After reading mixed reviews we were a bit worried about what we would find. We stayed for two weeks and had one of the best holidays of our lives. The Hotel was clean and spacious whith endless supplies of pools and some form of entertainment happening at all times. Particular praise goes to Emily from the entertainment team who was very plesant. The staff were all egar to please always asking if we were ok and if they could do anything for us. The food across the bord was good although mainly geared up for the russians and germans. The room was large and cool with plenty of storage space and a nice view of the surrounding gardens. We had a few spar treatments whilst there which after haggling were well priced and we had a great time. The water slides were great fun and well manged by the staff.
Our only problems we experinced were the staff trying to sell excersions. They could be a bit full on at times but we found that if you said a firm no they left you alone for the rest of the holiday. ( avoid the 4 islands tour as this is a comple lie there is only 1 island they just take you to diffrent areas on it)
The russian guest we found to be very rude to the staff and treated them like slaves, as a result the staff favoured the english and we found we got much better service than the russians.
We really enjoyed our time there and were very dissapointed to leave And would deffiantly return.

With reguards to the previous review, this is egypt not the UK things will be different!
We thoroughly enjoyed this holiday and would recomend staying at this hotel.

Rooms:
The rooms were of a good standard, just what you would usually expect on holiday. We came back to the room every day and the housekeepers had made our blankets into various animals, it kept us very entertained. We found the air con controlls pretty confusing and had difficulty gettting the room cold but once we figured it out we knew what to do. The shower was fine, not up to british standards perhaps but we were in africa! I would be surprised NOT to find a lizard on my balcony in july in egypt.

Food:
The food was of a good standard but was aimed towards the germans we feel. For a week the choice of food was fine but i feel after two weeks it may have got repetative. I have a gluten allergy and struggled to find things to eat as they didnt understand what this ment, so i mostly ate rice and salad, luckily i had taked snacks in my case. We went to the chinese resteraunt which was much of the same but nice food. Pool snacks were limited so we went to the perade of shops to stock up on ice creams, crisps and chocolate.

The holel had a great atmosphere, it was livley without being overbearing. It was very family orientated and there was plenty of other kids. There wernt many english people, the majority being german, russian and french, but there was still english familys to talk to if you made the effort, which we did and really enjoyed thier company.

We took a trip to luxor, we visited the valley of the kings and various temples. It was a 4 hour drive to luxor with only a german comentary (my only complaint of the day!) , but well worth it. When they say it will be hot, there not lying! It was just like opening an oven door, so take plenty of the free water from the hotel. Everywhere you go in egypt you feel obliged to tip, but luxor seemed much worse, so take plenty of small change. All in all an unmisable trip.

Overall great holiday, amazing weather (every day very warm!) and a very realaxing time!

Great = pools, local food, use of Aqu Blue hotel (better pools inc wavemachine, snacks - Pizza is yummy, meals and service)
Ok = beach and coral
Rubbish =
1)The 'pool view' extra is not a pool view even after complaining, packing up again and moving. When being moved I over heard another person complaining about the same thing.
2) plumbing (both rooms had repeated problems. The whole place is smelly in the evening from 'gray' water used for 'firtilizing' the gardens. Fixings in bathroom broken.
3) Organisation on arrival is a 'bun fight'. Just what you need with kids when you are arriving at 10 at night. unclear if we would be able to get food as the restaurant was closed.
4) Deadly road needs to be crossed to get, eventually, to the beach, where there is no chance of getting a sunbed. (This was high season).
5) You need to get up at 7am (which equates to 5am UK time) to get a set of 4 sun loungers together.
6) Your kids will only go to the kids activities if they understand German in other words it might as well not be there. Same for the 'entertainment'.
7) There is a Hotel and Institute management college as part of this hotel - I can only assume they use the trainees. Some were lovely and great with the kids and some completely surly. You have to play hunt down a spoon each morning.
8) Diet coke is rarely available, coke runs out and I ended up drinking soda from the machine. Bar snack is last night's uneaten meat in a roll.
9) Being asked each day several time why I did not want to do scoober, then safari, then massage, then shopping trip, then submarine trip. I want to relax not suffer pressure selling.
10) The pools need maintenance. There are cracks and lumps in the liners, the in lets are cracked or missing and the 'slope' entrance has the ablity to graise kids feet. The waterslides are for 10 years plus. We went down twice - first time fine second time the person in front got stuck. this then caused a pile up which resulted in us getting rammed in the back by people behind us and about 8 of us comming out the end in a painful plunge. No one hurt but so.meone could have been. No one was messing about, all had left reasonable time gaps but there was no way of knowing of the blockage. So don't go if you want the slides or the beach or the ent or the kids club.
11) TV is very fuzzy and very limited. one channel is An american kids' sunday school while the other is all about near death accidents. Fab for keeping the kids happy -NOT.

Hotel - ALBATROS GARDENS

Firstly, when we arrived the stench of raw sewage which will only make you gag is a good indicator that you are close to this hotel. They use what you put in your toilet to water the gardens every day all day! We were made to wait at check-in for around an hour then taken to our rooms as we held our breath from the stink.

ROOMS -
The rooms are basic, but clean, after a few nights in the slabs of concrete they call 'beds' I started to get back pains, and the bag of house bricks which they call 'pillows' only add to the discomfort. There are 3 English channels on the fuzzy T.V, but if you want to hear the sound you better switch off the Air Conditioner. We found in total 5 large cockroaches in the room and lizards on the balcony. One of our 3 rooms had an even worse stench than the gardens, it smelt like a gallon of gone off milk has been spilt in the room - Horrible! I can honestly say I have has the worst shower experience in my life at this hotel, the temperature is uncontrollable, every 15 seconds the shower rapidly turns from ice cold to scolding hot, you have around 3 seconds of normal temperature before it changes again. Their is a luxury of choosing if you want the shower to come out in a dribble or a fine mist.

LOCALS -
We have come to the conclusion that the cleaner does not get paid, instead, relies on tips! It is unbelievable how many times he will come into your room without knocking and repeatedly saying 'it's good?' while pointing at the bed you are lay in. The cleaner fancied my girlfriend and would walk in when it was only her in the room and try to hug her and make small talk. All Egyptian men in and around the resort are all perverts and don't care if you are eye balling them while they stare at you girlfriends legs, they are pathetic. If you get a taxi anywhere, prepare to get conned, if they try saying you paid them too much just get out and go, they are trying to con you with another currency. You can haggle them down to 20 Egyptian Pounds for a taxi.

FOOD -
Now onto the food... frankly, the worst thing about the holiday was the food. Same slop day in day out. Out of the 6 of our party, 5 became ill in varied degrees. The worst was my fathers, 6 days of unbearable stomach cramps and a few sleepless nights. I was ill for 3 days and my girlfriend for 4. Thank god for the McDonald's at the shopping centre. I must admit, the pizza from the Italian restaurant was very nice even though it was about a 6 inch pizza. STAY AWAY FROM EGGPLANT - This WILL make you ill, it is what my father ate.

ENTERTAINMENT -
You will struggle to find a sun lounger after 9.00 as it is a shared resort other hotels come to our pools because of the water slides, I suggest going to their pools which are much better. The hotel...no... Hughada is full of Russians, Germans and the French. So get ready to be lonely unless you are multi-lingual. Entertainment is only in their languages. The hotel singer was an absolute joke! He sings the same songs from the same CD every night of his life and does not get any better! You will be hassled constantly as they let people walk around the hotel selling false promises of all inclusive snorkling boat trips - don't be fooled, you get 2 free drinks on the boat!