Your rating of this hotel:
5.0
from 10
Hotel ratings by criteria:
Rooms:
7.0
Service:
5.0
Cleanliness:
4.0
Food:
4.0
Amenities:
7.0
We rested at the Al Mashrabia hotel for 22 days (from February 26 to March 19) on an all-inclusive basis. Operator - Join Up, agent - APL travel. I bribed the price, but I had to worry a little, because the documents were sent only 10 hours before departure.
HOTEL. We arrived at the hotel around 10 am. As expected, they immediately left money and a couple of chocolates at the reception. We were promised a superior room. According to the rules of the hotel, check-in takes place at 12-00 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!???????? ? ? ), so we had to wait. But at 11-30 we were taken to show the room. In Egypt for the first time, so there is nothing to compare with, but the number shocked me: a small kennel in the style of a cheap soviet sanatorium for the best workers on a free ticket, painted in gray mouse color ! ! ! ! Taking advantage of my confusion and state of shock, the porter quickly left the suitcases and, with the words “korosho”, disappeared ....
The "superior" room, as it turned out later, was that there is access to the terrace directly from the room (although there are terraces in all rooms on the first floor of the bungalow on the right side of the hotel), a large bed and a large window ....That is, there are rooms even worse!!! ! !
The next day, after talking with the hotel staff (I will not go into details with what words I managed to convince them, although I managed to do it with one phrase), we were shown another room on the left side of the hotel. It turned out to be much more spacious and comfortable: it turns out that the beds are even larger, and the bathrooms have bathtubs, and not just pallets with curtains, the room can theoretically be divided into several tiny rooms, there are even easy chairs. Particular attention should be paid to the air conditioner: it is a healthy box built into the wall that makes the sound of an airplane taking off.
The remote control is a switch on the wall near the bed, a stool, with which you can still reach two metal pins inside this box, which may have previously had handles. One pin is responsible for temperature, the other for air flow. I am not a weak person, but I hardly managed to turn the “control buttons”. I regretted not taking pliers with me. We used a closet without shelves at the entrance and two bedside tables on the sides of the bed.
DINING ROOM. Amazed by the variety! ! ! More than 8 types of salads: cucumbers with tomatoes and parsley, cucumbers with tomatoes without parsley, tomatoes and cucumbers separately (moreover, you can choose cucumbers, both sliced in circles and diced), cucumbers with tomatoes and onions, blue cabbage, white cabbage, blue and white cabbage .....
Sometimes oranges were added to salads, in this case, only tangerines were for dessert, as the oranges were already in the salad! By the way, there were a lot of fruits: oranges, tangerines, mangoes, dates, melons, strawberries and watermelons! ! ! But all this was at the entrance to the “restaurant”, which we called the “tavern” and for only 1-2 dorrala portion! ! ! And every morning one of the cooks stood at the stove and fried omelettes on two pans! He did it very cleverly - from breaking the egg to the readiness of the omelet, 40-50 seconds passed! At the same time, he addressed everyone who approached his counter with the words: “Omelette? ". As if he had something else! ? Although, if he winked, he could probably make fried eggs from one egg, because the pans are very small. After a couple of days, we taught him to add chopped tomatoes, onions and bell peppers to the omelet.
If desired, it was possible to fry all this in butter, for which it was necessary to hunt immediately after the opening of the canteen, otherwise you had to beg from the cooks.
Huge variety of pastries and cakes! ! Different shapes, sizes, colors… True, the taste of these masterpieces could be diversified only by adding honey and, sometimes, sour cream, because, this whole palette of culinary abundance had only three tastes….
One day we were surprised by the soup! It was so salty that I had to run to the bar for a beer! True, on the second day the soup was not salty at all. We so suspect that the salt ran out the day before.
On the ninth day of my stay, I realized that I missed borscht, fried potatoes and sauerkraut. True, a day later we were pleasantly surprised by the variety of flavors for lunch and dinner! ! ! We understood everything in the evening when we saw the number of "locals" who settled in the hotel.
By the way, wine for locals and tourists is also very different…. It differs not only in quality, but also in availability. A very unpleasant aftertaste was also left from the fact that the staff in the bars serves customers only after they talk to each other or on the phone, and also wash all the dishes (it is washed right behind the counter), but on the condition that there is no one from local tourists. Very often there were not enough glasses and spoons. Therefore, on the beach, when they went swimming, they had to hide the glasses under the towels from the "glass villain" - that's what we called the bartender, who ran along the beach and collected the dishes. One time there weren't enough beach towels. This situation did not connect in my head, since there were far fewer sun loungers on the beach than beds in hotel rooms. With such arithmetic, I went to the reception. I'll digress a little from the topic. I understood their system: if you need something, then contact the reception!
So it was with the light bulb in our room: for three days they asked to replace it - no one replaced it until they unscrewed it themselves and put it on the reception desk. The admin was surprised, asking, “What is this? ". "Lamp" I said. "Why? " he asked. "It doesn't work, " I replied. The light bulb was changed after 15 minutes. I think that they changed it for 5 minutes, and 10 made sure that it really didn’t work. They began to give sour cream in the canteen in the morning only after they complained that there was no yogurt for breakfast. Let's get back to towels. New towels in sufficient quantities were brought in just half an hour! ? With a light bulb, it wasn't over yet. The next evening, after an evening walk, having come to the house, they found that there was no electricity in it at all. We came to the reception. Not knowing how to explain to him that the “machine gun” knocked out, we say: “The lights are not on! ". Admin: Everything? ! ". Me, with a straight face: "Yes. " Admin: “Have you tried turning on the TV? » ? ?
While we were laughing at the reception, they turned on the "automatic" for us.
ANIMATION is also different: All the morning “fantastic gymnastics” is designed for the press, which leads to a decrease in food intake, since already on the third day the upper abdomen begins to thrive. Animators are generally good! I still remember ALL of their performances! The cycle of repetition of evening animations is 4 days. When the “locals” arrived, we were able to see a belly dance and a dance with skirts for FREE (! ). We may have seen this before, but they were only available for 5 dorrrals per person at the "beach party" held in the animation room! ? In addition to animation, there are other entertainments: billiards with broken pockets, two sets of balls (moreover, we did not find all the numbers) and one cue. The white balls were sick with smallpox. At least that's what they looked like. It was not possible to play table tennis as it was often windy.
I almost forgot: on Friday, the animators have a day off!
BARS! There are two employees (at the reception and on the beach), and a paid fish restaurant on the beach. I was struck by the working hours: at the reception from 13-00 to 15-00 and from 17-00 to 22-00. On the beach from 10-00 to 13-00 and from 15-00 to 17-00. That is, if you suddenly want tea or coffee at 15-01 to drink at the reception, you will be told that everything is already paid!!! ! ! ! Free - on the beach ...? By the way, about the staff at the bar! We got a cheerful company and often had to take 5-6 glasses of "cocktails". And, since the local alcohol is highly diluted, they were asked to pour more alcohol into a glass. On one of my trips for drinks, the phrase “you drink a lot” sounded to me. To which, I put the glasses on the counter and asked them to pour rum and whiskey separately in their measurements into other glasses, then pour the contents into one and add a little cola.
In the future, none of the staff had any questions about the amount of alcohol consumed by our company.
FLIES! This is a special article! The first three days they did not give rest even at night. Apparently the white man on the white sheet turned them on at night! ? . But flies do not fly alone, but with mosquitoes. True, mosquitoes sneak up imperceptibly: they fly to some line known only to them, and then silently steal up on foot. ? They approached so quietly that they could only be heard from 10 centimeters from the ear. The fumigator didn't even help. But on the fifth day, they were already less “fucked up”, obviously tanned skin turned them on less. Or maybe a three-day etching with caustic gas from a device that resembled a chainsaw helped. And it started and ran the same way. For three days, the hotel staff started this unit during the day and in the evening.
The first time I saw this miracle of technology working, I even thought that they wanted to cut down a palm tree.
SEA! The sea in Egypt is salty and blue, although Red! ? Often it is impossible to determine the distance to the bottom. Sometimes it seems that there is no meter, but in fact - 4-5. The neighborhood of boats spoiled the impression of the hotel. For 22 days of our vacation, 7 days of swimming was risky, since all the water near the beach was covered with a film of diesel fuel from the very morning. One day fat spots of fuel oil floated ...? But, thanks to the sea, you can save on fish for beer: buy it, dry it out a bit (just this is the time for which you can wait until you get a beer in a bar), then the skin is covered with salt. Further actions are as follows: he took a sip of beer - he licked himself. ? At first, the staff looked askance at us, but then they explained that this is such a tradition of drinking beer! They believed! ?
TOURS. More precisely - excursion agents.
We immediately refused the services of our guide, because it was expensive. On the beach, on the very first day, a local agent Misha approached us, and he also makes bottles with colored sand. Its prices are much cheaper, but at the same time, the excursions were no different. We were convinced of this on our own experience, having tried several excursions - twice each. But excursions "from the street" were disappointing: prices are 5-10 dorrrals cheaper, but the quality is worse and the services are less. For example, Misha's trip to El Gouna is $5 more expensive than from the street, but the departure from the Sheraton is from the Marina port, which increased the time of pleasant spending by a couple of hours. Having taken a little cheaper on the street, we were shaking for almost an hour to El Gouna on the bus, collecting people from other hotels along the way and just back - on the bus. In addition, for about forty more minutes they were waiting for people who were brought a little later by another bus. The same situation was with the quad safari.
There are a lot of scammers in the street stalls. With oils - there is a Klondike for them. The first thing they cheat on is bottles. More precisely, their capacity. 75 ml can be passed off as 90 or even 150 ml. And the prices too. Before you enter, they offer half a pound per ml, and when you enter, they show diluted oil prepared in advance, and then exactly the same, but not diluted, supposedly showing the difference in quality and explaining that it is better to take more expensive, but already 2 pounds. After bargaining, you can, of course, buy for 1 pound and even cheaper. This also applies to shops and a tour desk immediately to the right of the hotel, if you stand facing it - they are deceiving! In general, trade in Egypt is a different story. In about three days we learned to "fend off" their obsession so successfully that when they saw us, they tried to hide in their shops (those of them who managed to communicate with us), or simply not to pester (those who saw and heard us talking to their neighbors).
WI-FI IS! Sometimes. All the time I remembered our MTS-Soviet GPRS. Our MTS is cooler and super fast! ! !
And YET, thanks to a cheerful company, acquired already on the spot, a sense of humor and optimism, the holiday was SUCCESSFUL!
If you have no sense of humor, then go to a five-star hotel somewhere in Europe!
P. S. : ……and the sun shone just like in 4- and 5-star hotels!
HOTEL. We arrived at the hotel around 10 am. As expected, they immediately left money and a couple of chocolates at the reception. We were promised a superior room. According to the rules of the hotel, check-in takes place at 12-00 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!???????? ? ? ), so we had to wait. But at 11-30 we were taken to show the room. In Egypt for the first time, so there is nothing to compare with, but the number shocked me: a small kennel in the style of a cheap soviet sanatorium for the best workers on a free ticket, painted in gray mouse color ! ! ! ! Taking advantage of my confusion and state of shock, the porter quickly left the suitcases and, with the words “korosho”, disappeared ....
The "superior" room, as it turned out later, was that there is access to the terrace directly from the room (although there are terraces in all rooms on the first floor of the bungalow on the right side of the hotel), a large bed and a large window ....That is, there are rooms even worse!!! ! !
The next day, after talking with the hotel staff (I will not go into details with what words I managed to convince them, although I managed to do it with one phrase), we were shown another room on the left side of the hotel. It turned out to be much more spacious and comfortable: it turns out that the beds are even larger, and the bathrooms have bathtubs, and not just pallets with curtains, the room can theoretically be divided into several tiny rooms, there are even easy chairs. Particular attention should be paid to the air conditioner: it is a healthy box built into the wall that makes the sound of an airplane taking off.
The remote control is a switch on the wall near the bed, a stool, with which you can still reach two metal pins inside this box, which may have previously had handles. One pin is responsible for temperature, the other for air flow. I am not a weak person, but I hardly managed to turn the “control buttons”. I regretted not taking pliers with me. We used a closet without shelves at the entrance and two bedside tables on the sides of the bed.
DINING ROOM. Amazed by the variety! ! ! More than 8 types of salads: cucumbers with tomatoes and parsley, cucumbers with tomatoes without parsley, tomatoes and cucumbers separately (moreover, you can choose cucumbers, both sliced in circles and diced), cucumbers with tomatoes and onions, blue cabbage, white cabbage, blue and white cabbage .....
Sometimes oranges were added to salads, in this case, only tangerines were for dessert, as the oranges were already in the salad! By the way, there were a lot of fruits: oranges, tangerines, mangoes, dates, melons, strawberries and watermelons! ! ! But all this was at the entrance to the “restaurant”, which we called the “tavern” and for only 1-2 dorrala portion! ! ! And every morning one of the cooks stood at the stove and fried omelettes on two pans! He did it very cleverly - from breaking the egg to the readiness of the omelet, 40-50 seconds passed! At the same time, he addressed everyone who approached his counter with the words: “Omelette? ". As if he had something else! ? Although, if he winked, he could probably make fried eggs from one egg, because the pans are very small. After a couple of days, we taught him to add chopped tomatoes, onions and bell peppers to the omelet.
If desired, it was possible to fry all this in butter, for which it was necessary to hunt immediately after the opening of the canteen, otherwise you had to beg from the cooks.
Huge variety of pastries and cakes! ! Different shapes, sizes, colors… True, the taste of these masterpieces could be diversified only by adding honey and, sometimes, sour cream, because, this whole palette of culinary abundance had only three tastes….
One day we were surprised by the soup! It was so salty that I had to run to the bar for a beer! True, on the second day the soup was not salty at all. We so suspect that the salt ran out the day before.
On the ninth day of my stay, I realized that I missed borscht, fried potatoes and sauerkraut. True, a day later we were pleasantly surprised by the variety of flavors for lunch and dinner! ! ! We understood everything in the evening when we saw the number of "locals" who settled in the hotel.
By the way, wine for locals and tourists is also very different…. It differs not only in quality, but also in availability. A very unpleasant aftertaste was also left from the fact that the staff in the bars serves customers only after they talk to each other or on the phone, and also wash all the dishes (it is washed right behind the counter), but on the condition that there is no one from local tourists. Very often there were not enough glasses and spoons. Therefore, on the beach, when they went swimming, they had to hide the glasses under the towels from the "glass villain" - that's what we called the bartender, who ran along the beach and collected the dishes. One time there weren't enough beach towels. This situation did not connect in my head, since there were far fewer sun loungers on the beach than beds in hotel rooms. With such arithmetic, I went to the reception. I'll digress a little from the topic. I understood their system: if you need something, then contact the reception!
So it was with the light bulb in our room: for three days they asked to replace it - no one replaced it until they unscrewed it themselves and put it on the reception desk. The admin was surprised, asking, “What is this? ". "Lamp" I said. "Why? " he asked. "It doesn't work, " I replied. The light bulb was changed after 15 minutes. I think that they changed it for 5 minutes, and 10 made sure that it really didn’t work. They began to give sour cream in the canteen in the morning only after they complained that there was no yogurt for breakfast. Let's get back to towels. New towels in sufficient quantities were brought in just half an hour! ? With a light bulb, it wasn't over yet. The next evening, after an evening walk, having come to the house, they found that there was no electricity in it at all. We came to the reception. Not knowing how to explain to him that the “machine gun” knocked out, we say: “The lights are not on! ". Admin: Everything? ! ". Me, with a straight face: "Yes. " Admin: “Have you tried turning on the TV? » ? ?
While we were laughing at the reception, they turned on the "automatic" for us.
ANIMATION is also different: All the morning “fantastic gymnastics” is designed for the press, which leads to a decrease in food intake, since already on the third day the upper abdomen begins to thrive. Animators are generally good! I still remember ALL of their performances! The cycle of repetition of evening animations is 4 days. When the “locals” arrived, we were able to see a belly dance and a dance with skirts for FREE (! ). We may have seen this before, but they were only available for 5 dorrrals per person at the "beach party" held in the animation room! ? In addition to animation, there are other entertainments: billiards with broken pockets, two sets of balls (moreover, we did not find all the numbers) and one cue. The white balls were sick with smallpox. At least that's what they looked like. It was not possible to play table tennis as it was often windy.
I almost forgot: on Friday, the animators have a day off!
BARS! There are two employees (at the reception and on the beach), and a paid fish restaurant on the beach. I was struck by the working hours: at the reception from 13-00 to 15-00 and from 17-00 to 22-00. On the beach from 10-00 to 13-00 and from 15-00 to 17-00. That is, if you suddenly want tea or coffee at 15-01 to drink at the reception, you will be told that everything is already paid!!! ! ! ! Free - on the beach ...? By the way, about the staff at the bar! We got a cheerful company and often had to take 5-6 glasses of "cocktails". And, since the local alcohol is highly diluted, they were asked to pour more alcohol into a glass. On one of my trips for drinks, the phrase “you drink a lot” sounded to me. To which, I put the glasses on the counter and asked them to pour rum and whiskey separately in their measurements into other glasses, then pour the contents into one and add a little cola.
In the future, none of the staff had any questions about the amount of alcohol consumed by our company.
FLIES! This is a special article! The first three days they did not give rest even at night. Apparently the white man on the white sheet turned them on at night! ? . But flies do not fly alone, but with mosquitoes. True, mosquitoes sneak up imperceptibly: they fly to some line known only to them, and then silently steal up on foot. ? They approached so quietly that they could only be heard from 10 centimeters from the ear. The fumigator didn't even help. But on the fifth day, they were already less “fucked up”, obviously tanned skin turned them on less. Or maybe a three-day etching with caustic gas from a device that resembled a chainsaw helped. And it started and ran the same way. For three days, the hotel staff started this unit during the day and in the evening.
The first time I saw this miracle of technology working, I even thought that they wanted to cut down a palm tree.
SEA! The sea in Egypt is salty and blue, although Red! ? Often it is impossible to determine the distance to the bottom. Sometimes it seems that there is no meter, but in fact - 4-5. The neighborhood of boats spoiled the impression of the hotel. For 22 days of our vacation, 7 days of swimming was risky, since all the water near the beach was covered with a film of diesel fuel from the very morning. One day fat spots of fuel oil floated ...? But, thanks to the sea, you can save on fish for beer: buy it, dry it out a bit (just this is the time for which you can wait until you get a beer in a bar), then the skin is covered with salt. Further actions are as follows: he took a sip of beer - he licked himself. ? At first, the staff looked askance at us, but then they explained that this is such a tradition of drinking beer! They believed! ?
TOURS. More precisely - excursion agents.
We immediately refused the services of our guide, because it was expensive. On the beach, on the very first day, a local agent Misha approached us, and he also makes bottles with colored sand. Its prices are much cheaper, but at the same time, the excursions were no different. We were convinced of this on our own experience, having tried several excursions - twice each. But excursions "from the street" were disappointing: prices are 5-10 dorrrals cheaper, but the quality is worse and the services are less. For example, Misha's trip to El Gouna is $5 more expensive than from the street, but the departure from the Sheraton is from the Marina port, which increased the time of pleasant spending by a couple of hours. Having taken a little cheaper on the street, we were shaking for almost an hour to El Gouna on the bus, collecting people from other hotels along the way and just back - on the bus. In addition, for about forty more minutes they were waiting for people who were brought a little later by another bus. The same situation was with the quad safari.
There are a lot of scammers in the street stalls. With oils - there is a Klondike for them. The first thing they cheat on is bottles. More precisely, their capacity. 75 ml can be passed off as 90 or even 150 ml. And the prices too. Before you enter, they offer half a pound per ml, and when you enter, they show diluted oil prepared in advance, and then exactly the same, but not diluted, supposedly showing the difference in quality and explaining that it is better to take more expensive, but already 2 pounds. After bargaining, you can, of course, buy for 1 pound and even cheaper. This also applies to shops and a tour desk immediately to the right of the hotel, if you stand facing it - they are deceiving! In general, trade in Egypt is a different story. In about three days we learned to "fend off" their obsession so successfully that when they saw us, they tried to hide in their shops (those of them who managed to communicate with us), or simply not to pester (those who saw and heard us talking to their neighbors).
WI-FI IS! Sometimes. All the time I remembered our MTS-Soviet GPRS. Our MTS is cooler and super fast! ! !
And YET, thanks to a cheerful company, acquired already on the spot, a sense of humor and optimism, the holiday was SUCCESSFUL!
If you have no sense of humor, then go to a five-star hotel somewhere in Europe!
P. S. : ……and the sun shone just like in 4- and 5-star hotels!
Translated automatically from Russian. View original
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