Russian speakers are not liked. And there are reasons for this:
- when referring to the attendants, they use the appeal to you, as to a slave, without "thank you" and "please", which causes resentment. Here the Egyptians are already accustomed to European culture and do not tolerate disrespect for their personality;
- don't tip
- they take food on themselves and "on that brother", do not eat it and have to throw tons of food away;
- alcohol is the same - they drink it as if it was the purpose of the visit - to get drunk to unconsciousness.
In connection with all this - upset tourists from Western Europe, not used to our "wildness", bad manners, fights for food, drunkenness and obscenities on every corner.
Also on the part of Russian-speaking tourists - frustration that they are not "carried on their hands" here, as in the hotels of Sharm and Hurghada.
Mars Alam is another specificity. More expensive prices, steeper reefs, few pharmacies and markets.
But we rode for the Red Sea and the reef, turtles and dolphins. There's a lot of it here : )
The food in the restaurant is really monotonous. Every day is almost the same. There was no grill. Sweets are tasteless. Of the fruits, there were only green dates and a couple of times someone was lucky - they took guava, strawberries and pomegranates. But to taste - fe. Not that coat. Perhaps because of the season.
Animation - I have not seen better in 2 years of trips to Sharm and Hurghada during a pandemic. Shaggy, and Mido, and Zuzo and visiting Latin Americans work really cool. Lit to the fullest.
From alcohol - bottled beer, aniseed vodka is. We didn't drink cocktails.
Guava juice and mango - in the bar near the lobby. There is also natural delicious coffee. BUT! You need to be polite with the bartender, otherwise he may ignore you for a long time))
A smile and a tip work wonders.
Regarding the windiness - once our pontoon was closed, we went to the neighboring one and to the Palace.
Access to the port and the opportunity to walk along the embankment is a big plus for Mars.
But I would consider other hotels next time.
We all arrive early in the morning, and they check in from 14.00 and, accordingly, we either wait on our suitcases in the lobby, or we have to agree, they know how to use this at the reception. Food like in Soviet times in our public canteens, a minimum of fruit, or rather no - sour dates of two varieties, if they took out something else, then all in small plates... and there are a lot of people, the same thing with sweets, only biscuits, sometimes parfait. . . no ice cream or other treats for kids. . . Bars on the beach are a separate issue, you can take a small bottle of water only from 9.00-10.00, and then, as it goes, they will pour it into glasses, which they always lack and in the dining room too, you can wait 10-15 minutes. while they bring clean ones... somewhere by 11.00 all drinks end, and they can only put Orange, and nothing else... If they started cooking potatoes with a burger at the second beach bar, then a long line of 30-50 people lined up... There is a restaurant where you can to eat once, if you sign up at the reception, it’s better there, but I think that everyone should have such food, and three times a day...
There are no complaints about the room, repair, design, some have a kettle, high-quality cleaning, they put 1.5 liters of water every day, a refrigerator, a hairdryer - everything works, but the cleaner almost always forgets to put an extra roll of toilet paper... And of course the sea, beautiful coral reef… at this time it is always windy here, if the first pier is closed, there is a fallback… go further to the next pier, it is always open, or further along the beach through the port, there is a wild beach where the reef is awesome, and the sea is calm… Once again in I definitely won't go to this hotel and I won't recommend it to my friends.
We chose this hotel in the hope that after the opening, the staff will try, and not indicatively, ignore all the requests of tourists.
If it goes on like this, it is unlikely that adequate people will aspire to this hotel...
I'll start with a couple of good points:
- Good rooms. We got a nice room for two, which had everything we needed. And even a non-working faucet in the sink, at the request, was repaired within an hour or two. There are no complaints about cleaning, everything is fine, except that they do it a little chaotically in time.
- Nice swimming pool, the sea was a minute away. Perhaps we got to the very opening of the hotel, but there were always not enough places on the beach.
- There are a couple of shops on the territory, but the prices there are very high and the sellers are reluctant to knock them down. In short, to go into them once and find out the cost is useful in order to have an idea of u200bu200bwhat to compare with when you find yourself near the shelves on excursions.
Now - what was bad (everything else):
- Immediately from the main. The dining room is terrible.
Lines, lack of food, long waits for serving trays to be filled. Plates have to be looked for/waited. You have to look for devices / wait. Glasses have to be looked for/waited. Approached one dish, stood in line, waited for the empty tray to be replaced. You go to the next and everything repeats. While you collect everything, you get cooled food with a plate. You have to constantly pull the workers to fill the distribution, they themselves follow the hall poorly. If you arrive early - you will increase the waiting time, if you arrive late - some of the food has already ended. Catching the middle was not always easy. Plus - glasses / plates often come across poorly washed and with chips of varying degrees.
- Food is also a big problem of the hotel. There is no rotation at all, every day is the same. Unless it may turn out to be something that was in previous days. The food quality is bad. I often observed that vacationers put something neutral on their plates, such as vegetables, scrambled eggs, bread, rice.
In a positive light, one can only single out an omelette, which will be cooked in front of you, and once there were quails on the grill (which we miraculously managed to take after standing in line for almost half an hour). There was no more grill. We went to the beach to eat burgers (cutlet + bread and that's it) or hot dogs (tasteless sausage + bread and that's it) with french fries. Again, queues, queues, queues...
- I want to highlight fruits separately. They are brought in a relatively small bowl (one), random (mostly orange / banana / grapes, but I saw guava and mango once, although I didn’t get it), people flock, enough for 5-8 people. Then the bowl is empty for 5-10 minutes. During this time, a queue is formed. They bring again one bowl, which is immediately sorted out. A country with a lot of fruits and a harvest 4 times a year. Yeah.
- The sea, of course, is good, but they don’t let you swim beyond the buoys, near the buoys the depth is knee-deep.
You can swim near the pier under the supervision of lifeguards, but there is also a queue and you can’t swim far (10 * 10 meters, maybe a little less). You can climb a little further from the buoys and swim for your own pleasure, but: it will not be an insured event, there is no normal entry into the water, the waves are from the wind, the reef is still almost dead, or you need to swim far away.
- Construction / repairs are ongoing. Something sawed / painted / repaired. Half of the pools are not working. Slides - do not work. Workers are running everywhere.
- All pools, except for the main one (depth 140 cm, fresh) - for children. An adult will not even be there to the waist.
- If you go on an excursion for a long time, you will be very unpleasantly surprised by the assembly of dry rations for the road. We were on a bus with vacationers from other hotels - they have normal sandwiches, hamburgers, muffins and donuts there. You will be given one small sweet bun, two ordinary ones, two small slices of cheese, a piece of sausage of the same size and an apple.
- Wifi only in the main lobby and either very poor or not working at all. There is a Vodafon stall, but the prices are much higher there. It is better to take SIM cards at the airport (but do not forget that the number of gigabytes is divided by 2).
- I don't know about other operators, but we traveled from Biblio-Globus. The guides are mediocre (both on excursions and the one in the hotel), you need to ask everything thoroughly. As an example, they said that for the check-in you can go once for free to a local restaurant. The fact that you need to sign up for two days at least for some time to get there (or better for 3-4 to choose a convenient one) - the guide did not say, although he knew about this feature.
- There is no way to get out of the hotel, the village is far away, the bus does not go there. Just call a taxi yourself. The maximum is a limited embankment.
- In connection with the above, it is not worth it to drive from the airport to the hotel for 4 hours.
It is clear that there may not be enough workers, not everything was put in order before the opening, they could not bring up normal food, etc. , etc. But they already wanted to earn money. The attitude towards tourists from the hotel is very significant. Even if some shortcomings are eliminated over time, I would not take risks to spoil my vacation. Taking into account the fact that the low price tag for a stay in a hotel is not an attractive factor, it is quite average. And the 5-star hotel is out of the blue.
There is NO food from the word AT ALL. The queue for rice, meat, tomatoes, salads… just awful. From fruit dates and finely chopped apple. And everything would be fine BUT, as long as you stand 20 minutes (and this is no exaggeration) in line... , you will walk with a plate for about 5 minutes until you find where to sit.
The number of rooms pleased that after dinner the bread became like a balm for the soul. The sea, as elsewhere and always in Egypt, is excellent. The territory of the hotel on a solid 4 (it is clear that they are caring). DINNER! We decided to go 2 hours later, after it started and again severe food extraction, this time for about 10 minutes we got cups or at least glasses - THEY SIMPLY ARE NOT. We got the fish - we were very surprised how it turned out ? ! In general, we were not hungry.
There are 2 hotels on the territory, which supposedly can be used, BUT only by the beach near the pool, period. We found a restaurant on the territory of the hotel, with identical food in the general restaurant, there is only one BUT - NO QUEUE, which was very pleasing. And we decided to eat here! And everything would be fine BUT, as it turned out, ALA CARD and you need to sign up, how was it asked ?! , because the food is the same, only there is no queue. The answer killed on knock down - if you want without a queue, sign up and eat once without PROCESSING FOOD.
On the third day (probably there were complaints from other tourists), the queue disappeared and cups and glasses appeared - SURPRISED! We began to understand what, how and why. It turned out that all Germans, Poles... in general, EVERYONE, except for the countries of the former USSR, were separated and given them a separate place for meals, with no queue and a large number of attendants! And everything would be fine, but somehow it became not pleasant when at the next meal (noted on an ongoing basis), we eat only fish tails and the part near the head, and Europeans eat what is called the middle. VERY OUTRAGED BY THIS FACT!! ! As if there are people and we... decide for yourself!
In short, rest for those who want to retire and forget. Movement, there will be no screaming. You won’t be able to get better, there’s not much food, but you won’t be hungry. The sea is amazing as always. Prices... more expensive than in Sharm two to three times.
Have a nice day, everyone.
I can assume that food lovers will also be pleased, although I did not observe any frills. However, fresh vegetables, romaine or iceberg lettuce, greens were always available. Enough different side dishes for lunch and dinner, chicken in various forms, fish. I recommend paying attention to the street grill - sometimes lamb and grilled fish, quite tasty. For breakfast, the choice is also not bad, I got hooked on moussaka - very tasty! Big minus - fruits! There were always dates and tangerines/or oranges. Apples only crushed! Melon finely chopped. Green peaches the size of a small apricot, no strawberries or watermelons. Fruit lovers will be disappointed. But a huge selection of desserts, including baklava and other oriental pastries! Just great with coffee! And the coffee is not bad!
The main pluses of this hotel are the beach and the reef! That's why we're going to Egypt. The beach is wide, there are many umbrellas and sunbeds, as well as fences from the wind! Believe me, this is true in April! The weather was quite windy, sometimes overcast, even rain with a thunderstorm!
The pontoon is long, ends already at a depth, where the reef goes down a sheer wall! The reef is beautiful, bright and densely populated! But at this time of the year the waves are not weak, so the pontoon can be closed! But even with a yellow flag, be careful - the waves really blow away from the pontoon! There is an entry from the shore along a stone slab, just right for families with small children. Safety shoes won't hurt.
Also on the beach of Port Ghalib Palace there is a pontoon. And the sea is much calmer there, and the reef is just as wonderful!
Port Ghalib itself is a promenade, yachts, cafes and shops. Nothing special, but you can walk a couple of times.
Many Europeans rest in the hotel: Germans, Italians, Scandinavians, Czechs, Poles.
Will I return to this hotel? Yes, with pleasure, but in a more calm season!
I recommend this hotel to snorkelers!