Египет, хороший и разный Egypt, good and different

Greetings to all travelers!

I’ll tell you more about excursions and trips to the city: upon arrival, I had to climb the Internet for this purpose ($ 2 for 30 minutes), because the prices for excursions at the hotel, to put it mildly, were not satisfied (even those on the beach), and the reviews were only about the hotel itself.
I'll write about him in a few words, okay?

NUTRITION
fresh, the set of dishes / products for their preparation is the same, but the choice of combinations is large and you can find the right menu for your taste.
Fruits: 2 kinds of oranges, guava, fresh dates, melons, tangerines, bananas. Strawberries for cash: $4-6 in the territory, $1-2 in the city for a substrate.
Meat: often fish and chicken (those cooked on the street seemed delicious, and not in the distribution inside the dining room), 1 time a week there was a wonderful kebab and 1 time a turkey.
Fresh tomatoes-cucumbers-"Beijing cabbage"-peppers, stewed / pickled carrots, zucchini and more.

Several types of cheese (we liked the varieties of "feta"), the pizza is definitely tasteless.
Lots of pastries and desserts. Soups / broth, rice porridge / milk pudding. Black Lipton tea bags, coffee, hot and cold milk, packaged juice: orange, lemon (freshly squeezed for cash).
There are two more restaurants: fish and Italian. After trying out "pizza" at lunch, I didn't even think of visiting. In general, the included food was more than enough, sometimes we had lunch / dinner in the city.

TERRITORY
large, clean, room arrangement is about like 3 * in Italy. The style is not "high-tech" or "boutique", so the furniture is quite consistent with the overall image, nothing critical was found. But we went for 34t. R. for two, so - depending on how much the ticket cost. Not worth more money, only less.
It is convenient with kids - a lagoon inside the buildings, protected from the wind and a gentle, comfortable descent into the water.
You can also swim from the sea side, better for adults: it is very windy; shallow about the first 300 meters, but the baby can fall on the corals (there are no corals in the lagoon).
Internet, billiards, gym.

SETTLEMENT
If you arrived earlier than 14:00 and do not check in immediately, there is no point in putting money in your passport, because they are all sent to a common box without looking. Settle in a "good" room, taking into account the wishes for extra. the reward is offered openly when the numbers are distributed. Who is $20, who is $10 - it seems to me that it does not really matter. I'm not sure it even makes sense to "encourage" - all the rooms of the same plan.
Soundproofing is poor if the rooms are adjacent. Our neighbors were quiet, although my husband says that the man got it with his nudity and obscenities. I didn’t hear - happy people came from the city, ate dinner late and almost immediately wanted to sleep, and sleeping on the sea is wonderful.
Those with sea views - so the wind from the sea seeps through the closed balcony door.

And thanks to the layout of the room, there is always a draft, big or small, and does not depend on the location of the room itself. It blows, in general, but not critical.
Those on the lagoon: at some hours it can be noisy, because people hang out inside the territory of the hotel, near the lagoon.
Animators work conscientiously, SPA services: if you take, then the cheapest. We bought their proprietary program Horas, bargained from 150 (I don’t remember exactly) to 110.
In Russia, for this price, the quality of the SPA is at least two orders of magnitude higher. Think for yourself. In the city, unfortunately, we did not have time to go to check it : ) But I suspect that the prices are also much lower than at the hotel.
Service without pretensions, polite and timely.

TAXI
It's safe to take a taxi, the hotel guide will say that it costs $5 from the hotel and back, go out the gate - any taxi for $2 will be very happy to take you, this is the red price for a trip to the city, in time to McDonald's (the old one, on Sheraton Street ) minutes 5.
Moreover, the order is only this: you appoint a place and a price, specify that this is the price for the entire number of passengers, and not for each (just in case), you arrive and then pay.
If you even set off, but they immediately start shuffling banknotes under any pretext, leave right away.
The fact is that there are taxi drivers in the parking lot near the hotel, outright swindlers. They will wag your ears from both sides: under the pretext of exchange, under the pretext of surrender, under the pretext of exchanging dollars for pounds, UNDER ANYTHING.
All you have to do is get your banknotes in their hands. Bills are masterfully substituted, even forget that you are a “hardened” person in relation to manipulations. Just leave right away, save money and good mood.
The rest of the drivers are all great: clear, polite.
The city is also safe, no matter what the guide tells you there. I'll tell you about our option, just in fact.

In general, it’s better to keep your eyes open and be prepared for the fact that some will try to grab something superfluous from you by any means : ) And not in terms of theft, they just cheat, covertly and openly : ) And you won’t understand from them: they are cheating, or they tell the truth.
On the day of arrival 03.03. 2012 at the Coral-Odeon counter, for some reason, representatives of the host company considered it necessary from the first half of the tourists standing in line for a visa to collect $15 per visa (as indicated on the visa itself), and from the second half already $17.
No assistance was provided in the correct filling of migration cards by the staff of the host country. I was not tired - with English order, but for many it was difficult. A sample of filling hangs a little further than the tables, you can’t see it right away.

HOTEL GUIDE & EXCURSIONS
An interesting way to sell excursions from the hotel guide Sunny Days El Palacio 5 * HURGADA Tamera (aka Tamerlane).
I won’t talk about price differences in tours - inflated prices at hotels are common practice, although the difference of at least 40% for the same amount of services provided is puzzling to me personally.
For example, the so-called "Paradise Island", which costs $15 in the city, and this is a RED PRICE for this excursion. That's true, for more money can cause disappointment.

The very way they sell excursions causes indignation: it seems that there is almost a military regime in Hurghada, but this is not so.
At the first meeting, you are invited to bring copies of the voucher, which supposedly must be registered at the local police and consulate (! ).
These are supposedly the last changes in the laws that have been in force for 1-1.5 months. And it is supposed to move around the city only with copies of passports and a CERTIFIED voucher.
And then, if they begin to find out our identity, it will take 6 hours, so it’s in our interests not to waste time (bracelets with the name of the hotel, of course, are not an informative thing at all).
Then a questionnaire form is issued, where the tourist must fill out, like a MIGRATION CARD: name-surname-dates of stay-hotel room-insurance policy number.

This is followed by the phrase in bold italics "...I OBLIGATE to travel ONLY (! ) ... " and a list in the form of several free columns in which the tourist must enter the name of the excursion, its date and time, insurance number and signature.
Moreover, the decision on the number of excursions and their schedule must be taken immediately - decide whether you are going or not, because all this Tamer must assure the police! If you can't decide - a maximum of 2 hours, Tamer will generously wait.
Very inventive! !
Thus, there is, to put it mildly, misleading tourists who are forced to buy excursions on the basis of information that is obviously not true, as well as under a kind of forcing and "pressure" in making a purchase.
It becomes clear when you receive this very "registered in the police and CONSULATE (! )" voucher.
It turns out that in Egypt, the official certification looks like a date stamp, in which the year and date are corrected by hand, plus someone's signature. "No coats of arms, no monograms, " no seals corresponding to the state. registration offices in the country.
I think to publish a photo of this "document" so that other tourists can see and not be deceived. This is nonsense, in general.
In general, we only bought a review from him, and rightly so, as it turned out.
Then I found an adequate travel agency in the center, calm people, they are fluent in English, and Russian is quite good, without impositions and "noodles", the price also includes insurance. In general, everything is the same, only for a price corresponding to the content.
We bought full SAFARI programs ($55 for two instead of $120), snorkeling on the islands ($30 for two instead of $90) and a Submarine (which is 22m under water, Sinbad, $80 for two instead of $120). Total won $165 on excursions. Perhaps "Sinbad" can be bought on the spot, and it will be even cheaper - but we were too lazy to find out, and then forgot.

PRO SAFARI
There were 4 of us on the Safari: my husband and I, and two guys: one from Denmark, the other from Slovenia. I appreciated the charm of this when I saw in the desert a string of tourists riding one after another on quadrics, about 25 people in number.

In practice, this means that starting from the second third of the line, people were driving in the dust from the previous "quads": they are not allowed to drive on their own, only in single file)))
And one more thing: no beautiful dunes from advertising. there is no avenue. I associated with a large area of ​ ​ building sand.
In the village, besides us, there were 2 more groups of 6 people each - the British. The weaving factory is just a loom under a canopy, I saw one on the market in the city, a man spun, and immediately sold ready-made rugs.
The camel ride is 25m one way and 25m back on a camel led by a boy/grandmother - their owners.
Dinner is very tasty.
Sunset in the desert - also in passing you will be shown in the direction of the setting sun, unremarkable, because again, this is not a desert with dunes.
"Star program": after dinner, everyone takes turns looking through a large telescope. Everyone quickly looked and hurriedly ran to the cars - to return to the hotel.
When we approached, access to the telescope was already free and plenty, but as the guy from Denmark said with a shrug: "Just white spots. " So it is, the stars look cooler live. But in response to the replica, we deployed a telescope to the moon. Its surface is certainly more interesting, and at least the meaning of the telescope justifies)

PRO PARADISE ISLAND
We went on the yacht "Golden Tiger", very sincere and cheerful people. It's cool to dive with a mask, after all!

SUBMARINE
Of all the types of such transport, it was she who was chosen, because they had never ridden a real submarine boat yet. Impressions from the abundance of the marine world on a submarine are even less than from an aquarium: rather mediocre, in contrast to diving with a mask.
The boat floats quietly along the rope stretched along the bottom, the captains solve crossword puzzles, the diver accompanies the boat, scattering food: then the fish swim to the portholes.
They say the best experience is swimming in a bathyscaphe, but we haven't tested it. Satisfied his desire with a real submarine)

SHOPS

If you turn off the main street, then the prices are more interesting and you will be spared the barkers. The lowest price for high aquasocks was found at a guy in a shop on the alley between Shiraton and "bottom" street: 140 pounds instead of 210.
Oil in factories that are brought with a review is hefty expensive. Jojoba oil in the store on the 1st floor of the hotel is somehow not right, has an unpleasant smell and is too yellow. As far as I know, jojoba oil actually smells almost nothing. I bought it in the end in a pharmacy, in a glass bottle with a factory blend. 120 ml for 55 pounds, the same amount of aloe vera 35 pounds, also in glass.
Jeweler: there was a task to buy silver scarabs for girlfriends and nieces. We drove to the pedestrian zone at the Hard Rock Cafe. Everywhere prices are different for the same thing, in almost every calculation for a fool.
Only in one was the seller immediately with a low price, and still lost. For $3 instead of $9 apiece, they took 7 small ones, which ended up saving $42 more.
Bargain, in general, for your pleasure : )
Something the review turned out to be great, if anything - write to ICQ / email. address, I will help than I know : ) We also found where to leave the car in Koltsovo, and not overpay.
Take care of each other and enjoy your holiday!