We had a great time at Faraana Club in Sharm
In January, we have holidays, my wife (15) and me (17) birthdays, and usually a gift from the children. This is a trip to the warmth and the sea in Egypt. This is not the first year that it has been customary, I am only asked to choose a hotel from the proposed one. This year, the choice was complicated by the fact that the children returned from Slovakia on January 14, where they rested at a ski resort, and the validity of their passports was expiring, they had to fly out before January 20. So, you don’t really get to choose, all the more I wanted to fly from Zaporozhye or nearby airports.
From what burned and before 20.01, this is a hotel Club El Faraana Reef Resort 4*, Hadaba, Ras um Sid. TPG tour operator, Bravo airline, departure from Krivoy Rog, return there. It's 250 km from Zaporozhye, but there is a free shuttle there and back. This pleasure is about 500 green tugriks. It suits us that it is Ras um Sid, there is practically no wind and after looking at the reviews - this hotel has a good coral reef.
I did not communicate with TPG, I did not fly with Bravo airline, and I did not encounter Krivoy Rog airport. We decided - we take it and fly to Sharm! At the same time, we will find out whether it is worth dealing with these guys in the future. Everything was arranged quickly, the package was on hand, the bus would be waiting for us at 7-00, we ordered a taxi, a suitcase at the door. Although we were assured that the airline would feed us, my wife prepared sandwiches.
Early in the morning, around 7-00 a taxi picked us up and in 10 minutes we were at the collection point. We even arrived before the bus. It's an old two-story Mercedes. The people loaded up, but it turns out that we will still be going to the Dnieper, picking up people there, and only from there we roll to Krivoy Rog. This is extra time, it's understandable why we leave so early. The morning is beautiful, frosty, minus 18 degrees, the trees are all in beautiful hoarfrost, we set off for the holidays! True, there is ice on the road, so the bus travels no more than 60-70 km / h. An hour and a half and we are in the Dnieper, we stop and seat the remaining travelers. But... the first hitch! Waiting for latecomers. Half an hour passes, two madams arrive, they don’t care that they are expected, apparently they are not used to thinking about it. But... we continue to wait! The people begin to worry, they say - we are waiting for someone, seven of them are not waiting for one, ice, the plane will not wait for us, etc. So without waiting for anyone else, an hour later we drove on. Yes, the road between Zaporozhye and the Dnieper - it turned out to be a fairy tale, between the Dnieper and Krivoy Rog there were sections with such holes that our big bus was spinning between them, like the last Zaporozhets and the speed did not exceed 30 km / h, and there was no danger at all get to the airport. We got there, albeit a little late, but we checked in, and the plane took off on time.
Yes, I don’t need such a transfer with shaking for 5 hours and the possibility of missing the plane. Krivoy Rog airport does not suit me, such a service from TPG is very annoying.
The Boeing 737-300 is small, but with normally installed seats (it can be important for me, because in some UIA aircraft with padded rows the legs did not fit). True, TPG was told that the Bravo carries Douglases and other things that are fed on board. They feed, but sandwiches (with cheese or ham), so Zhenya's sandwiches came in handy. They offer Cola, mineral water, tea, coffee to drink. Flight 4 hours and Sharm is under us. We sat down neatly, on time, the usual procedures upon arrival. The host of JOYCE TOURS organized a queue, issues migration cards, but looks at vouchers and distributes them among buses. A little more organized than last year with ANEX. It was already dark when we left, drove through several hotels, unloaded fellow travelers, and here is Club Faraana. I saw something similar in Lilly Land in Hurghada, a long driveway and a low main building
Entrance to the main building
Main entrance
Hotel entrance
We check in at the reception, get a number, an escort is with us, they will bring a suitcase. I warned that if the number does not fit, we will come and we will resolve this issue. In Faraan, there are mostly two-story bungalows, almost all are the same and there are many of them (the hotel area is 110 thousand sq. m).
These are the bungalows in Faraan
The escort led us to the house, opened the door, lathered to get a dollar and run away.
I told him - we are checking the number. We open the bathroom door, you can immediately see the torn corrugation on the hair dryer and the hair dryer itself is broken and stuck together with adhesive plaster, the towels are dirty and there are not enough of them. No shower screen.
I recommend that you do not be shy and check everything well upon arrival so as not to be extreme.
Let's go back, I said that I won't move into such a room and I need a second floor, especially since I know that the hotel has 1500 beds, and no more than 300 are occupied. There was a normal room 435, the second floor, and there were even 3 beds. Towels were replaced with me (the cleanest! ), Everything was looked through and then we went in. Yes, I didn’t pay any “baksheesh” for all this. Not a penny and not a piastres!
Our room is on the second floor
And our great vacation at this hotel began.
That evening, after dinner, and we were decently hungry, we decided to see the territory of the hotel, what was where and what was how. The first pool near the main building is called African PooL, there is also a Lobby - a bar, according to old-timers, does not work.
African Pool
African motifs at the bar near African Pool
The whole hotel was created in the architecture of a Moorish village, very original, like the old one, maybe Morocco or Tunisia. But unusual!
It is very hard not to get lost among the identical bungalows at first, although there are signs where you are, but you can hardly see the numbering of the bungalows, as it gets dark. A man ran from our plane, looked for his accommodation, was sent to the reception to help.
This is CoralPool, in a house in the middle of the pool - jacuzzi
Only the Coral Pool with a jacuzzi and a bar in the same place are open until 17-00, then drinks are only in the disco bar. This is local liquor, at best not diluted by bartenders; beer, drinks, juices, coffee, tea. There is no alcohol at the restaurant, there are only beer and drinks with tea and coffee, the same on the beach. No wine at all!
The water in the pool is 18 degrees, it's nice to take a dip after the sea!
We looked into a disco bar, tried their shmurdyak, decided that the brought bottle of scotch whiskey for me, and Spanish wine for my wife, would be enough for these days, not alcoholics! They took black coffee there, sat by the pool and went to the side, because. got up early.
Disco club Zodiac, bar on the second floor
Disco Club Dome (original)
We go to the sea early in the morning. Beach towels are issued near the Coral Pool on cards, the towels are quite new (it used to be worse). Then we go down and go down to the sea. Descent to the sea, like the heroes: to the right you go - the stairs, worn out by the feet of thousands of tourists, past the bar and the Grill - restaurant, to the left - a gentle road, they carry beer and drinks to the bar along it, and straight ahead - the stairs, which have not yet been put into "operation" and going through the construction site, but the shortest. Here we went down to the beach along it.
Faraana Beach, you can see that the sun loungers and chairs are decent, the towels are not torn.
Descent to the beach. Grill restaurant on the right, there is also a bar nearby.
This is to see the left side as well. Reef Oasis Beach and their pontoon. Only for their own, but you can get through
The beach is sandy, rather wide, plastic sunbeds with mattresses, armchairs, above them - reed umbrellas. There are enough trestle beds, servants walk around, install them where necessary. The bar on the beach beer, drinks, tea, coffee. There is no alcohol. Massage therapists offer services, animators invite to their events, there is a volleyball court, there is a bocha, in the corner of the beach there is a house of a diving club.
Sea. The coast is sandy, somewhere from the depth to the waist the first ridge of the reef begins, but it is practically dead, there are very few living corals, but there are fish. My wife liked this place, that there is no wall with great depth, but there is fish, it even swims to the shore. Next comes the sandy bottom with coral patches, and then the main reef, where there are live corals. The reef is very good, boats and yachts sail to it from other places in Sharm, with excursions to dive. They stay on the road until 3-4 pm.
Yachts and boats in the roadstead.
I wanted to say, if you look at the photo of the sea, gray is a coral reef, blue is a sandy bottom.
Well, we get to the most interesting for some -food. We eat either in the main restaurant, or by appointment in the Grill - a restaurant where food is cooked on coals, it is above the sea, it's nice! You must sign up for the previous dinner, and these are only lunches.
So, European breakfast - scrambled eggs, omelettes, sliced sausages, cheese, salads, vegetables, pastries, pancakes, Belgian type waffles. Muesli, milk, juices, tea, coffee. For lunch - 4-5 meat and fish dishes, side dishes (rice, potatoes, etc. ), 2 types of soup - mashed potatoes, various salads, pasta, again pastries, for lunch in a restaurant - additional bottled beer. Drinks are poured into plastic (200 gr. cups). It's funny to see men who wear these cups to their table endlessly. Dinner is similar to lunch, there are interesting dishes - pickled lamb, fried chicken, kebabs, vegetables stuffed with something. Of course - fruits, bananas, dates. In short, I can't believe anyone stays hungry. For children and women, a large selection of jellies and mousses. Portioned dishes are laid out on the chef's plates, but I don't remember them refusing to add anything. Of course, there are no foie gras, red fish, caviar, lobsters and lobsters, but the chefs are trying at home too, I think there is no such choice. And I think that there is also a crisis in Egypt, so part of their problems are in this.
Lunch at the Grill restaurant on the sea
This is for the second, chicken and beef, baked on charcoal. Not sour!
My wife has this for dessert!
Entertainment. There are two animators, during the day on the beach, in the evening there is a theater and a disco. Before adult performances, children have fun. There are few people at the disco, the disco bar attracts more than the dance floor.
And, of course, "sick" for the hotel, they now have very few vacationers. I wrote that out of 1.500 places, about 300 places were filled. Hence the non-working pool with a bar, and there should be a wave, and this is money; the kids club is not open; the shopping center is not working; work is barely moving in the Panorama restaurant, no builders are visible on the shore. From here, I think, the requirements for service from administrators have been reduced. No "van dollar" - no zeal. There was still a night before departure, and the room - the boy asked me - “Do you want to change the beds? ” What! Before leaving home, because the bus to the airport should arrive at 4-40, I asked at the reception to wake us up at 4-00. They wrote it down, promised and... forgot! It's good that I duplicated the rise in my mobile phone. Here such an optionality is viewed.
Some more photos from the main building, which I almost forgot about
This is the reception
And it's there
I spoke to the Egyptian at the Diving Center. It got worse, he says, without an additional “baksheesh”, there are no Russians, and you won’t wait for the Ukrainians. I said that when there was a rate of 1 to 5 in our country and in Egypt, it was possible to give dollars, but when they have 1 to 18-20, and in Ukraine -1 to 26-28, and people can only collect money for a trip, not much bucks will scatter. He understood, but you can’t explain it to everyone.
And so, almost everything worked out for us. The sea with a coral reef is excellent, warm; the beach is suitable even for kids. For a week, the weather was good all the time, only a cloudless sky, only on the last day clouds came running, bringing coolness. The only thing that was lost was two days, we arrived at the hotel at 20:00 on 01/20/17, left the hotel at 05:00 on 01/27/17, but this is the case for the entire periphery of Ukraine. Privileges only for Kiev residents (early departures and late arrivals). The departure was organized normally, at the airport everything went through without any questions, both customs and border guards. My question about the delay in the passport did not stir anyone, it’s true that it was only 6 hours (I went through passport control at about 6 o’clock in the morning, and the passport was valid until 24-00 on January 26). I think that if there were more, then it’s okay would not have happened. Interestingly, for Schengen, the period is three months until the last day of stay, and for Egypt and Turkey - six months.
But we are already in Krivoy Rog; waiting for a bus that rolls us on ice through the Dnieper home.
They arrived satisfied, tanned, with new impressions from Charma.
I can say that the hotel is not bad, but I imagined how the Italians used to have it and it worked completely. It is felt that the crisis took Egypt and the golden days of this hotel behind. The difference between 4 * and 5 * hotels is smoothed out, not everyone can withstand the burden they have taken on. Literally before leaving, instead of bags of sugar, containers with granulated sugar appeared, fill it yourself. I already wrote about plastic disposable cups, in order to carry hot tea or coffee, the bartender puts the cups one in one, otherwise you won’t take it away. But the Red Sea, the coral reef, the summer in the middle of winter overshadows all these nonsense, and while I can, it will be a joy for me to go to Egypt in winter.
And finally, for connoisseurs. What is this fossil I saw on the shore at the beach of Faraana, and was it a chain of this?
What is this? I don't know!
And this is from there. A chain like that!
