Enjoy something honest, punchy and refreshing, inspired by my critical nature. I am quite often cal...
Enjoy something honest, punchy and refreshing, inspired by my critical nature. I am quite often called frank (but thats just by my nan - crazy old lady!)
Member since:04.09.2006
Reviews:3
“Egypt offers you the greatest gift of all, the sun.” Well, hot diggity they are not wrong there! Watching those beautiful adverts prior to booking my holiday I was successfully seduced. Lying on a beach of serenity for hours, playing football in nothing more than Speedos and dancing the night away, with just dotted palm trees for shade. Paradise? No. I feel myself building up a sweat just watching those advertisements now!
I travelled to Sharm El Sheikh at the beginning of June with my girlfriend and our cliché ‘sun, sea and sand’ ideals. We arrived around 8pm to find it was still lovely and hot, and by the time we arrived at our hotel around 9pm it was still 32 degrees, and we were informed that it had reached 46 degrees during the day. Wow.
Then came the guidelines that made this heat less than ideal: • Do no drink the water. It is taken directly from the Red Sea literally unfiltered and not even the Egyptians drink it apparently. It is only suitable for showering and cleaning your teeth • Anything that may contain the water should be taken at your own risk. Ice cubes, salads etc • Don’t have ice in the peak heat (12am – 3pm) as the change in temperature may upset your stomach. Avoid sunbathing during this time until your body has adjusted to the heat or you will get burnt. • Similarly don’t turn your air conditioning on too much during the day because the change in body temperature when you come in from outside may cause a stomach upset. At night don’t put your air conditioning any lower than 23 degrees so as not to feel woozy first thing in the morning when you step outside. • Only
drink bottled water (1.5litres for 25p) which will inevitably become warm once you’ve been carrying it around for… 5 minutes
But at the end of the day you are on holiday and no one wants to play by the rules on their week away. That was my attitude too until I had my longing for a ‘homely food’ and we decided to venture into the KFC on the edge of town. It had been marked on the local map we were given from our tour guide so we assumed this was as good as a recommendation. This was one of the cheapest places to eat we found on our whole holiday and it was fairly busy inside to make us feel like we weren’t taking a gamble. Family fries, coleslaw, 1.5litres of Pepsi, 12 bread rolls and 21 pieces of chicken for only £10! No wonder all we could see was people stuffing their faces in there. We stuck with a couple of Zinger burgers that successfully whet our appetites.
That was the beginning of the end of our holiday as my gamble didn’t pay off. Food poisoning kept me locked up in bed for 2 ½ days. Unable to stay away from the bathroom for more than 15 minutes I continued to lose all of my bodily fluids to the toilet whilst struggling to hydrate myself in the process. I guess its not often you go on holiday to lose weight eh.
At least you can be safe in the knowledge that if this does happen to you, the Pharmacy is excellent. They spoke English and gave me the exact pills and advice to aid my recovery.
We spent our week in Egypt staying in the Tropicana Rosetta Hotel in Naama Bay. This was on the main beach stretch; however we were on the other side of the main road. As much as this was a slight inconvenience, the savings were obvious and we managed to get 7 nights, flight and transfer for only £345. Apparently it is only £11 per night at the hotel, but when we asked to check out 4 hours later on our last day they insisted on charging £20 extra.
The hotel looked very picturesque and was immensely clean. Room service was excellent and hopefully my girlfriend has picked up a few tips on tidying (and hopefully she’s not reading this). I was even brought flowers when I was ill. There were four swimming pools, but they were all pretty small and were designed more for cooling down than doing a few lengths. Or you could say the area was used as a hunting ground for the local massage gurus. We were asked every day we were at the hotel if we would like a ‘transferring of his inner spirit’ (aka. A massage), and some people began getting animated at their persistent questioning.
The breakfast wasn’t anything special so I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised that on the first night when we paid for the seafood buffet and entertainment…. We were the only people eating. The food that evening was quite delicious and reasonably priced so we had no regrets. All of the hotels on the beach strip were much more open planned and relaxing. Perhaps the fact this hotel was enclosed and away from the beach caused it to be much less attractive in the evenings, where you could have cocktails on the beach whilst watching the sunset over the tide.
We travelled with Monarch airlines and enjoyed a cheap and cheerful flight with no complications. Although as with any budget airline, you barely have enough room to sit down, let alone trying to adjust your seat for sleeping. In the 11 hours we were in the air travelling to and from Egypt I think I closed my eyes for 10 minutes. So I guess I would recommend this airline as long as your aren’t hoping for the Hilton with wings and don’t travel for much longer than 5 hours.
Due to my illness we were only able to do one expedition; The Aquamarine. This was an underwater submarine that travelled along the corals and got you up close with the tropical fish. Even though this was an hour of being hot and stuffy sitting on three Russian women’s laps I did thoroughly enjoy it and managed to take some great photographic mementos to show everyone back home. This was £25 per person from our holiday rep. You can get better deals elsewhere but the quality of their tours are apparently debateable. A quad biking excursion across the desert came highly recommended, but we were forced to give this a miss.
The culture of Egypt is something we are all pre-warned of, but I guess you can either let it irritate you, or just embrace it. Every time you walk down the street you are pulled one way (not literally) and the other, offering you newspapers, taxi rides, excursions, massages, cocktails, to enter their restaurant or to purchase their treasures. This is relentless and you begin to think to yourself, ‘I was just about to enter your shop but now I cannot be bothered with all the hassle.
It is as if we owe them our money because we are rich and they are poor. We were offered two hand made sand designs in a glass for £22 and 3 cheap necklaces for £12. When we tried entering a larger market for tacky souvenirs to take home we picked up a mug, a little Tutankhamen figurine and 2 fridge magnets and told it would cost £30! When you are told to barter from that high a number it doesn’t motivate you to go looking for more souvenirs. As we tried to leave when he refused to even accept £12, we were shouted at and ushered out aggressively. My advice is to go out browsing in the evening. That is when everyone else is out and I guess there’s safety in numbers
There are Egyptian police on almost every corner so their behaviour never feels too intimidating and you are soon able to take their mannerisms with a pinch of salt… however desperate.
“Mail? Mirror? Sun?,,,, Moon?.... Stars?!” “This is the second time a woman has broken my heart, the next time I will kill myself!”
Luckily each hotel has their own beach (ours had 2) and this was free. Maybe it’s best to just suck on mother sun’s goodness and arrive home with that idyllic tan that will have everyone desperate to go wherever gave you such a glorious colour.
Even after all those things that niggled me whilst on holiday I would probably still recommend Sharm El Sheikh for a holiday. You may not get ill and you may be much more acclimatised to the heat that punished me. And apparently the diving facilities are some of the best in the world. If just for that reason alone Egypt will always attract tourism for a long time to come.
Would I go back there? Maybe not next year
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Very good review. It reminded me of my holidays in Morocco and Tunisia, especially the constant pestering by locals trying to sell you something and the dire consequences of eating or drinking the wrong thing.
HotBlonde 20.06.2007 14:20
Such a shame you were ill on holiday in Egypt. We went Nov 05 and had a fantastic time (Read OP) we were at the Hilton. im glad you were not put off going again... next time stay away from the fast food places!!! we did ate only in our hotel... - lynsey
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Jun 20th, 2007
exceptional by (9%):
very helpful by (91%):
