered going. Many people compare it to a Blackpool abroad, it really is nothing like that, Blackpool is lovely and enjoyable, it looks a bit similiar at night though when it is all lit up.

Hotel experience=

Marriott Renaissance Golden View Beach Resort

Well where do I start? It's roughly 20 mins from airport at the end of a loooong line of hotels right on the end of Ras Um Sid. The entrance is beautiful and very elegant with lush gardens, the lobby is really big and a lot of marble!! We arrived about 6.30pm. We were escorted, after a minute or twos wait to our rooms on a golf buggy style thing which sped through the gorgeous grounds to room 7108 - a lot of the rooms have views over the sea to Ras Mohammed national park on their own private balconies with cane chairs, the view was lovely and we found it really quiet to sit out on.

The bathroom was lovely, but the shower door didn't shut properly but not really a problem. The water came out from the bath brown when first turned on but soon was ok and didn't really bother us. It was a basic clean comfortable room, would have loved slippers/robe and tea/coffee facilities though!! Air con was great and kept the room at a lovely temperature whilst it was 40 degress outside. Cash exchange machine by the lobby does not accept new £20 which is all we had haha, but we paid for stuff in hotel in £'s and had change in LE.

On a better note... the breakfast was lovely, fresh juice, tea and coffee included, it was fab!! Room service food was a bit of a rubbish choice, but the hotel restaurants were fine, first night we did the mexican Acapulco Joe's and the food and atmosphere in there is really good. The Aqua swim up bar we found ok - on the last day though we waited literally ten minutes to be acknowledged for a drink though while the waiters seemed to be standing around eating. They do a mean falafel sandwich though!!

Il Palio was dead most nights, Zinzina was ace and has a lovely lounge area with pool table. The Coast buffet bar is very dear, £15 not inc. your 22% service charge, but they have a different menu each day of the week and most nights really enjoyed the food. On average it cost us about 20quid for lunch and between 30 and 40 quid for dinner in the hotel including drinks and taxes. Every night was extremely quiet in all the restaurants, maybe a lot of people were half board and eating in the buffet restaurant. Big bottle of water is about £1.30 which is reasonable.The entertainment was a joke, it was really poor but it was a laugh so not all bad.The best was a man juggling fire to Scooter booming in the background whilst me were having sheesha by the main pool - an odd experience.

Out and around the hotel - if you walk up the main road past Hilton, watch out for the row of 5 shops on the right, the people in the perfume shop will not leave you alone. One of them started following us!! About 15 mins walk is Il Mercato fixed price shopping centre which is rubbish, just go to a shopping centre in the UK instead, prices are the same. It had a pharmacy, mcdonalds, starbucks, pizza hut, quiksilver shop, puma shop you get the drift. We were there an hour one night and got bored but it's ok for a quick browse or if you need a fast food fix. We found we got a bit bored easily but that's cos we didn't fancy shopping out or going Na'ama, the hotel has some nice gift shops and we got all our stuff there it was way easier.

First week in hotel was pretty quiet then it started getting busier, and pleasantly enough had Russian men drunkenly singing in the corridor at er 8am, gobbing off til god knows what time at night, one night I was in the lobby at 1am complaining about them, the staff took it very seriously though. Most of the staff were so pleasant, I found it hard to adjust to the fact they wanted to do everything for you include pour your cans of pop into a glass etc, they took slight offence when I said it was OK I would do it! We did leave tips for the waiters but no one in the hotel really expected it I don't think, we did tip our room cleaners, the cleaners were fab, and the hotel is SPOTLESS. I defy anyone to find a spot of dirt, they were constantly cleaning, gardening etc.

Keep an eye on the minibar - we were asked to pay for 2 beers that we never had at the end!!

So we chose to make it a really active holiday, about 5 days out of the 14 we spent doing nothing apart from sizzling in the sun at the hotel and pool. We were absolutely battered when we got home.

Another thing, we were not ill whilst there, we did not drink alcohol or overeat too much, I wouldn't have even considered drinking whilst out there, it's such a different environment to what your body is used to.

The money in smaller denomination noted is rancid filthy. Keep your hand gel handy!!

Water is cheaply available. Take loads if you do any of the trips. You will need it.

I really hope someone gets use out of this review, my arms are aching from typing so much but I could write even more and will try and update in the future. Questions or comments please get in touch, I am happy to help or provide more info :D

Summary: 10 out of 10, the experience you have is down to you