We stayed at Arabella Azur Resort for one week from 23 February to 2 March 2013. We really enjoyed our time, it is a great place to relax. Arabella Azur Resort is a nice little village of white houses, two swimming pools, two beaches and three restaurants. The guests are mainly German, Dutch, Scandinavian and Eastern European. A nice mix with families and couples (young and older).

Rooms
During our stay a part of the resort was under construction. It looked like they are updating the rooms, which is great. The rooms are nice now, but could use an update. We stayed in a room in block D. The room is spacious, with different levels, each two steps up or down. The comfortable bed is on the highest level, the bathroom is at entrance level and you have a sofa and a balcony or terrace on the lowest level. These differences in height give the room a nice touch. Each room has its own mini bar, which contains three soft drinks and two bottles of water free of charge. The mini bar is refilled every day.
The bed is nice and comfortable and you get a double set of pillows, so you can choose the one you like best. The bathroom is also nice and spacious, with a bathtub, toilet and sink.
The room is cleaned every day and has protection from bugs in front of the windows and under the doors.

Beach and swimming pool
We love to go snorkeling, so we stayed at the reef beach most of the time. You can get your towels at the big swimming pools, which is beautiful. At the reef beach there are plenty of sunbeds and umbrellas. The beach boys help you with your towel, if you want to (also without a tip). You can get a drink at the beach bar, and the bartender walks around to take your orders. He remembers what you drink and offers great service, also without a tip (but ofcourse you get even better service when you tip the staff. They work hard for it).
You can eat fresh pizza and ice cream at the big swimming pool and get hot snacks at the main beach.

Restaurants
The main restaurant (Grill Restaurant) has sea view, which is great for breakfast, lunch and dinner. All meals are really nice. The food is different each day and of good quality. The staff cares about hygiene, both of us didn't get sick. The hotel offers a large buffet for breakfast, lunch and dinner. At breakfast, you have a selection of breads (also whole wheat and diet), fruit, an omelet station, crepes, salads, yoghurt and cereal. For lunch, you can choose from a selection of hot dishes and a salad and bread buffet. Dinner is really nice every evening. You can choose nice and healthy food from the buffet. There is meat, fish and vegetarian each day and also different vegetables to choose from. At each meal there is also a large dessert buffet.
When you are in the mood for a different atmosphere, you can also eat in the Italian Restaurant and the Egyptian restaurant, which both offer an All Inclusive menu.

Entertainment
The hotel offers a lot of entertainment choices, from the gym and aerobics at the swimming pool to a game arcade with billiards and a pool table. If you like shows, you can see a different one each evening, all by the enthusiastic entertainment team. There is also a live music performance three times a week in the Fire Corner, one of the places you can hang out and have a drink. You can have a drink at three different places and if you fancy a dance, there is an All Inclusive disco as well.

So, if you are looking for a nice resort with a great reef, good service, tasty food and a nice atmosphere, I would definetely recommend this resort.

I spent my last holidays in Egypt, in hotel Arabella Azur. This hotel is located on a very nice spot of Hurghada, you can say on a corner, so that the hotel area has two beaches to two different cardinal points.
Let's begin from the check-in. The welcoming was warm and comfortable. We didn't have to stand in a row waiting for the check-in as it is usually in many hotels. On the contrary, we were seated in the lobby, we were brought a drink and the documents to fill in. After a while, one of the receptionists came to us and brought us our room keys and a hotel plan. Shortly he explained us the most important things we should know about the hotel, the All Inclusive system, the main restaurants, how the towel-lending works etc. By this way he saved us time, otherwise we would have to go around and search by ourselves. The concierge accompanied us to our room and didn't wait for any tips (a nice feeling that you are not obliged to give him something to go away, happened to us before a couple of times).
We arrived in the lunch time, so that we still managed to have our lunch, luckily. Following the hotel map we were given at the check-in, we found the main restaurant easily. Furthermore there are many signs in the hotel showing you the way, because, as we found out later, the area is little bit complicated.
When we arrived to the main restaurant, we were breathless. It is situated right at the sea, so you can watch even the turtles sometimes passing by, while you are eating. Very nice atmosphere and fresh sea breeze. There was a lot to choose from, plus there was live grilling (the name of the restaurant is Grill Restaurant).
The following day we decided to use the service of the Guest Relation. They are organizing every day at 13:00 a "hotel tour" for the new guests. It helped us a lot! During the hotel tour we got to know where are the pools, where we can get our meals during the day and where are the bars. During the tour we discovered another beach aside from the main beach, which is perfect for snorkeling! I will write about it later.

Hotel area: the hotel is built in a Nubian style. Very typical, with white cupolas. The area is big enough to get lost in it :) What we found very good is the fact, that we could use the pools and the beach of the neighbor hotels Arabia and Bel Air (they belong to the same hotel chain). Drinks were extra in the other hotels.

Room: the room style is Nubian as well. I found it romantic. The room was a little bit dark because of the colored window glasses, but it didn't disturb us a lot because the most of time we were spending outside, and when we wanted to sleep, at least not much sun was coming inside. The room service was just perfect! The room was always clean, the staff friendly and helpful. They always asked if we need something. And every day we found another figure made of towels :) The rooms must have been renovated because all the furniture and the painting were in a very good case. And we were surprised to have a big (and working!) LCD TV instead of some old-modern TV. Our room was located to the pool so we could access the pool directly from the terrace and also enjoy our morning coffee there. I must also mention that there is free coffee and tea in the room refilled daily, plus a kettle, so if you wish to drink anything you don't have to go to the bar but you can prepare it directly in your room.

Pools & beaches: there are two pools in the hotel area. One bigger and one smaller. The smaller one is heated during winter and the animation takes place there. It means that the bigger pool was rather empty at this winter time. But from the big pool there is an amazing view to the sea! Towels are available at the pool or at the beach in exchange for a towel card (for free).
There are 2 beaches. One main beach and a "reef beach". Why reef? Because directly at the beach there is a wonderful house reef where you can snorkel all day long! We saw a lot of fish species and corals. Colorful and untouched. Indescribable!
There are also bars at the beaches/pools and what is the best, that you don't have to move yourself! The guys come to your sunbed and bring you whatever you like! Excellent service!

Food & Drinks: In this hotel you can eat and drink all day long. There is no time during a day when you are hungry. There are two main restaurants, one of them Italian, where they make a very tasty pizza in the evening. And during a lunch time when we were laying on the beach, we didn't have to change our clothes to go to eat, because there was a beach restaurant ;) In the bears they made the best cappuccino ever and a lot of different cocktails.

Service: all the staff is very friendly and not pushy. One or two may have their bad day, but there was never someone impolite or rude. If we needed something, they tried to do their best to fulfill our wish.

Other tips: about shopping, we didn't have the mood to bargain with the bazaar sellers and we decided to go to a shop with fixed prices. The name is Cleopatra and it's located in the Sheraton Street above Abu Ashara supermarket. We caught a taxi from in front of the hotel (there are always some taxis standing) and for 20 pounds he drove us there. After shopping we decided to walk a little in the main street (Sheraton), but the sellers were bothering us.

Another tip is to visit Hurghada Marina. It is a harbour with yachts and restaurants where you can have a walk and make some beautiful pictures as well. And it's quite near to the hotel so if you have time and mood, you can walk there (ca. 20 minutes walk)

Another thing to mention are excursions. We've got a tip from our friends who were in Egypt last year to choose a company called Red Sea Reisen. So we contacted them before our trip per email (they speak English, German and some other languages) and chose some trips from their website. We booked an evening Quad Safari, "1001 night" show and a private city tour. We wanted to book a trip to aqua park, but we became tired so we decided to stay and relax in the hotel. We were very satisfied with their services and next time we'd like to book some sightseeing trips (Luxor, Aswan etc.) with them.

Overall, we had a dream holiday and we wish to return to Egypt and to Arabella as soon as possible :)

Travelled to Egypt and stayed in this resort during the second week of January 2013.
The hotel view outside on approach is beautiful and big. The resort itself is also very large, there's plenty areas around to sunbathe and enjoy the sun. Didn't really get to experience much warm weather as we were told that usually the first 10days of the year are the coldest (typical we went when it was cold). Plenty of couples and small families in the area. Staff in the resort are very friendly, always greet you in passing. One major thing which was a huge letdown was the selection of food. Although they had a variety everyday, it wasn't piping hot and become warm once we sat down to eat. There isn't a huge choice as i would've expected from an all inclusive however i suppose its worth what you pay for. On the plus side, there are two main restaurants within this hotel, which you are able to alternate between which we did. There is also an indoor and outdoor seating arrangement if you wish to sit out or in. The main 'Grill' restaurant has a few safety inconveniences in that the floor is all brick (mainly as it's outdoor) so the tables and chairs often weren't completely steady and wobbled about sometimes. Staff operated extremely efficiently which i liked, and there's plenty of them around to serve guests.
Bedrooms are a nice size and the beds were amazingly comfortable. The bathroom has all the basic amenities. Storage space to hang clothes and laundry service. Bedrooms were tidied and replenished promptly every morning and our cleaner made us really pretty animals out of towels every day. Mini fridge drinks including coke, pepsi and water are free to drink and are topped up every day. Also have a kettle and tea/coffee sachets.
One main issue i had when out in Egypt but particularly within our resort was the guys around trying to sell excursions to tourists. It is a major pet hate of mine when being pressured into buying or looking at something, so if you are browsing through brochures, my advice is not to say yes straight away (unless you are genuinely interested) in case you find a better deal elsewhere, as we did with our holiday rep. It was then a little awkward to say no to the first guy as he was expecting money from us. It doesn't happen often and if you make clear you're not interested then i'm sure they'll leave you alone.
The resort itself is very clean and well maintained, beautifully decorated with plants, trees and flowers around. Plenty of things to do (free billiards room, spa & gym, kids play area, designated performance and shisha places etc). Overall enjoyed and was happy with our pick of accommodation but the food selection is the major letdown for me,

Just about 3 km outside the "city center" you find a hotel which will give you the impression to be in Marocco! Very individual rooms, narrow "streets" ( walkways) to connect rooms... Two pools, a beautiful access to the read sea, a german led diving center... What do you expect more fit a nice Holiday. Out of about 4 the best restaurant is the Italian one, with fresh oven baked pizzas which you can not find in a circle of 250 km...
Germans and Netherlanders are the main customers... Average age is the 50th... But a lot of young couples as well. Prices for a "all inclusive Hotel" are very well... Double around 90 euros a day! The restaurants should work a bit on their cocktails and have better juices and may be better alcoholic drinks, not locals. There is a beer bar where you can find empty bottles of foreign drinks... But if you ask for them you will be informed: this is only decoration...
If I would not be a diver but just stay one week in the Hotel a would NOT choose it.
Lovely houses and rooms... But a "tourist fabric" - which I do not lime