Views of a single traveller~no entertainment at all for the two week stay~met some lovely guests so that helped.Never had so many early nights on holiday before!! Room was large and very clean, towel art fantastic. Balcony tiny~glad I travel alone.Staff excellent as they usually are in Egypt.Bus to beach was a fight to get on~why such a small bus for the size of hotel? Same problem going to Namma at night, taxi cheap and reliable(Mohamed out front of hotel excellent) Paid half board but ate out after first week as food was not so good. T.Cook rep Luke ws fantastic!!I ended my holiday doing trips that I had done on previous visits just to get out of hotel.If you want peace and quiet then its for you but I would have liked more atmosphere.

The Hotel is quite good but not a 4 star at all. Me and my wife stay good with an acceptable money/quality ratio.
Something bad for us: very poor hotel beach (nothing about real red sea) but is included and connected with hotel for free, very dark rooms, poor and repetitive food for 6/7 days (but safe), the not all-inclusive tratment for all.
Something good to take in account: egyptian staff smiling friendly, good but hidden fish restaurant, hidden as the good fitness center, the beduin tend bar's nights, the pool and the peaceful.
If You need a very relaxing and cheap week consider this place, but if You want a quite comfortable and dinamic time consider another place.

oh dear, WHERE do I begin.!

Simply do not stay here unless you are prepared to be ripped off by being forced to spend hard earned cash in the room mini-bar on water, and made to feel like you are a petty criminal.


On first appearance the place looks OK.
Staff seemed alright to.

Waking up after flopping into bed exhausted from the London Gatwick flight, my partner and I thought we got ourselves a nice little room in a nice hotel.
Rooms are basic - but clean. Bit dismayed that there were 2 single beds, but we overcame this and shoved the two beds together.

Check pics.
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THE POOL
Pool is nice, beds clean and changed every day, as well as the towels.

Lucky for us, we still had some water from our flight so, we were ok for a day but we didnt at all anticipate what was to come next...

OK, you may say- whats the problem!?

PROBLEM
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The problem was with WATER.
We had returned from diving and everyone knows how dehydrated it makes you, so we went to buy some water and had been out to the super market across the road (well it was a small room with a man on a wooden stool and several bottles of water, crisps and sweets)

It is BOILING hot in May 40 degrees centigrade so, It was sensible to drink plenty and we brought one of those massive 3 litre bottles of water with the handle on it.

Soon as got to the hotel lobby we heard the bloke at the desk shout "STOP STOP you cant have that water", simiultatiously tapping furiously at the laminated A4 sign on the front desk.

YES, this is no joke. He took it away from us DESPITE begging with him to say we were dehydrated from diving.


This is how it was througout the whole week we were there. We felt like we were naughty children and the headmaster had his eye on us.

Thing is, THERE IS a way of 'getting' the water in, just use your common sense so they cant see it. And, ridiculous and as unnecessary as it sounds, we felt like petty criminals sneaking water in, all the ways we could as water is ESSENTIAL !!!

We decided NOT to be ripped off and pay 10 times the price for the mini bar bottled water.
PLEASE DO NOT pay the prices if you decide to go to this place.

Buy a big beach bag....the water is cheaper by the bottle even in the restaurants. In the supermarket/shops you can haggle the price so, basically you can pay 45p for a massive 3 litre bottle.

The smaller bottles fit nicely in smallish handbags. But this is rediculous.ABSOULTELY silly. I cant understand that its not good to bring a kebab into the hotel or chips or booze. But WATER?!!!!

They just want to watch us squirm and be forced to pay the MEGA expensive price for the room service mini bar water.

I have been to so many other countries where water is not an issue. Even in Sri Lanka, there was fresh bottled water on tap for everyone and even in Taba in Egypt, everyone brought bottled water into the hotel (Marriot)

I hope they drop the whole silly no-water in the rooms policy.
It seemed VERY obvious it was applicable ONLY to the BRITS.
We saw Italians and Russians with booze, massive bottled waters and big bags of crisps.

SO,DO NOT PAY THE MINI BAR PRICES!!!!! unless your stupid.

Poor lighting at night made it dangerous to see where you are walking. I have added a photo to show you. This was as light as it got. Imagine if you were elderly or had trouble with mobility. EVen I almost went over, as I thought I missed a step when in fact it was under floor lights, WHICH look like a ledge. Be careful.

FOOD
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Well, We chose to go bed and breakfast.
I regret going bed and breakfast.

Food looked like it had been recylced from the previous week.

I am on anti biotics from hourendous tummy upset from the food we ate at that place.

Im a vegetarian so I had no choice but to force omlette down else I had the choice of chocolate ball cereals or manky salad.

Steer clear from salads. Wait until you see my vid.
I have a strong feeling the hygene standards are not ALL THAT.

Same old manky food each day was either omlette, 2 choices of cereals, nasty oily sausage which looked like camel, weird mashed potato and a whole bunch of cakes which to be fair, werent THAT bad.

No variety really. Same grub each day. Was interesting watching other people open the 3 silver pots where the food was, peer inside and turn their nose up.
Yes, prison food.

You can get tea and water at breakfast but is small cups and the orange juice which comes from a dispenser is NASTY. it full of aditives. if like me you have allergies or E number intollerant. PLEASE DO NOT DRINK THE JUICE.

The milk for the cereal didnt look right. And the salad, which looked old- was uncovered.
The only things which were covered were the cakes.

There was almost every morning an egyptian bloke with fairly bad teeth, pester us to pay £13 to come to an Egyptian theme night with entertainers and a sea food BBQ. He will be trying to flog you the 'last remaining ticket' watch out for him .
He wouldnt take lightly to 'no' so, so I would suggest to get him off your back, say your going diving every day. Or your going to be out all day and very tired.

this worked after the 2nd day of hassle at breakfast time.

The staff in the restaurant are overall miserable you-know- whats.

They felt more like prison wardens. Especally when you are told to 'hurry up and eat' at breakfast time.

SUNSHADE
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The pool is very nice I will say that. It is immaculate and I have to comment on sunshades or LACK of.

There is about 1 for every 4 loungers which there should be 1 for every pair of sun shades.

SAFETY DEPOSIT BOX
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There is a free safety deposit box which is good and internet if you have to email home.

BEING SOLD STUFF
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Occasionally there will be a man come round trying to sell fish.
Always expect someone try to sell you something.

THE POOL BAR
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The hotel pool bar.
We had 2 cocktails at this bar on first arriving.
Its approx £3.50 each and I could have sworn one of my cuba libres had been baptised!

We found that there was no consistency with the 'happy hour' pricing or drink deals.
One night it was buy 4 drinks and pay for 3 but it was not clear on what drinks.
Turns out, it was either for cocktails or for beer.
So, unless you REALLY like beer or you REALLY like cocktails (no guarantee of booze in them) then GOOD LUCK!

we didnt drink here again.


Happy hour is not like happy hour in the UK be warned.
And, they will change it to what EVER they decide so dont get caught out.

SCUBA DIVING
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PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make sure you check out the excellent Red Sea Diving College in Naama bay.
5* PADI awarded school and very good experienced instructors to.
If you want to try a dive or you want to like me, go and do a few dives of the sites - go with these people. Its busy all the time and you will meet some very nice people.


Please dont go with the dodgy dive school near to the Sharm Inn.
No PADI rating - just a very strange man who made my skin crawl. *shivers* number of people here- NONE. WHY NOT? because its DODGY.



There is , if you didnt want to travel to far, a PADI school within the Ocean CLub hotel next door.
But i recommend the Red Sea Diving College everyone goes here. It is great!

BEACHES
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There is a local beach near to Sharm Inn, called Old town? well its the local beach and its free.
WHY IS IT FREE? because everyone is driven bonkers by the multiple bass sub woofers blasting from all directions here.
We just went to have a look - we were sat on our sun loungers for an hour or so, music was very quiet as you would expect then, suddenly there was a massive surge of brain numbing clubbing anthems coming from at least 3 different bars and areas on the beach.
Most people just left in the end.
Who do they think wants to listen to this tripe?
Most of the people on the beach were middle aged, there were no youngsters. I for one, felt my privacy and my space had been violated by this mind numbing trash which was being blasted out.




Can I just point out that on ANY Beach you go to, you WILL get hassled.
Someone is always trying to sell something.
The Sun, Some food, Henna or hair braiding.

The best thing to do is to just shake your head. If you say your english, they will NOT go away.
That or make out your Russian. They know the Russians dont put up with any crud but us English are oh so polite and easy targets.

SO, again watch out for traders on the beach.


BEST BEACH
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I would suggest going to El Fanaar Beach. It has a lush hotel called the Renaissance. Its a Marriot chain of hotels and very very nice.
You have to pay to use the beach but its well worth it.
It has its own corel reef and you can do like what we did, snorkel all day!
Look out for some amazing and beautiful fish. Keep a really big eye out. ;)

Would I return to Sharm?
Yes but not to the goulag Sharm Inn not even if it was half price.
The thing which has really upset me this whole holiday is the no water policy.
I wouldnt say it ruined my holiday but it was just so unnecessary. The whole stupid no water thing was pathetic. They have shot themselves in the foot, I for one, will not be returning there.

Check out my vid and photos. Thanks for reading.

My wife and I stayed at this hotel at the beginning of May 2008. We booked 7 nights on a B&B basis with flights from london. It's true what most of the other reviewers say about the food at breakfast - it is edible but most definitely not what you would expect from a 4 star hotel. The experience of the food at dinner is similar. The exception to this is the onsite fish restaurant, which is paid for separately (not included on a half board basis). The quality of the food at this restaurant is, in my view, of exceptional quality. I have absolutely no idea why this restaurant was empty most of the time.

The hotel and its rooms are clean, the staff are reasonably friendly and the hotel has a good vibe about it generally. The towel sculptures left in the rooms daily are interesting and a nice touch. The hotel taxis were pretty good also, and these guys will take you to, for example, Cairo or Mount Sinai for a reasonable price. We did the Mount Sinai trek this way - very convenient as we were able to fix the time etc as compared to going in a big group. The hotel is a short taxi ride away from the old town (£2) and also from Naama Bay (£2.50).

I really have only a few minor problems with the trip. But these are not problems with the hotel per se, but more issues that I have with Sharm in general. The first is that prices in this part of Egypt are almost the same as European prices. Even if you are good at haggling, you will likely pay no less than 70% of european prices in most places. This seems odd to me since Egypt is overall a very poor country. I was not expecting this at all, having travelled in places like South America before. Another gripe I have is the general attitude of many Egyptians that we came into contact with. It was obvious that the only aim of most was to extract as much money from the tourists as possible. For example, when you go to Naama Bay and Old Sharm, you will be hassled endlessly to buy purfumes, shisha pipes, papyrus and many other bits and pieces at massively overinflated prices. Its entertaining at first but eventually the desperation became overwhelming and uncomfortable for me. If you dont buy something or leave a big enough tip in restaurant, you may well hear insults muttered in arabic under the breath of the vendor/waiter - the person that only 2 minutes ago was treating you like you were his very best friend. They dont care about tourists - its ALL about the money. Its an odd way to behave I feel - the word is already spreading about this behaviour and the tourist flow may reduce substantially over time as a result of this.

The best thing about sharm is the number of interesting things to do around here and the ease with which it can be organised through the various tours. The diving and snorkelling is truly first class, the mount sinai trek is spectacular, as is the bedouin dinner and star gazing in the desert. Things like the quad biking and the glass bottomed boat are fun to do also, as well as visiting the aqua park and the beach etc etc. Cairo (and its pyramids) are easily accessible in a day trip by plane or bus which is a massive added bonus. We did all of this in the week we were there and had the best time.

Overall I would recommend Sharm and the Sharminn Amarein hotel but I feel that Sharm is let down slightly because of the hustling, greedy attitude of a large proportion of the people that work there.