Alcohol was diluted, not only that, the staff constantly tried to sell a bottle of stolen rum from under the floor for $ 15. Beer was poured into such small plastic cups that there was only enough space for foam, but the foam was thick. In the rooms, everything that can not work, did not work, including from the air conditioner to the drain in the toilet bowl, the water in the shower was a little warm. The type of bed linen and towels I will not describe, relying on your imagination, the impression that they have been used since the reign of the pharaohs. The rooms are infested with mosquitoes and the management has never made an attempt to clean the rooms from mosquitoes. In general, the impression was that the staff was in a state of constant "high", they walked like samnambuls, not reacting to anything. I don’t know why the tour operator positions this hotel as 3 *, I personally saw a sign with 2 *, it’s a pity that I didn’t take a picture.
1. Settlement.
To the Tour Operator (Tez-Tour) there are no complaints about the meeting and wires, everything is clear, fast. At the hotel, 2 or even 3 daring fellows will accompany you to your room, immediately say that you only need one escort and prepare 1 dollar or 5 pounds ahead of time for this one. Give no more. They will claim to you that they will agree on a change of number, etc. , do not enter. I lived in the Comfort building near the sea. First, of course, they led me to a room on the 1st floor with a view from the window onto a concrete wall, behind which was a wasteland and a garbage dump. I went to the reception, gave 10 euros, they gave me a room on the 4th floor with a side sea view. For me, a good room was important, as I arrived alone. Tez-Tour, a reputable tour operator, would do well to send his employee to this hotel for a couple of days, after all, people will not write entirely bad reviews.
2. In the room.
It seems that everything turned out to be more or less, the only thing that did not immediately check the performance of the TV was that there was no antenna, but there was a remote control. You don't need a TV, but when you live alone, in the evening you could phon. I went to the reception, complained, for the 1st time they pretended to write it down in the book of breakdowns. The next day the situation did not change. They wrote down the krakazyabry again and said "tomorrow. " Nothing has changed for tomorrow. I came to the room in the afternoon, found the cleaner, I told him about the TV, he said 5 minutes, disappeared in an unknown direction and I did not see him again. Then a new TV came on the 4th day, no remote and still no antenna. I didn’t want to go, make a fuss, I didn’t want to figure it out, so I sat without a TV. I saw a lot of brawlers about this every day.
The furniture is more or less, everything is whole, the plumbing is normal, there is always hot water in this building, and in the bungalow there is water from the roof, which is heated there in barrels, that is, warm, I often heard that there is none. Large balcony. Cleaning, despite tips every day (1 dollar or 5 pounds), consisted of making beds and spinning all sorts of swan animals, which was not impressive, because if after cleaning you walk barefoot on the floor, your feet will be black, you didn’t bother to wash the floors at all, bedding, like, changed, or well run, which seemed clean. Towels are gray, washed out, but, it seems, also changed. There was no hair dryer in the room. They give a bag of shampoos for all types of hair in a dosage for a small hamster and a bar of smelly soap. But I think that all citizens carry it with them. The room is quite spacious, for two it is normal, for the third there is also a narrow sofa.
I looked into the bungalows, the furniture sets are about the same, only everything is more old and shabby, people complained about the Desert Inn about water, plumbing, housekeeping, in general, about everything that is possible. There is a safe in the room, I heard that if for 5-6 days - $ 5, if for 10-14 days - $ 10. You need to take the key to the reception, pay for it there. Some were not given the keys, I suggest keeping money and documents in safes not at the reception, which is not very convenient. I did not take any safe, it seems that nothing was stolen.
3. Meeting with the guide at 8-30 in the morning the next day, the usual procedure for selling excursions, not very clear information about the hotel, I didn’t know everything myself, I had to find out already in the course of the play. Information about the departure was on the evening before at the information stand. Directly on excursions. Far (Cairo, Luxor) - do not regret the extra 20-30 dollars, it is better through a tour operator, and near ones - sea, safaris, etc.
- it is possible and 2-3 times cheaper from beach and city sellers, but be sure to first talk with the people who have already used the services of these sellers, otherwise you can also get stuck.
4. Money exchange. You can immediately change 10-20 dollars at the airport, just ask for a change to immediately tip, a little, but necessary. There is an exchanger at the El Samaka reception, the exchange rate is the same everywhere: 1 dollar - 5.7 pounds. Lots of money changers in the city.
5. City. In the city, that is, in the center of Hurghada, you can not go, because around the hotel there is a rather developed structure of trade and prices are lower than in the city. I went because they asked. Taxi to the city 3 dollars or 15 pounds, travel time 10 minutes. Do not give more money, money should be without change, a taxi is right next to the hotel. Money at the end of the trip. In the city, name a clear goal. Center - McDonald's. Everything I bought in the city turned out to be more expensive than near the hotel. Nothing to waste money and time.
There is, if you go to the left of the hotel, a beautiful pedestrian area. Only, you know, it’s impossible to walk, they jump out from everywhere, grab your hands, yell vulgarities. The most effective way out is to plug your ears with headphones, do not stop, do not say hello, do not talk. You will be sent, but you will not hear; . There are many cafe-restaurants around the hotel where those who do not have all-inclusive can eat, although it is not advisable to spend precious beach time on this precious beach time, the daylight hours are very short.
Now get ready and write down (CONS):
6. Beach. People from the so-called Desert Inn four go to El Samaka beach, plus there are plenty of their own. October is the velvet season, the hotel is full. On the beach there are antediluvian iron sunbeds, rarely some of them are released or, on the contrary, the backs rise, everything is welded. But you may be lucky if you leave your room at 6-30 in the morning. The mattresses are creepy, dirty, old, and not on all sunbeds.
And most importantly - do not be too lazy to take a thin towel from home or buy it at a nearby store for $ 3. I have never seen such horror. Towels should be issued from 7 in the morning, as it is already quite hot and there are many who want to get them, but when you see what you want, the desire disappears instantly. Towels are divided into 2 categories: new ones are already slightly dirty, white-orange and old ones, similar to yellow-gray floorcloths. Towels are not washed, God forbid, if they try to dry them at least somehow during the night, but they do not dry out, as a result, a dirty and smelly pile is offered to cheerful vacationers in the morning. I didn’t get this for the first two days, until I realized that for towels, to the beach, to the dining room, etc. , you need to come in the first rows. Towels of the first category, the impudent Arab offers to buy from him for $ 2. Cunning aunts do just that, they get it and then they don’t rent it out until the end of the rest, they wash it themselves.
There are sometimes no towels at all all day. I took from the room, white and gray, it looked better against the background of floor rags, however, by the evening it fell into disrepair. The beach itself is also not a sight for the faint of heart. At first, on the 1st line, it is a backwater, with a smelly shallow puddle, really. In the evening, there is a tide. Citizens who do not know that there is another beach a little further away spend their entire vacation on the first one, the depth there is knee-deep for height 1 m 55 cm (my height). On the left there is also a beach with a reef (this is still the beach of this hotel, there is an area under construction), it is also very shallow, you can walk knee-deep for a long time. Lots of bandaged citizens rushing to the coral reef. Swimming on the beaches of THIS hotel requires SPECIAL SHOES. Often there are dumps from boats, and there is a darkness of them there, anything can float in the water, especially in the late afternoon. The bottom is also in doubt, you can often run into something.
But in general, on the left side, the water is clean, clear, quite fishy, from the first day buy a mask, snorkel, fins, there, they say, there is something to see, I'm not a fan. You don’t need to bring equipment with you, all this costs 5-10 dollars, it’s not a pity to quit later. And further, where not everyone goes - this is an embankment between these two swamps, which ends with the promised pontoon, locked and blocked with all sorts of firewood, from which you can dive and at least some depth at once. To the right of the pontoon - shallow, to the left - more or less and a large reef, after which all lovers go bandaged. Anyone who wants to swim at normal depth in more or less clear water jumps over barricades, risking breaking their legs and slipping.
One day, enterprising citizens broke the barricades and broke through to the pontoon in a normal course, but after 5 minutes, which is very strange for the Arabs, a crowd came running, saying that the pontoon was in disrepair and it was impossible to go there. Like they warned, blocking it with rusty sunbeds, and everything else is at your own peril and risk! They piled up the barricades anew, of lesser quality, and it became almost impossible to go there. And this is the only place for a decent swim. There is a boy on the beach who lies under a canopy all day, this is the one that has to be cleaned, but the beach is not cleaned every day. . Dirty, I understand that vacationers themselves dirty everything, but they also have to clean up. All the wonderful thatched houses, which look very nice in the photo of the hotel, are in complete disrepair, collapsed, it was very hot, but you can’t hide under them either.
Well, as a matter of course, as a beach attribute, it is an endless string of masseurs, tattoo artists, braiders, sauna specialists, guides. If you want to talk - please, no - don’t react at all, don’t even raise your head, even in this case they will understand and leave only on the third day, and the rest of the time they will persistently wake you up and stretch out their not very clean hands to say hello. Some are friendly, they are like water off a duck's back - they refused and refused, and some also swear at the whole beach; .
7. Animation. The people are lethargic, very hot. The beach is scattered, the pool is not very close to the far beach, so the animators had a hard time. They were, in principle, invited to traditional events: exercises, aqua aerobics, belly dance, volleyball. Often so no one was dosed. There was a guy and a girl, Vova and Julia from Ukraine, the rest were Arabs. So, we walked along the beach, talked to the people.
Every evening on the lawn near the main building there is a standard show according to the schedule: drums, fire-eaters, belly dancing, boys against girls, miss and mister of the hotel, walking and lying on the glass. There are many places for the show, but the start of the show itself, announced at 21:00, had to wait until 22:00 or more. The shows themselves are from 15 minutes to 1 hour. At the end, they include several songs or one, such as Gray Night, the people want to dance, but they quickly break everyone off, and the people disperse to the corners. As for further festive events, that is, there is a certain METRO disco at the hotel, only the entrance is from the street, there the movement begins at one o'clock in the morning, at that time there are few survivors, and, of course, you need to come there with the company already ready, Eurodisco music, sometimes Russian, and Dolby is also there. There are many locals, you need to buy alcohol there, it is often deserted there. But!
As it turned out, one of the animators' earnings is to gather people for a paid disco ($ 10 with a trip to the city on a gazelle). I don’t remember the name, they take the audience to some club, there is 1 free cocktail and dancing, at 4 o’clock all the survivors are taken back, especially zealous people went once, it’s not advisable. I heard once that they came for the people at 5 in the morning, of course, this is not ice ...But everyone chooses for himself. In short, you will not find animation that turns into a disco within reasonable limits in this hotel. At this point, everyone goes to drink at the numbers, to the pool, go to the city for other disco or go to bed.
8. All inclusive Whoever came here to drink cheaply on the all inclusive system, do not forget to include a couple of bottles of rum, whiskey, vodka, etc. from duty free in this system. So, beer ...In the bar on the beach and in the pool bar, only beer, local water, Luxor is called.
It is poured into 100-gram plastic cups at the rate of 70% foam, 30% beer. Without exaggeration: they pour it like pigs, and both bartenders did not try to remember their names, since, judging by the reviews, it was always bad with the staff at this hotel. It is easier for him to pour half a bottle on a dirty bar counter than to pour into a glass. Of course, girls who will always smile at them and give them a hand and let themselves be pawed will always get a full glass, but until the first deviation from the norm. . The men swear and quarrel with them, the aunts scream and demand TOPPING AFTER THE FOAM SLAYS; . One day, the pool bartender, when I managed to be at the front of the line in the morning, took out an open bottle of beer from yesterday from his locker and poured its contents with flies into a glass for the first lucky person.
The bar at the reception is more or less decent, but there are also, according to the law of the classics, two bartenders - a kind one (before lunch), when people are on the beach, and an evil one (in the evening), who serves people ready for drunkenness. During the day they pour normally, rum, locally produced whiskey, coupled with cola - all one badyaga. Everything closes at 22:30.
9. Dining room. I'm not lying in the reviews; . I have been in many hotels, mostly in treshkah, I have not seen this. Breakfast - egg powder (she saw how a friend in a doubtfully white apron poured out of the box something that looked like dry mustard), local sausages were inedible, but in the absence of others, I had to eat. Flakes, which were offered inedible fills, zero greens for breakfast, and all sorts of badies, next to which I didn’t even want to stop. If you still go there, do not be too lazy to take with you bags of instant coffee for the number of days and tea. There is 1 sachet per bucket of this stuff. Milk is transparent. Have breakfast! Dinner.
Since no more than 40% of citizens eat according to the all-inclusive system, the cooks do not strain at all. For a lunch of meat almost every day, liver and everything, then rice and something similar to sour fish, from salads - chopped cucumbers, if you have time, and just chopped onions. Dinner. For dinner, there is always chicken, again rice or pickled potatoes, salad, if you have time. Once in the whole holiday there were tomatoes. From fruits all the way only green astringent dates. From desserts - a smeared green thing, probably also made from dates with dyes, sometimes soufflé . And in general: the dining room is a complete bum. Spoons in nature for soup in the amount of 20 pieces for the whole hotel. If you run into the dining room and don’t have time to grab it right away, you won’t eat the soup. However, soup can be eaten without a spoon, it's just broth. The plates are greasy, often they are not there, the soup cups are all chipped and cracked, there are also very few glasses for tea / coffee, often put, if you're lucky, plastic cups.
The lack of sanitation is terrible, there are flies everywhere, often some kind of gas attack is arranged before dinner and stinks throughout the hotel. You need to look for a fork right away if you are late exactly for lunch / dinner, then you will go begging or you will go and wash yourself. Unpleasant. Bar for dinner kapets. We learned from the Poles that a glass of wine is supposed to be, but you can’t beg. And in general, wherever you take alcohol or just tea / coffee, you have to sign for each cup, and they give 1 glass in one hand. Dining and food - the biggest minutes, Who was there with children - I do not envy, men who want to eat well - I wish you to relax. Once they brought the liver for lunch, opened the foil, and dirty pieces of foil floated inside. The distributor, in front of the astonished public, simply took out the foil with his dirty hands and folded it next to it. So it goes…
10. Staff. As you already understood, this hotel has a big problem with the staff, the people are angry, aggressive, terribly untidy.
The last incident happened on the last day. I walk past the pool, I don’t touch anyone at all. The day before there was a fire swallower and thrower show. The guy is an Arab, he performed normally, beautifully and he was introduced as a new animator. The next day, this new animator comes up to me and starts talking, I POLITELY make it clear that I won’t talk for a long time, because I have to go swimming, etc. and I don’t extend my hand to him, saying that only men shake hands with us . Eyes filled with blood, mat-remat, something about Madonna and Alain Delon, that like I’m not them, to pretend to be a queen and when I told him to fuck off (another animator was standing next to break up the fight), I thought that he will immediately punch me in the eye; . Honestly, I'm not even upset...
11. General. I have been going to Egypt for many years, you understand: the sun, the sea, the availability almost all year round.
This hotel has a very advantageous position and territory, you can make candy out of it, but it seemed that they simply want to erase it. Although ...despite the presence of a bunch of negative reviews, the people do not decrease. Someone accidentally, someone did not have enough places in other hotels, etc. , and as a result, full occupancy and tantrums and tears of vacationers who wanted to see something else. Personally, I wanted to see the sea and the sun during my 6 days of rest, and I did it, I rested and got a tan, and I closed my eyes to all these nasty things, I simply didn’t want to ruffle my nerves. But who goes purposefully necessary, I do not advise. Draw your own conclusions. Have a good rest. My name is Tatyana. Write, I will answer all questions.
To begin with, this was my first trip to a foreign country, so it’s somehow not easy to compare. I went almost a year ago ~ 09.10. 10-16.10. 10. , so the emotions and first impressions got used. I'll start from the very beginning.
The city of Hurghada itself is not very big, but it is long like Volgograd. The journey from the airport to the Desert Inn Hotel did not take much time at all, literally the 2nd stop along the bus. The hotel is nothing out of the ordinary. Friendly staff, almost everyone speaks Russian, spacious lobby. Nothing special.
Number.
Since we arrived around 15:00 local time, we immediately settled in. We got a gloomy, cramped room, without a balcony, but at the same time on the sunny side. Generally not ice. I went up to the Arab receptionist, who speaks good Russian, and gave him 10 bucks. All problem solved! The 2nd room turned out to be much more attractive: Spacious, bright, with a balcony overlooking the hotel courtyard. Conder worked like clockwork, without straining and cooled down very quickly. The TV was on, but they showed 2-3 Russian channels, but only the blind can watch them, or who are tired of their eyes, but in general we didn’t remember about the telly) The shower was unpleasantly “pleased” with a squeal! There is no warm water in the hotel at all, and it is heated only by a spiral pipe on the roof from the sun. Therefore, in the morning, an invigorating and refreshing cold shower, and even a warm one either in the afternoon or in the evening; ) The tip porter asked for 15 bucks (! ), Naturally, it was a bit too much on his snout, as a result, I bargained here up to 5 bucks. In general, you need to bargain everything and everything and everywhere !! ! This is such a national sport, sometimes you can buy a thing for 10% of the cost. I stepped aside for a bit. The hotel is located on the second line of the coast opposite El Samaka, which is often heard in the jargon of Russian tourists "Dog")) The owner is one of these two hotels, so the dining room is located in the Dog.
Apparently, from the filing with the receptionist, the number turned out to be really extremely successful. 3 days after our arrival, a young couple arrived from Lviv. They got a room completely unsuitable for living: In the room, the wall next to the bed was completely damp, to the point that the plaster became sour cream. There was even mold! They argued with the hotel management, and yet they got their way.
They clean the room every day, in general it is very clean, but still I would advise you to hide expensive things and cabbage, just in case, otherwise it will be completely clean; ) Moreover, if there is a choice of a room, try to have thick curtains on the windows. At 05-00 - 06-00 you will understand)))
Beach.
Passing through the Dog and funny motel houses you get to the beach. Beach on C grade. On the right is the bay "Grandfather with his grandson", and on the right is the sea itself. The beach is clean, the water is crystal. I am silent about the inhabitants of the sea, this must be seen. There are sunbeds, supposedly paid with mattresses, but no one ever asked us to pay for them. But there is a problem with a towel, we sought towels for 3 days, an Arab on the beach at the distribution of towels said that they were in the wash. Therefore, in the morning you go to the beach, immediately to the Arab. There are places with shade, but they are filled first.
Let's go back to the hotel.
Dining room.
At first glance it seemed the menu is amazing, which is not there! But in fact, to eat the menu becomes lean to tears. Only the sweet was somehow varied. In the last days of rest, I caught myself thinking where would I eat another? Pall!! ! Luckily there was a small restaurant nearby. So we took a huge lobster for 10 bucks. Tasty! But to say that satiety, I would not say.
In general, the most economy class in its glory, for students, whom I treated last year, that's it! Bad experiences fade into the background. If you want to go to Egypt, do not hesitate, go, there will be no problems with the language. I met only one Arab who does not understand Russian and English. In general, he poured out his soul))) Good luck to everyone!
just one piece of advice, don't take all inclusive, it's not worth it. we had breakfast and dinner, we calmly picked up fruit bags on the beach. there are many inexpensive cafes near the hotel. and it is better to take alcohol in duty free!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ! Have a nice rest !!!!!!!!!!!!!! !