Отлично! Fine!

Transfer

It was a separate song. Suffice it to say that an hour after takeoff the plane safely turned around and returned to Domodedovo. But that was just the beginning of the trouble. The valiant Transaero decided that it was their duty to feed us hot meals. For these purposes, we were marinated on the plane for 3-4 hours. The engines were turned off and, accordingly, the air conditioner practically did not work. The breath is crazy. The children were very sick. When, after numerous scandals, the front doors were slightly opened, a flight attendant stood up to each of them. As a result, only 2 teams were engaged in delivering food in a Boeing 747 (400-500 passengers). You understand how long it took. In general, a nightmare. True, there is no fault of the hotel or the tour operator. Everything else was pretty good. At the airport, they waited for us and took us to the hotel, where we even left our seats.

But on the way back, the Capital Tour bus arrived on time, but half of the passengers were not on the boarding list. Fortunately, the hotel guide appeared on time and gave the order to put everyone on the bus who needed to fly away.

Reception.

Settlement. Forms of guest cards in English. People had difficulties. True, they were helped by a Russian-speaking guide from Capital Tour. Actually, thanks to him. He solved questions. In general, it should be noted that the staff hardly speaks Russian. Only in English. I had almost no problems. Mindful of the reviews I read about Egypt, I immediately prepared $10 in my hands so that the guy at the reception could see them, after which I asked for a nice, clean room in a normal place. As a result, I got a room approximately in the middle of the hotel territory, the windows of which faced inwards, and the main animation site was 50-100 meters away. It was very convenient to run home to the toilet during all sorts of shows. For lovers of precision, our number was 1203.
And that block had 12xx series numbers.

Territory.

I was immediately struck by the beauty. Snow-white two-story buildings in oriental style, greenery, palm trees, flowers, bushes, everything is in bloom, lighting is everywhere… In the morning it became clear that the hotel occupies a significant area. Everything is very green and beautiful. In the morning, all paths are swept and washed. Lawns are regularly cut (I saw it personally), palm trees are also corrected (there is even a photo with an aborigine cutting off extra branches). A solid five in my opinion. But… It seems to me that the picture is not so good from all rooms. So look about $10 at the reception.

There are several swimming pools on site. Found one with heating. This is the Cactus Bar. There are underwater places. That is, the bar counter is designed for you to sit in the water on a “stool”, and the drink is on the parapet. cool. The pools are well thought out. There are blocks for very young children, there are for older ones, there are for adults.
Everywhere next to the pool is written on the parapet, what is the depth in it. The pools are beautifully lit up at night. The water is fresh there.

Number.


Got into the room at night. The first impression was negative. Some kind of basement, there are practically no rugs, dim light bulbs ...But in the afternoon it became clear that such a design protects well from the heat. Although there is a puncture with the rugs. Then they learned from other people, they had more of them.

The room has two rooms, a large walk-through room and from it a small one with a bunk bed, where the child was successfully accommodated. It should be noted that the door to the "nursery" is not deaf. It has many ventilation holes. That is, the sound insulation is weak. Understandable, right?

From the large room there is also access to a small veranda, where there are plastic chairs with a soft seat and a plastic table. Conveniently. Strangely, the room key did not fit the veranda. I did not scandalize, because they quickly got used to it.
The windows overlooked the hotel grounds, the Blue Wave bar and the main animation stage were visible. The view is pretty decent. I don't think it's the same everywhere.

The furniture is quite old, but did not creak and everything worked. It is convenient that the light in the corridor can be turned off with a button on the nightstand by the bed. The bed, when he sat down on it for the first time, responded with a terrible creak. I already wanted to go to the reception and swear, but my wife persuaded me to do it in the morning, which I did not regret. Because nothing creaked in the supine position. There are three pillows on the bed. Pretty small. Furniture, similar to sofas or armchairs, had a vertical hard back. It is impossible to sit on them leaning back. East style. Though I guess there should be pillows...

The bathroom is combined with a toilet. In principle, not a problem, but there were no ventilation grilles in this room, so, you know, the aromas after the “big things” persisted for some time. Here they have a problem.
The bathroom has a stationary hair dryer that worked flawlessly. The water flowed normally, but the hot "dancing", although tolerable. Soap and shampoo were in the bathroom, but not renewed once in a week. Weird. Although, we somehow immediately bought our soap in the store and did not bother.


The air conditioner is working fine. Oriented well, the bed does not blow. It is characteristic that there is no electronic system for turning off the air conditioner in the absence of people in the room. That is, when leaving, you can leave it on and return to normal temperature. Is there a safe in the room. Programming is elementary. Worked without complaints.

The only thing in the room was mosquitoes. So I advise you to stock up on repellent. In a local shop, it costs 400 rubles, so it would be more correct to bring it with you.

The mini bar was in the fridge. Everything is there. But we didn't use it because it wasn't included in the price. A 1.5 liter bottle of water costs 10 pounds there (about 50 rubles).

Service.
The staff left an ambivalent impression. Everyone greets, but it seems that some of the employees do not like Russians. In principle, I have seen several times exactly why. Shame on my compatriots. However, everyone responds normally to explicit requests. They love children very much, smile at them, flirt. Not everyone understands and speaks English. But the waiters, bartenders and reception are a must. They speak Russian at the level of "Hi, friend. " Some people know the Russian account. In general, it didn’t even occur to me to speak Russian there, so I didn’t particularly check my knowledge of Russian. Until recently, the hotel was, as I understand it, Italian, also many English speakers, there were Belgians who spoke French, Dutch speaking their gibberish.

In my opinion, and, thank God, that is how it is with the Russian language.
People who can normally relax next to, as a rule, normally perceive the need to speak an international language at least at the level of “One beer, please” and “Thank you”. People who imagined themselves to be the navels of the earth because of the opportunity to buy a ticket, do not come here!

The room was cleaned every day and to a high standard. No dust, no dirt. True, on the second day I left $2 on the table. Just. I don't know if that played a role.


Everything is standard in the restaurant. Buffet, European and local cuisine. There is no pork. I didn't like their meat. Chicken is almost always delicious. The fish never came. The local fish is VERY salty. There is also a vegetarian table. Diet - everything is OK. My wife is on calorie control. Eating quite well. Fruit salad is plentiful. In the evening, whole apples and oranges. There have always been. Very tasty bread.
Fried eggs are fried right in front of you, you choose the additives to taste yourself, poking the cook with your finger at the right plate. Delicious. Tea and coffee are served by waiters. But not always. I never fully understood when and how.

Out of 3 AI restaurants, we ate at two. I liked La Dome better. It is calm and quiet, mostly foreigners. Citadel is more fun, it's in the center of the territory and there are more people there. In the evening, grilled dishes are put outside. But there are a lot of people. It's kind of tedious. All restaurants have seats both on the veranda and inside. There were no problems with places. There are air conditioners inside. Chilly. We usually ate there. Dinner is on the veranda.

Nobody got poisoned. Everyone was full. In short, a solid four in nutrition.

Sport.

There is no sport as such. There is no gym. Tennis courts under renovation. The animators arranged games of volleyball and football, there is table tennis, but it is impossible to play it on the street in the wind, besides, the table is crooked.
The guide said that you can go to the gym for free in a nearby hotel. We haven't gotten there yet.

Sea beach.

The beach, as many have said, is small. There are always places at 9 am. We had no problems finding places at 10 and 10:30. Then it's more difficult. Good places are not easy to find. By good, I mean those in the shade of sun loungers, and not in the open sun. There are almost always open ones. Everything is released around noon. So for those who like to get up late, it is better to go to the beach after it, because there will still be a lot of sun before sunset.


The sea is comfortable. There is a pontoon from which you immediately get to a depth of about one and a half or a little more than a meter. If you go from the shore, then sand is 5-10 meters, and then completely cut corals go. I do not recommend walking without special slippers. For the first time after a trip along the bottom, I found such damage on a slipper that without slippers I would have smashed my leg thoroughly and ruined my whole vacation.
I personally witnessed how a guy came out of the water with cuts on his legs (he entered without slippers). Don't save, buy!

A mask for rent for the day costs $4. It makes sense to rent it. It costs $15 to buy, and you don’t want to look at all this more than once or twice. Although the first time everything looks just amazing. Beautiful fish are already 10 meters from the shore, and it happens that schools go literally a meter or two. There are almost no waves. The water near the shore is cloudy. I sailed about 100 meters. There the row of corals ends and the depth begins. On this border there are many beautiful fish and live beautiful corals. Once I swam to the second row of corals, it’s not much more interesting there, but I can’t save you from the Glass Boat - special ships with a transparent bottom, on which for $ 10 you will be rolled over beautiful places for about an hour. If you have already dived with a mask, such an excursion does not make sense. Nothing new. With me, the guys began to feed the fish at the coral border.
In about three minutes there was already a whole crowd around, and really large individuals of 50 centimeters each. Beautiful - horror. But scary. I strongly advise you to buy a fotik for underwater shooting or a case for your camera. Frames are great. Unfortunately, I didn't do either.

You can rent a mini-boat for $ 50, on which you can swim together lying face down and looking at the underwater world through an analogue of a diving mask.

You can take a catamaran for $ 10 per hour, from which you can dive anywhere. Although, again, these huge boats greatly interfere. It is necessary to choose the moment when their flight ends. There are also bananas, a parachute and other entertainment. There are no scooters. The water area is small, so there is not much room for them.

Animation, entertainment.


There were 8 animators there. In the morning it was to watch the children on the beach, water aerobics, exercises. During the day it is sports games. In the evening there is a mini disco for children and then some show for adults.
I don't have anything to compare it to, so I can't rate it.

Animators will sell you night trips to different nightclubs. See for yourself whether you need it or not. I went to the Pasha club. I did not find any oriental exotic there. Typical good nightclub. Entrance $35. Small glass of Tequila $10. In short, $100 thrown to the wind. Here the street leading to these clubs was interesting. All along it there were cafes in the oriental style in the open air, with pillows, hookahs, etc. I think this impression would be much more and more correct. It is also important that the animators will be with you in the nightclub only until one in the morning. Then they either leave with you and take you to the hotel, or you go further as you wish. To get to this wonderful place (Naoma Bay) costs 2-3 dollars one way and it's worth it.

Children.

For children there, in fact, only a mini disco in the evening and a place on the beach.
In general, on the third day I completely forgot about everything. Like in paradise. Not hot, moderately sunny, sea, swimming pools, cocktails, food… Moscow and work disappeared completely from my head. Rested just great. Thank you hotel. Who liked the review and is not afraid of the noted shortcomings - I recommend it.