In mid-October, my wife saw a bingo offering of local touristic agency for 5-star Hurghada Egypt arrangement, and it really was cheap, so we decided to go (alone, wo/ kids, to get some rest and sun before winter comes)...

Departure from Ljubljana was late at night, so we arrived at Hurghada at 3.30am, and it took us additional 40 minute bus ride to our mysterious hotel. Our fears disappeared as soon as we entered the hotel, which was one of the smallest for local standards (only around 300 rooms), but with nice interior.

We got a room on 2nd floor, with a view of no-activity pool with beach/sea in the background. Rooms are spacious, with large balcony. Furniture shows some signs of age, but all in all rooms were very clean. Beds were incredible – I slept great the whole week! And the sliding door to the balcony stops 99% of all sounds from outside! Only air conditioner was noisy (only one speed setting seemed to work) - so we cooled the room in evening, and then turned it off for the night, which worked out very OK.

Going all-inclusive meant we had all the meals included in price. Food was OK, but mostly same selection every day (but selection of 8+ dishes) so we managed the week. Drinks include local alcoholic beverages, which taste funny, but if you mix them with sodas its better..

Hotel has 2 pools - with smart policy - the main pool is non-activity pool (quiet, for swimming only) allowing you to relay and get some beauty sleep during the day, and on the other side of hotel wing, is another pool - with children playground on the side. It is there where water activities are done, and in the background there is Amphitheatre for evening animation.

Hotel is located on the sandy beach, which is very nice! Sunbeds are plenty, but a lot of guests reserve them in early morning, so they are hard to get later on. Sea is awesome! You can walk for 50 meters to reach depth above 2m – and on the right of the beach there are few small reefs - so everyone who wants to see tropical fish - including Nemo - can snorkel there (water depth 1,5m). But hidden gem is on the beach to the right behind a peer (where abandoned hotel is) - there are remains of old peer, with pillars still in water - and you can see millions of fish there, including corals and squids ... Awesome! (water depth 4-7m).

During the day its a bit windy (but its pleasant) and on the sea there are many kite surfers (outside marked swimming area, so no danger, but fun to watch). On the beach every sunbed has its own wind block, so this is even better. Wind stops during the night.

Service in hotel is OK, but small tips do magic. We gave our waiter 2 euro coin on the first day, and for the whole week we were served superbly! Always with smiles and extra attention! I also must congratulate to the "bosses" of personnel. They were 3 or so of them - and they managed younger boys serving there (no girls to be seen) with respect, smiles and professionalism. They seemed as well-oiled machine, which also gave away good energy!

Some shops that are inside the hotel have not too pushy sales people.

Hotel is clean. OMG – I’ve have never seen this amount of detail targeted toward cleanness. They vacuumed the pool every evening, sweeping the floors several times per day, cleaning even the lamps outside! Crazy, and very positive! Must say they very pleasantly surprised both of us.

Only downside for me is the lack of free wifi at least in hotel lobby. The prices for wifi were terrible - in the range of 10eur/h+ ...But being on holiday, and not wanting to spend such money on internet, forced us to enjoy ourselves even more!

Location of hotel is great. There are 3 other hotels around, and this is it! Sea in front, desert at back. Hotel is 20-30 minutes (by taxi which you can get at the back of hotel if you walk towards main road) from local town of Safaga (small village where poor local residents and pure Egyptian lifestyle can be seen) - taxi costs 10 eur (both direction! taxi will wait for you in Safaga for as long as you want, and you pay them when they bring you back!). If you want to go to Hurghada, the hotel personnel is organizing a mini-bus, where you buy a seat for 6 eur (both ways included). Its a bumpy road, trip takes 50 min in one direction.

PRO:
Good, clean beach, shallow bay which is great for kids. Reef with plenty of fish.
Free beach towel, free sunbeds.
Free well equipped gym.

CON:
Awful juices
Awful/no snacks (10h-13h and 15h-17h)
Expensive internet (9 usd/hour)

Been there 2 weeks, AI (simple one, there’s a VIP AI which we did not have).

Might have been once a 4 star, but room wear and tear demotes it. The lobby, restaurant and lobby bar (and toilets nearby) look great and shiny. But that stops at the lifts. Rooms are OK, but in a few years...

We had a quite spacious room with a balcony facing the lobby roof. Bathroom size is OK, has a hairdryer with a bathtub (crappy: shower curtain leaves just around 40cm space to wash yourself). The bathroom had sometimes an unpleasant smell. About 1USD/day tip makes room cleaning perfect, the guy will do the fancy animals.
Plenty of mosquitos in the room and outside too, bring your anti-mosquito stuff (net, spray, whatever works).
There’s a small fridge, quite cold for beer, we used it for milk. It’s connector always has power, use it to charge devices. Filled free once per stay. Save the bottles, there are cold/hot water dispensers on the floor (we took some teabags and coffee to make that in the room).
There’s a safe in the cupboard, free of charge.

Animation: every few days at the pools in the middle of the U shape, otherwise at the roman theater which is on the northern side of the U. All in all noise isolation is quite OK, music stops at around 22h. Most quiet rooms seem to be facing south or (at) the beach.

Breakfast: orange/pineapple/unknown red juice is WORST ever in 10 years (a lot of food color with sugar in various dilution, that is a shame and served from morning till the evening), coffee is nescafe in small sachets or some luke brownish fluid. Real juice and coffee sold as extra (2,5-3,5 EUR per glass/cup). Boxed juice is 2EUR/liter in the hotel shop. Hot milk and water available, also cacao powder for kids and just one sort of lipton teabags as start, they added some more later on. Otherwise full range of buffet breakfast, from english-parts to continental, adding plenty of sweets. Hotplate does eggs and pancakes as ordered.

Lunch: OK, theme repeats weekly. As usual tip is not to take something from everything, but “theme” your lunch every day otherwise it will get boring. Hotplate does pasta or various meats. Full range of sweets.
Btw, the bad taste the others mention might be that the kitchen does not add a lot of salt, add that yourself.

Dinner: No dresscode enforcement, shorts tolerated. Theme repeats weekly. Quality, range is a good 3 star. Hotplate does usually various meats. Various fruits available: banana, melon, grapes. Full range of sweets. You can get ice behind the lobby bar. It’s possible to dine at the pool, but you need to lay the tables yourself. If the hotel is full, it’s possible the you can’t get a table at 5 mins after the restaurant opens.

Either the kitchen gets it right with hygiene or avoiding raw vegetables spared us from being very sick. Well the 2 weeks took their toll, but the pharmacy is right at the entrance of the hotel. Go when your stomach starts to grind.

AI snacks, drinks: another small issue is that there’s no food between 10-13h and creepy snacks are offered between 15-17h, not a problem for me, but smaller kids need to eat every 4 hours.
Most drinks are served from bottles, beer too at various temperature. There’s one sort of white and red wine too.

Kids eye view (3 years old):
Great beach, shallow warm water, clean sandy beach. Some pools for kids: pretty cold and full with chlorine. We generally avoid pools if a sea is near.
Playground: Quite good compared to previous experiences, built with some roof to have shadow.
Food: hint for breakfast: hot milk is in a bowl for soups. Sometimes they forget to put out the cacao powder. Every buffet has a great selection to find something for your child. Ours never left hungry. Biggest issue was the (orange/pineapple) juices as above, sadly our child is fixed on orange.
A problem is that there is no food served between 10h-13h. A 3 year old needs to eat every 4 hours, we had to take something from breakfast. Same goes for teatime. Some left-over sweets from lunch are served at the beach bar, not so healthy for kids.

I've been in many hotels in Egypt so I have comparison. The furniture is old, The bathrooms are also terrible. Although the choice of food is wide, it has no flavour & everything has strange taste, , The area around the hotel is big, there is a mini golf field and some shops but they are rather expensive. The service in hotel is pushy. The best thung is the beach clean and with beautiful small reef. The worst thing are rats aroud the swimming pool they run even during the day and the service has a huge problems to control them.

Upgraded to the Superior room and it was awesome....private balcony, walking around nude all the time...total freedom. Beach was great you could do anything you wanted....kitesurf, windsurf, scuba, fish, snorkel, swim, local tours or absolutely nothing....Recommend the ATV tour.....I was the 1st American most of the staff had ever seen so they all loved practicing thier english....Bar boys were the best.....Dr. Happy (Said), Bashim, Mohammed are just to name a few.....Egypt isn't known for the best tasting local spirits, but if you drink enough of them they taste really good.
Food was plentyful.....All in all, nice work!!!