Your rating of this hotel:
4.0
from 10
Hotel ratings by criteria:
Rooms:
3.0
Service:
5.0
Cleanliness:
6.0
Food:
6.0
Amenities:
7.0
I rested in Golden 5 Diamond from 13 to 21 October 2014. At this time, many tour operators began to go bankrupt, and this introduced no small risk to this event, and the dollar exchange rate grew by leaps and bounds. In general, I decided that the tour should be chosen among the most eminent tour operators. The list includes Pegas, CoralTravel and TezTour, which I stopped at.
Tip: After you have decided on the country you are going to, it will be right to go to the local travel agency and find out which hotels are offered to go to for your amount of money. Write down a few proposed options and choose from them at home - see hotel reviews and watch video reviews of vacationers on youtube
Many people make a common mistake - first they select a hotel by rating and reviews, and then they try to find how to buy a tour to this hotel.
In most cases, the actual prices for a tour to this hotel will differ significantly from those expected or advertised on the Internet, and tours may not be available at all from your local tour operators!
Also, you should not spontaneously buy a tour at a travel agency right on the spot without reading the reviews and watching the video of those who rested in this hotel, even if the travel seller is a very nice woman with an innocent-truthful face. Cunning sellers in agencies will use all sorts of tricks to persuade you to stay at a particular hotel right now and immediately make an advance payment for the tour. They will tell you noodles about the fact that free tours to this hotel are almost over, that in a day there will be a global rise in price, or that there are almost no plane tickets left and you need to urgently make a reservation.
In general, do not give in and be sure to sit for an hour or two at a computer on the Internet before making an advance payment.
And even better - check the cost of this tour with another competing tour operator. They are now selling not only their own tours but also those of others, and often the final amount depends on the greed of a particular tour operator in a particular travel agency.
At this time of the year, it was already getting colder in Turkey and Greece, but I still wanted to bask in the sun, while I didn’t want to throw a lot of money for exotic countries. All that was left was Egypt - Hurghada with its sandy beaches and the right temperature for this time of year.
A trip for two people to the Golden 5 Diamond for 8 nights with a flight and all additional fees cost about 50 thousand rubles. (the dollar exchange rate at that moment was 40.55 rubles). Various proposed additional insurance against “not flying”, etc. , were rejected by me - I considered it to be an extra waste of money. I paid for the voucher in full at once, thus insuring myself against an increase in its cost due to the rising dollar exchange rate.
I did not encounter any problems with the timely receipt of documents and the transfer of flights to TezTour. Everything went smoothly enough. The only thing is that you need to track your flight to the plane on your own in a day. Airlines can move it for at least 10 hours or more in one direction or another without any notice from you. The tour operator is not responsible for the fact that you did not keep track of your flight in the hope that it will fly on schedule. There is even a paid SMS notification service on the airport website about the postponement of your flight. It costs something in the region of a buck. But you can also track for free by calling the hot phone of the airport or on the website in the online scoreboard.
Tip: Do not pay hundreds of dollars from the tour operator for the view of the windows of the room on the sea, etc. Upon arrival at the hotel, you can do this directly at the reception for $ 20.
Sea view implies the approximate direction of the windows towards the sea, but most often the sea, if it is visible, is only through binoculars. At the same time, the term "view of the garden" often has an abstract meaning - in fact, in this case, the view can be on the wall of a neighboring building and even on a garbage dump or construction site.
For porters and other attendants, $1 is enough. This is also such a norm, but you can give nothing at all or just not part with it. Tipping is most often not reflected in the quality of service and attitude towards you.
The reception really loves Russian chocolate, but for a chocolate bar you will only get a smile and verbal thanks. In fact, they will not give an improved number for a chocolate bar, although they promise and take chocolate. In general, only currency is quoted at the reception : ) Sometimes they even say for the promised reward that there are no better rooms.
Maybe it is, or maybe they just misunderstood the amount of the promised reward. Specify this point, but usually $ 20 is enough to resolve this issue at the reception.
Do not pay money in advance or to another person (for example, a porter), even if he will assure that the money must be transferred through him. In this case, you will most likely have to pay money again, and they will try not to return what you gave. In general, with whom you agreed and pass the bill from hand to hand, but only after inspecting the room and settling. This is the norm for them, not a bribe to an official.
It is several times more effective to mix dissatisfaction with the proposed number with American dollars. Without a moderate negative on your part, they get the impression that you already have enough of the proposed number, even for extra money.
In general, if you come up and calmly and without emotions ask for the best room for extra money, then this may not actually give the expected effect, although they can take the money and / or start “feeding breakfast”.
If suddenly one of the staff is rude to you or “turns on the fool” instead of performing their duties. The first thing to do is take a picture or video of the face of that "monkey" and go to the reception to complain to the administrator. A filmed face will be needed to identify the offender, because they are all like “identical twins” there, and after 10 minutes you yourself will not be able to point the finger at the culprit with 100% certainty.
In addition, seeing the camera in the face, they instantly turn on the brain and start a normal dialogue without impudent pomposity.
In general, any problem is instantly solved only through a call to the administrator, whom they are really afraid of.
Don't let the impudence of the staff, although this is a rarity in this hotel!
In my case, the administrator apologized for the employees for a long time and issued an invitation to a paid restaurant as an apology, which was not easy to get into even for money. I didn't have to pay anything for dinner with real restaurant dishes.
It seemed to me that Egyptians by default consider all Russian (and maybe not only Russian) tourists to be dumb rich suckers-alcoholics who must be bred for at least a few dollars in some intricate way. This attitude is observed until you prove the opposite in the dialogue and remember the face. Only then does the relationship become normal and respectful.
When checking into a hotel, the wishes written in the voucher from the tour operator (such as the client's wish) are not taken into account at all. At least in my case everything was ignored.
They try to accommodate all newcomers in the nastiest and most uncomfortable rooms. I suppose this is done in order to have a reason to move you to a normal room for extra money. Relocation to normal rooms for additional money is apparently put on stream.
The difference between a good room and a bad one in Golden 5 Diamond:
1- Remoteness of the building from the infrastructure.
2- Second floor.
3- Sunny arrangement of windows.
4- Killed state of furniture, plumbing and door locks.
5- No balcony - just a window.
6- Strongly smelly manhole under the windows of the room.
7- Not working or rattling air conditioner in the room.
8- Strong noise at night in the room from outdoor air conditioning units on the roof (only Moldex earplugs save).
9- A fluffy kinescope TV.
10- Floors with bumps, covered with an old worn carpet.
11- Strongly creaking wooden beds.
12- Swarm of mosquitoes from the central air conditioning system (in some rooms).
13- Ants (piece) in the toilet and even small 3-5cm shy nimble-running lizards, which are quite difficult to spot with the eye, but they are there. The hotel is actively fighting with these inhabitants - the cleaners spray the rooms with some kind of “green tea” from an aerosol can, and occasionally a car with a smoke exhaust passes all over the street, sooting half the hotel with white, not very caustic smoke.
My first room in this hotel was with almost all the negative points from the list above. If the first day I spent on a flight with check-in, then the second day I had to spend on resettlement dialogues, followed by dragging things and water from the fridge-bar from one room to another. And that's all paid vacation days.
All rooms feel a strong decline from the once not bad five-star hotel. Previously, this whole complex was called Princess Egypt Hotels, but now the complex is called Golden 5 City.
My guess is that someone just rented this entire complex, since the current maintenance is done at the lowest hacky level imaginable, or not done at all. The last thing left in it is simply sucked out of the hotel.
Everything that has been done in the rooms as a current repair does not stand up to criticism: everything is stained with paint, blots and stains from cement have not been wiped off, the plaster has not rubbed off and is bristling with bumps, the floors have not been leveled, the tiles are laid crookedly, ceiling lamps with light bulbs have fallen out of the false ceiling in places, the suspended ceiling itself walks along the level for many centimeters, non-working switches just stick out in the walls sealed with adhesive tape, limescale rampages in the bath, which could be screwed - more often just tied with a string, all the bulbs are without shades, a screw from accidental closing of the tongue, and a rusty crooked latch hangs nearby, the color of the new underpaintings is not matched on the facade, the falling off tiles on the street are lying around, some of the screws with bolts in the furniture and locks have fallen out, the cracks on the black washbasin are extremely inaccurately smeared with white mastic, the mattress is worn , all towels have a bunch of elongated hanging threads, the curtain rod in the bathtub fell off it is woven and tied to the ceiling with ropes, the furniture, although massive, is worn down to wood in places, everything is shattered to the maximum and rests on parole or does not hold at all
.
In general, local repairs are carried out only when absolutely necessary and hastily from improvised penny things without any selection of materials, some kind of “monkey” not educated in this matter, who has never done anything more difficult than wiping his ass.
In principle, such a careless repair does not interfere with rest, but just when a five-star rating is declared, it all hurts the eye and spoils the overall impression!
The only thing that prevents this hotel from being given 2 stars is its hefty green well-groomed territory with beautifully trimmed trees, large pools with slides, and large rooms. Ours was: bedroom - 35m? , toilet - 15m? and corridor - 15m? .
Separately, about the beds: they are wide (one and a half), but their softness is comparable to an ordinary wadded mattress thrown on a concrete floor.
Although the bed is wide, it will be very uncomfortable for a heavy person or a pensioner to sleep on such a hard bed (for young people it can and will do).
All night you do nothing but toss and turn, trying to find a comfortable position - but it simply does not exist. Lying on any side for more than half an hour becomes unbearable - the joints of the shoulders begin to hurt and the arms go numb. Synthetic rectangular pillow is also shit. In general, after 8 nights on such a bed, I came home with a pulled shoulder ligament. Now she hurts when trying to stretch her arm and take it to the side.
In general, I will attribute the bed to the main negative point of this hotel. But unfortunately such hard beds in hotels are not such a rare occurrence for Egypt. After getting to know them, you begin to pay much more attention to this moment.
The listed negative aspects of the rooms take place only in some cases, but the beds are the same everywhere. In general, there are rooms that are very bad and there are more or less normal for a comfortable stay.
In their tap water there is a taste reminiscent of a slight marine smell of algae mud. They use this water to make coffee and instant drinks, which greatly spoils the taste of the latter. They probably have well water. This is probably why all tourists are warned to drink raw water anywhere in Egypt. But in the coffee itself, this water was like boiled, and I was not afraid to drink it, although I was not delighted with the taste. And so in general they mostly drank bottled water without gas. It is given free of charge upon check-in at the rate of 0.5 liters per day per person + a bottle of Fanta with cola. At the reception there is a cooler with good water, from which it is not forbidden to replenish stocks of clean water directly into bottles. You can also ask the cleaner to bring a few sealed bottles of water to your room.
In general, the food is simple, without taste frills and restaurant-like dishes on the plate, but it is quite satisfying.
In terms of level, it turns out such a budget canteen with a self-service system, in the style of a buffet, and chefs dosing meat to everyone. If you stand above your soul, then they can report a little more meat, but it’s better to come up again with a clean plate - they don’t really remember who was given meat and who wasn’t. In general, there are too many restrictions on food and drinks for the All Inclusive system - we don’t pour into our dishes, only 2 pieces of meat, etc.!
Yes, vacationers can visit restaurants in other local hotels, but during the last hour of work. That is, in the first 1.5-2 hours from the beginning of lunch, only vacationers from their hotel are allowed in, and only then everyone. True, there is absolutely no point in looking for where the food is better. The menu in all restaurants is carbon copy. That is, there is no gastronomic difference at all where you will dine. It's just that in your hotel restaurant you can do it earlier than in the neighboring one.
There is also something for alcoholics - they pour it in the dining room and near the pools. They also have something strong and beer, but it has been noticed that even beer is poured 100-150 grams into flimsy transparent plastic cups. It's funny to watch guys stand in line and get these ridiculous beers. Some people immediately order an armful of these cups and then drag them to the table. I once observed a scene: a vacationer asks not to dilute the whiskey with cola, and the waiter replied “Not allowed”. In general, of course, some kind of nonsense in this regard. And it's called 5 stars : )
A little about the area:
This entire complex of hotels is called Golden 5 City - a territory with a Moscow microdistrict. Near the sea there are 3 hotels Emerald, Diamond and Al mas. In the center of the territory, Paradise is the main building of the complex, which even has a cable lift from the beach to the roof of the building. But it does not work due to running and not maintaining it. Most likely it is even broken.
Farther from the sea there is a more budget hotel Club, from which during daylight hours a train runs to the beach and back with a break from 12 to 14 hours.
This complex has 2 more Topaz and Sapphire hotels, but they are completely “in Kamchatka” and far from the sea - 500 meters from the coast. This is probably quite for hikers, although I would not say that there are much cheaper rooms.
The nearest hotel to the pool with slides is Diamond. In addition, towels are changed near this pool only for those staying at the Diamond Hotel. Other vacationers change towels in their hotels.
Near the Al mas hotel, a grandiose water park with chic slides is being built, but it will not be ready soon - presumably 2015-2016.
The advantages of the Diamond Hotel are its remoteness from nightly discotheques. You can sleep peacefully and the pool next to the sea. But for some, this may be the other way around.
In the central hotel Paradise, of course, you feel in a richer place, but the rooms are smaller compared to Diamond. There is little information about other hotels, but according to rumors, things are exactly the same in terms of the level of depreciation of the rooms.
If you want a nice big flat screen TV in your room, then only Diamond Hotel's single storey bungalows have one. They are located next to the buildings of standard rooms and not very far from the sea and the restaurant. But in the Diamond Bungalow there may be an "ambush" with the smell of sewage from the street, but again, not in all rooms. The fact is that there the sewerage passes in concrete street ditches, covered with slabs. In some places, the hatches have rusted, the slabs are not laid tightly, and some even have holes. During the day, the smell may not be due to the wind, and at night, in the absence of wind, it may smell. In general, this is how lucky : )
ATTENTION: On all excursions (including those from TezTour) you will be filmed and then asked to buy this video.
The TezTour guide will talk about the excellent video quality and professional editing. And all this for 25$-45$ And you will also get several CDs with music and the history of Egypt as a gift ...
In general, you can take a photo - they print it right on the spot. The video quality is simply terrible - shooting like on a Nokia push-button phone or on the cheapest WEB-cameras with a resolution of 0.3 MP. For example, in the 90s on pirated video cassettes, the video quality was better than on their discs.
They shoot their video on the dead ancient cameras, even though they look like big ala-professional ones. It seems that they wipe the lens optics with sand. ))) Looking through what you bought, you involuntarily remember the Mighty Russian ...This is just some kind of kick-ass, and not a high-quality video tour ! ! !
In addition, TezTour guides brazenly lie to tourists that the discs are copy-protected - on the disc there is an ordinary single video file of a standard extension without any protection, it is easily copied like any other file. In general, no shamanistic actions are required to copy it. In extreme cases, there is a computer shop near the Diamond reception, where for $ 3-5 the seller copies these discs to both a USB flash drive and DVD discs!
Some tourists were generally deceived with discs - there were all sorts of things on the discs, but not a recording of the tour, although they paid $ 45 for these discs.
In addition, they take the money immediately after the tour, and the discs are not delivered to the reception in a day or two!
In general, this is the most unpleasant scam that I came across on this trip. Apparently, the calculation is that tourists will watch the discs only upon arrival home ! ! !
PLEASE NOTE: The TezTour reception offers a free shopping tour of Hurghada. They take you to their stores especially for tourists SUCKERS.
These are generally such special shops in Hurghada that collect only suckers from all hotels. A whole loho-business industry))). At the entrance to the store, they hang a tag with a type number on you like a cow and lead you through a deserted store. If they see that you are not a complete idiot and do not buy anything at crazy prices, then you are rudely kicked out of the store under some pretext, but you are taken back to the hotel. Apparently they work for sifting.
The essence of this tour is to shock the provincial LOHA with sparkling shop windows and a 70% discount. They hang noodles on the sucker’s ears that it’s only for him alone, only for this product and only today is a super price, and he can buy this product at a wild discount. And even if you do not have money, then in 1 second a loan will be issued. Despite all the discounts, in the end, you still get an overpayment of 2-3 times than even in the hotel row of Diamond stores.
An example is the same leather bag for $ 25, they have a price tag of $ 230 there, and magnetic key rings for the refrigerator after all the discounts turn out to be 3 times more expensive! ! ! Everything is arranged so that at first the tourist is taken to the most expensive store, then to the cheaper store, and so on. It would be possible to spit on the price, but the assortment also does not stand up to criticism, or simply everything interesting has already been bought up by previous tourists. In general, you can go, but purely in order to ride for free. At the same time, they will not allow you to enter other neighboring stores of your choice - they will simply spit and leave you without delivery back.
The main advantage of this hotel complex is a large well-groomed green area and a sandy beach equipped with everything you need with a normal convenient entrance to the sea. There are no corals there, so fins and a mask will be superfluous on the trip.
The staff tries to please and be friendly, at least pretends to be.
Without this, much catches the eye and irritates the little things with its wretchedness.
Evaluating this hotel, I would give it 3 stars, but taking into account the normal beach and well-groomed hefty territory, the maximum could be given with a big stretch of 4 stars.
Do I regret that I went there - maybe just a little.
Would I go there again - most likely not.
Tip: After you have decided on the country you are going to, it will be right to go to the local travel agency and find out which hotels are offered to go to for your amount of money. Write down a few proposed options and choose from them at home - see hotel reviews and watch video reviews of vacationers on youtube
Many people make a common mistake - first they select a hotel by rating and reviews, and then they try to find how to buy a tour to this hotel.
In most cases, the actual prices for a tour to this hotel will differ significantly from those expected or advertised on the Internet, and tours may not be available at all from your local tour operators!
Also, you should not spontaneously buy a tour at a travel agency right on the spot without reading the reviews and watching the video of those who rested in this hotel, even if the travel seller is a very nice woman with an innocent-truthful face. Cunning sellers in agencies will use all sorts of tricks to persuade you to stay at a particular hotel right now and immediately make an advance payment for the tour. They will tell you noodles about the fact that free tours to this hotel are almost over, that in a day there will be a global rise in price, or that there are almost no plane tickets left and you need to urgently make a reservation.
In general, do not give in and be sure to sit for an hour or two at a computer on the Internet before making an advance payment.
And even better - check the cost of this tour with another competing tour operator. They are now selling not only their own tours but also those of others, and often the final amount depends on the greed of a particular tour operator in a particular travel agency.
At this time of the year, it was already getting colder in Turkey and Greece, but I still wanted to bask in the sun, while I didn’t want to throw a lot of money for exotic countries. All that was left was Egypt - Hurghada with its sandy beaches and the right temperature for this time of year.
A trip for two people to the Golden 5 Diamond for 8 nights with a flight and all additional fees cost about 50 thousand rubles. (the dollar exchange rate at that moment was 40.55 rubles). Various proposed additional insurance against “not flying”, etc. , were rejected by me - I considered it to be an extra waste of money. I paid for the voucher in full at once, thus insuring myself against an increase in its cost due to the rising dollar exchange rate.
I did not encounter any problems with the timely receipt of documents and the transfer of flights to TezTour. Everything went smoothly enough. The only thing is that you need to track your flight to the plane on your own in a day. Airlines can move it for at least 10 hours or more in one direction or another without any notice from you. The tour operator is not responsible for the fact that you did not keep track of your flight in the hope that it will fly on schedule. There is even a paid SMS notification service on the airport website about the postponement of your flight. It costs something in the region of a buck. But you can also track for free by calling the hot phone of the airport or on the website in the online scoreboard.
Tip: Do not pay hundreds of dollars from the tour operator for the view of the windows of the room on the sea, etc. Upon arrival at the hotel, you can do this directly at the reception for $ 20.
Sea view implies the approximate direction of the windows towards the sea, but most often the sea, if it is visible, is only through binoculars. At the same time, the term "view of the garden" often has an abstract meaning - in fact, in this case, the view can be on the wall of a neighboring building and even on a garbage dump or construction site.
For porters and other attendants, $1 is enough. This is also such a norm, but you can give nothing at all or just not part with it. Tipping is most often not reflected in the quality of service and attitude towards you.
The reception really loves Russian chocolate, but for a chocolate bar you will only get a smile and verbal thanks. In fact, they will not give an improved number for a chocolate bar, although they promise and take chocolate. In general, only currency is quoted at the reception : ) Sometimes they even say for the promised reward that there are no better rooms.
Maybe it is, or maybe they just misunderstood the amount of the promised reward. Specify this point, but usually $ 20 is enough to resolve this issue at the reception.
Do not pay money in advance or to another person (for example, a porter), even if he will assure that the money must be transferred through him. In this case, you will most likely have to pay money again, and they will try not to return what you gave. In general, with whom you agreed and pass the bill from hand to hand, but only after inspecting the room and settling. This is the norm for them, not a bribe to an official.
It is several times more effective to mix dissatisfaction with the proposed number with American dollars. Without a moderate negative on your part, they get the impression that you already have enough of the proposed number, even for extra money.
In general, if you come up and calmly and without emotions ask for the best room for extra money, then this may not actually give the expected effect, although they can take the money and / or start “feeding breakfast”.
If suddenly one of the staff is rude to you or “turns on the fool” instead of performing their duties. The first thing to do is take a picture or video of the face of that "monkey" and go to the reception to complain to the administrator. A filmed face will be needed to identify the offender, because they are all like “identical twins” there, and after 10 minutes you yourself will not be able to point the finger at the culprit with 100% certainty.
In addition, seeing the camera in the face, they instantly turn on the brain and start a normal dialogue without impudent pomposity.
In general, any problem is instantly solved only through a call to the administrator, whom they are really afraid of.
Don't let the impudence of the staff, although this is a rarity in this hotel!
In my case, the administrator apologized for the employees for a long time and issued an invitation to a paid restaurant as an apology, which was not easy to get into even for money. I didn't have to pay anything for dinner with real restaurant dishes.
It seemed to me that Egyptians by default consider all Russian (and maybe not only Russian) tourists to be dumb rich suckers-alcoholics who must be bred for at least a few dollars in some intricate way. This attitude is observed until you prove the opposite in the dialogue and remember the face. Only then does the relationship become normal and respectful.
When checking into a hotel, the wishes written in the voucher from the tour operator (such as the client's wish) are not taken into account at all. At least in my case everything was ignored.
They try to accommodate all newcomers in the nastiest and most uncomfortable rooms. I suppose this is done in order to have a reason to move you to a normal room for extra money. Relocation to normal rooms for additional money is apparently put on stream.
The difference between a good room and a bad one in Golden 5 Diamond:
1- Remoteness of the building from the infrastructure.
2- Second floor.
3- Sunny arrangement of windows.
4- Killed state of furniture, plumbing and door locks.
5- No balcony - just a window.
6- Strongly smelly manhole under the windows of the room.
7- Not working or rattling air conditioner in the room.
8- Strong noise at night in the room from outdoor air conditioning units on the roof (only Moldex earplugs save).
9- A fluffy kinescope TV.
10- Floors with bumps, covered with an old worn carpet.
11- Strongly creaking wooden beds.
12- Swarm of mosquitoes from the central air conditioning system (in some rooms).
13- Ants (piece) in the toilet and even small 3-5cm shy nimble-running lizards, which are quite difficult to spot with the eye, but they are there. The hotel is actively fighting with these inhabitants - the cleaners spray the rooms with some kind of “green tea” from an aerosol can, and occasionally a car with a smoke exhaust passes all over the street, sooting half the hotel with white, not very caustic smoke.
My first room in this hotel was with almost all the negative points from the list above. If the first day I spent on a flight with check-in, then the second day I had to spend on resettlement dialogues, followed by dragging things and water from the fridge-bar from one room to another. And that's all paid vacation days.
All rooms feel a strong decline from the once not bad five-star hotel. Previously, this whole complex was called Princess Egypt Hotels, but now the complex is called Golden 5 City.
My guess is that someone just rented this entire complex, since the current maintenance is done at the lowest hacky level imaginable, or not done at all. The last thing left in it is simply sucked out of the hotel.
Everything that has been done in the rooms as a current repair does not stand up to criticism: everything is stained with paint, blots and stains from cement have not been wiped off, the plaster has not rubbed off and is bristling with bumps, the floors have not been leveled, the tiles are laid crookedly, ceiling lamps with light bulbs have fallen out of the false ceiling in places, the suspended ceiling itself walks along the level for many centimeters, non-working switches just stick out in the walls sealed with adhesive tape, limescale rampages in the bath, which could be screwed - more often just tied with a string, all the bulbs are without shades, a screw from accidental closing of the tongue, and a rusty crooked latch hangs nearby, the color of the new underpaintings is not matched on the facade, the falling off tiles on the street are lying around, some of the screws with bolts in the furniture and locks have fallen out, the cracks on the black washbasin are extremely inaccurately smeared with white mastic, the mattress is worn , all towels have a bunch of elongated hanging threads, the curtain rod in the bathtub fell off it is woven and tied to the ceiling with ropes, the furniture, although massive, is worn down to wood in places, everything is shattered to the maximum and rests on parole or does not hold at all
.
In general, local repairs are carried out only when absolutely necessary and hastily from improvised penny things without any selection of materials, some kind of “monkey” not educated in this matter, who has never done anything more difficult than wiping his ass.
In principle, such a careless repair does not interfere with rest, but just when a five-star rating is declared, it all hurts the eye and spoils the overall impression!
The only thing that prevents this hotel from being given 2 stars is its hefty green well-groomed territory with beautifully trimmed trees, large pools with slides, and large rooms. Ours was: bedroom - 35m? , toilet - 15m? and corridor - 15m? .
Separately, about the beds: they are wide (one and a half), but their softness is comparable to an ordinary wadded mattress thrown on a concrete floor.
Although the bed is wide, it will be very uncomfortable for a heavy person or a pensioner to sleep on such a hard bed (for young people it can and will do).
All night you do nothing but toss and turn, trying to find a comfortable position - but it simply does not exist. Lying on any side for more than half an hour becomes unbearable - the joints of the shoulders begin to hurt and the arms go numb. Synthetic rectangular pillow is also shit. In general, after 8 nights on such a bed, I came home with a pulled shoulder ligament. Now she hurts when trying to stretch her arm and take it to the side.
In general, I will attribute the bed to the main negative point of this hotel. But unfortunately such hard beds in hotels are not such a rare occurrence for Egypt. After getting to know them, you begin to pay much more attention to this moment.
The listed negative aspects of the rooms take place only in some cases, but the beds are the same everywhere. In general, there are rooms that are very bad and there are more or less normal for a comfortable stay.
In their tap water there is a taste reminiscent of a slight marine smell of algae mud. They use this water to make coffee and instant drinks, which greatly spoils the taste of the latter. They probably have well water. This is probably why all tourists are warned to drink raw water anywhere in Egypt. But in the coffee itself, this water was like boiled, and I was not afraid to drink it, although I was not delighted with the taste. And so in general they mostly drank bottled water without gas. It is given free of charge upon check-in at the rate of 0.5 liters per day per person + a bottle of Fanta with cola. At the reception there is a cooler with good water, from which it is not forbidden to replenish stocks of clean water directly into bottles. You can also ask the cleaner to bring a few sealed bottles of water to your room.
In general, the food is simple, without taste frills and restaurant-like dishes on the plate, but it is quite satisfying.
In terms of level, it turns out such a budget canteen with a self-service system, in the style of a buffet, and chefs dosing meat to everyone. If you stand above your soul, then they can report a little more meat, but it’s better to come up again with a clean plate - they don’t really remember who was given meat and who wasn’t. In general, there are too many restrictions on food and drinks for the All Inclusive system - we don’t pour into our dishes, only 2 pieces of meat, etc.!
Yes, vacationers can visit restaurants in other local hotels, but during the last hour of work. That is, in the first 1.5-2 hours from the beginning of lunch, only vacationers from their hotel are allowed in, and only then everyone. True, there is absolutely no point in looking for where the food is better. The menu in all restaurants is carbon copy. That is, there is no gastronomic difference at all where you will dine. It's just that in your hotel restaurant you can do it earlier than in the neighboring one.
There is also something for alcoholics - they pour it in the dining room and near the pools. They also have something strong and beer, but it has been noticed that even beer is poured 100-150 grams into flimsy transparent plastic cups. It's funny to watch guys stand in line and get these ridiculous beers. Some people immediately order an armful of these cups and then drag them to the table. I once observed a scene: a vacationer asks not to dilute the whiskey with cola, and the waiter replied “Not allowed”. In general, of course, some kind of nonsense in this regard. And it's called 5 stars : )
A little about the area:
This entire complex of hotels is called Golden 5 City - a territory with a Moscow microdistrict. Near the sea there are 3 hotels Emerald, Diamond and Al mas. In the center of the territory, Paradise is the main building of the complex, which even has a cable lift from the beach to the roof of the building. But it does not work due to running and not maintaining it. Most likely it is even broken.
Farther from the sea there is a more budget hotel Club, from which during daylight hours a train runs to the beach and back with a break from 12 to 14 hours.
This complex has 2 more Topaz and Sapphire hotels, but they are completely “in Kamchatka” and far from the sea - 500 meters from the coast. This is probably quite for hikers, although I would not say that there are much cheaper rooms.
The nearest hotel to the pool with slides is Diamond. In addition, towels are changed near this pool only for those staying at the Diamond Hotel. Other vacationers change towels in their hotels.
Near the Al mas hotel, a grandiose water park with chic slides is being built, but it will not be ready soon - presumably 2015-2016.
The advantages of the Diamond Hotel are its remoteness from nightly discotheques. You can sleep peacefully and the pool next to the sea. But for some, this may be the other way around.
In the central hotel Paradise, of course, you feel in a richer place, but the rooms are smaller compared to Diamond. There is little information about other hotels, but according to rumors, things are exactly the same in terms of the level of depreciation of the rooms.
If you want a nice big flat screen TV in your room, then only Diamond Hotel's single storey bungalows have one. They are located next to the buildings of standard rooms and not very far from the sea and the restaurant. But in the Diamond Bungalow there may be an "ambush" with the smell of sewage from the street, but again, not in all rooms. The fact is that there the sewerage passes in concrete street ditches, covered with slabs. In some places, the hatches have rusted, the slabs are not laid tightly, and some even have holes. During the day, the smell may not be due to the wind, and at night, in the absence of wind, it may smell. In general, this is how lucky : )
ATTENTION: On all excursions (including those from TezTour) you will be filmed and then asked to buy this video.
The TezTour guide will talk about the excellent video quality and professional editing. And all this for 25$-45$ And you will also get several CDs with music and the history of Egypt as a gift ...
In general, you can take a photo - they print it right on the spot. The video quality is simply terrible - shooting like on a Nokia push-button phone or on the cheapest WEB-cameras with a resolution of 0.3 MP. For example, in the 90s on pirated video cassettes, the video quality was better than on their discs.
They shoot their video on the dead ancient cameras, even though they look like big ala-professional ones. It seems that they wipe the lens optics with sand. ))) Looking through what you bought, you involuntarily remember the Mighty Russian ...This is just some kind of kick-ass, and not a high-quality video tour ! ! !
In addition, TezTour guides brazenly lie to tourists that the discs are copy-protected - on the disc there is an ordinary single video file of a standard extension without any protection, it is easily copied like any other file. In general, no shamanistic actions are required to copy it. In extreme cases, there is a computer shop near the Diamond reception, where for $ 3-5 the seller copies these discs to both a USB flash drive and DVD discs!
Some tourists were generally deceived with discs - there were all sorts of things on the discs, but not a recording of the tour, although they paid $ 45 for these discs.
In addition, they take the money immediately after the tour, and the discs are not delivered to the reception in a day or two!
In general, this is the most unpleasant scam that I came across on this trip. Apparently, the calculation is that tourists will watch the discs only upon arrival home ! ! !
PLEASE NOTE: The TezTour reception offers a free shopping tour of Hurghada. They take you to their stores especially for tourists SUCKERS.
These are generally such special shops in Hurghada that collect only suckers from all hotels. A whole loho-business industry))). At the entrance to the store, they hang a tag with a type number on you like a cow and lead you through a deserted store. If they see that you are not a complete idiot and do not buy anything at crazy prices, then you are rudely kicked out of the store under some pretext, but you are taken back to the hotel. Apparently they work for sifting.
The essence of this tour is to shock the provincial LOHA with sparkling shop windows and a 70% discount. They hang noodles on the sucker’s ears that it’s only for him alone, only for this product and only today is a super price, and he can buy this product at a wild discount. And even if you do not have money, then in 1 second a loan will be issued. Despite all the discounts, in the end, you still get an overpayment of 2-3 times than even in the hotel row of Diamond stores.
An example is the same leather bag for $ 25, they have a price tag of $ 230 there, and magnetic key rings for the refrigerator after all the discounts turn out to be 3 times more expensive! ! ! Everything is arranged so that at first the tourist is taken to the most expensive store, then to the cheaper store, and so on. It would be possible to spit on the price, but the assortment also does not stand up to criticism, or simply everything interesting has already been bought up by previous tourists. In general, you can go, but purely in order to ride for free. At the same time, they will not allow you to enter other neighboring stores of your choice - they will simply spit and leave you without delivery back.
The main advantage of this hotel complex is a large well-groomed green area and a sandy beach equipped with everything you need with a normal convenient entrance to the sea. There are no corals there, so fins and a mask will be superfluous on the trip.
The staff tries to please and be friendly, at least pretends to be.
Without this, much catches the eye and irritates the little things with its wretchedness.
Evaluating this hotel, I would give it 3 stars, but taking into account the normal beach and well-groomed hefty territory, the maximum could be given with a big stretch of 4 stars.
Do I regret that I went there - maybe just a little.
Would I go there again - most likely not.
Translated automatically from Russian. View original
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OTHER REVIEWS ABOUT THE HOTEL
- the beach is great
- you can fly
- So-so, very pleased with the sea.
- our simple tips!
- Terrible hotel, rude staff and disgusting food...
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