The Rixos, Sharm el-Sheikh is truly a place to relax and enjoy the sun without any worries. The staff are extremely attentive, the facilities and food excellent. The resort is set in beautifully cared-for gardens with a backdrop to the sea and a long jetty from which you can swim straight along the coral reef. There can be a current challenging to inexperienced swimmers so do be aware of this. The lifeguards are very attentive and do a good job.

The rooms are spacious, well furnished, with plenty of hot water and great showers. The beds are very firm but comfortable. The beds need to be robust given the number of obese clientele, certainly a salutary lesson in not over indulging the truly ‘all inclusive’ basis. It was great fun mixing with other guests from a great variety of cultures and this is one of the strengths of the place. Many guests are from Russia and in order to get anywhere it is useful to adopt their cultural attitude towards queuing. Being a shrinking violet will not help.

The buffet-style restaurant caters for all tastes from those who just want chips and burger type food, to plenty of delicious local-style food, with great salads, cheeses, and varieties of cooked meats.There are also a la carte restaurants which are a delight to use, but do book in advance if you want to be flexible around times. Bookings are done via very simple to use terminals in the reception. We also enjoyed the beachside cocktail bar, a great place to stargaze!

Sales staff from the very over-priced spa and also from the dive centre are something of a nuisance as they pester you on your first day by the pool. However they do recognise that they have spoken to you and stopped bothering us after the first day. This nuisance is far out-weighed by the poolside bar staff who check a couple of times during the day whether you need refreshments and bring it to your sunbed! There are many pools and we never had any trouble finding free sunbeds.

All the staff clearly take pride in the service they deliver. On arriving we encountered one of the most helpful, efficient and pleasant hotel receptions we have ever come across. Later, on checking a couple of routine matters on the phone, Megan and Bella could not have been more helpful.

Although the hotel is only a 15-20 minute drive from the airport, it is only occasionally over flown and there is no aircraft noise-nuisance.

Entertainment is laid on some evenings and is great fun. We particularly enjoyed the Chinese circus.

There is wi-fi in the public areas but generally it is very slow. Its just about ok for routine checking of emails but if you need to do anything more oyu'd be much better off with your own account.

Just one negative note and obviously an issue with the region, not the hotel;we were bitten by tiny flies, probably sandflies, especially around our legs. Using an insect repellent spray- dealt with the problem but we had to use it in the morning and evening. Other guests had bites on their shoulders. We also used repellent over night in the room.

We will return to this hotel and recommend it for a superb holiday in the sun.

We got back early hours of this morning from an amazing 10 night break at the Rixos hotel and we loved every minute of it, so much so we have already discussed returning next year.

The weather was amazing it was a shock to the system returning to a cold UK.

The hotel was truly 5* in every way- comfort, service, cuisine, entertainment.

All staff went above and beyond looking after our little boy. The lifeguards on the kids pool in particular Mohammed and Ali were brilliant. The pool wasn't as warm as we had hoped the first couple of days but they soon rectified that and it remained warm as a bath for the rest of the stay.

The entertainment team (esp Luca with his white glasses was a character "Wakey Wakey Sharm el Sheikhy") were great at getting the party started and creating a positive vibe around the whole hotel day and night without being invasive. They have various things going on in the day to get involved in - yoga, water aerobics, belly dancing, pilates, water volleyball & water polo or you can just sunbathe or enjoy a drink in one of the pool bars! :-)

The beach parties on Tuesday's (black & white dress code) & Friday's (Hawaiian beach party) were brilliant too. There was a kids disco every night at 8pm followed by various entertainment such as Chinese acrobatics/circus, Egyptian saxophonist and belly dancers...

We also rode a camel along the beach which will be a great memory.

My only (slight) negative was the amount of mosquitos as myself and our little boy got bitten quite a bit so arrive with repellant etc (you can buy everything you need from the on site shops at a fair price). We saw the gardeners spraying/smoke around the grounds to try and control them but apparently it is mating season for them?! Which would explain why I was bitten as normally isn't an issue for me.

Saying that, if you have any complaints/concerns just say and they will and we saw it do everything they can to sort if out for you. They are really hot on feedback across all areas of the hotel.

I recommend this hotel/holiday to anyone looking for a fantastic holiday at a hotel offering that little extra.

We will be returning in 2014 and will be hopefully taking the rest of the family and friends with us.

Thanks Rixos and team for a fab holiday we really did not want to leave. 14 nights next time x