We stayed at this sweet hotel in March 2006 when the spring in Egypt was just kicking in and we had 8 days of fab sunny weather. The hotel is deceptively sophisticated - it's not as huge as some of the other resorts further into the new town (which is good when you want to pop back to your room from the beach or the restaurant) and it is situated quite conveniently close to mid-town (Sekalla) - which is always worth a visit if you want a bit of nightlife, different cuisine or souvenir shops.

The apartments are excellent, built in such a way that all upper floor balconies have a sea view (and probably the ground floor apartments too - but we didn't stay on the ground floor). The rooms are very spacious with good bathrooms including a bath - we've stayed at a few other hotels in Hurghada including so-called 5 star hotels and this was far the best bath/shower rooms.

Food-wise the restaurant supplied varied fare catering for most tastes/national preferences - for example, being an English person I enjoyed the wholemeal bread on the "diet" table, we had huge grapefruits every day, plus there was a choice of German, Egyptian and Russian hot food. Evening meals were also good, the desserts were a bit samey though - (plenty of jelly but no ice cream!) and although the fruit was plentiful it too was lacking in variety - either dates, bananas or oranges (not a strawberry in sight). However overall the food was fine.

There is a small, clean pool as you come out of reception although we didn't hang out there! The beach is clean, the sunbeds good and well maintained and there is a good and enthusiastic animation team that organises volleyball twice a day, keep fit sessions, aqua aerobics, boules, etc. There is an aqua centre which has a well-equipped scuba diving centre and glass boat. Evening activities included darts and table tennis tournaments and probably a lot more that we were unaware of. There were other themed evenings too, like bellydancing, Nubian dancing, etc. You can also go on trips to Luxor or Cairo via the reception. There is a disco in the hotel although we only popped in to have a look and think it's safe to say you're better off going to somewhere like Ministry of Sound or Calypso nightclubs!

Most of the people staying here were Russian, also some German and a few other nationalities. I think I was the only British person though!

All in all I would thoroughly recommend this hotel and would definitely go again!

We had a great time at the Marlin Inn, the staff was very helpful. The food was good they try to make something different everynight... The breakfast was good as well, you could eat almost anytime you would like too, which I thought was great. It right on the beach which is great and they have activities all day on the beach, once a week in the evening they have Egyptian dancers that are great entertainment.

Just make sure you calculate everything at the end of you trip, sometimes they try to miss calculate all your bills. But for the rest Hurghara is a great place the people are very friendly and try to sell you everything, but it's fun.

I stayed at Marlin Inn for two weeks with my sister. The breakfast and evening buffet were included.

Good things:

- Lots of sports activities; volleyball, table tennis, pool.
- The evening buffet looked good (before you tasted).
- On opposite side of the street is an Internet cafe.
- The use of ping-pong table was free.

Bad things:

- Receptionists and cooks were rude and tried to advance females.
- All employees were local males.
- Showers did not work well.
- The food caused diarrhea (probably common for a traveller in Egypt).
- Air-conditioning was loud.
- The food looked better than tasted.
- The local people outside the hotel are very eager to sell you stuff.