Отдых в Египте Holidays in Egypt

To begin with, when planning an annual vacation, we select hotels ourselves, based on the reviews of tourists, studying them on various sites throughout the year after the previous vacation. When 5 years ago we got to the already non-existent hotel Alexander The Great 4 *
in Marsa Alam. The next choice for further trips was a foregone conclusion, these are only Safaga and Marsa Alam. The sea in this area of ​ ​ Egypt is not comparable with Hurghada and Sharm, so beloved by our tourists, but who is going for what.
We noticed the Elphistone hotel two years ago, having studied most of the hotels of Mars-Alam presented on our market by various tour operators operating in Ukraine. From quite a few reviews of tourists, I have an opinion that in Marsa Alam the level of all hotels is very good, especially if you are not a very demanding tourist from Ukraine. So, the ticket was independently picked up by the “Stremnoy” operator Join UP! . the Great and Mighty Tez is $270 three times more expensive, with the worst arrival time and almost the same departure time, i. e. turned out clear 8 days.

On June 8 at 4-15 we arrived right on schedule at Hurghada airport having received luggage, having paid a visa in the amount of $ 25 (on the left at the entrance to the terminal) it will cost 27 from the guides and they will purposefully direct you to their counter, and be sure to take bring a pen!! ! At the exit from the airport, we bought a Vodafone card for 3 hectares. No calls for $5. And we wandered to the bus stop that has become “usual” for many years for a 4-hour transfer to the hotel. Having given the guide a name to identify the bus, we heard in response “you are alone in Marsa Alam, you will not have guides there, here is a reminder to the tourist, if you call, here is a Tayota Camry will take you to the hotel !! ! We were, to put it mildly, shocked. We were taken with a kander (no, we were rushed), 2 hours before the hotel we even froze. So much for Join UP! . We were very much afraid of the notorious delays in their flights, and then there were three of us to the hotel on Taet 400 km.
Now a short review about the hotel itself. Having settled down at the reception in chairs, they began to fill out cards, the boy at the reception immediately demanded a gift, or rather baksheesh in hard currency, from the reviews we were ready for this, we also knew that all the rooms overlook the sea, but we were already tired and with an 8 year old child wanted to go several times to change rooms, knowing these petty dirty tricks of the employees at the reception. Putting $ 10, knowing that this is money thrown away, which does not solve anything in this situation, just in case, we asked this arrogant guy to look at the number. He pointed to the exit, told where the bungalows were, and said: "Go look, then you'll come up. " After walking around the hotel, we reached the very sea and passing building B (the closest to the sea) decided without any hope to ask for it. To which the impudent boy asked: “what floor do you want”? We were the second time in a pleasant shock, for 10 bucks baksheesh, a bungalow on the beach! ! So, in essence, the room in the bungalow is a normal telly flat, the bed is like everywhere else, but the cleaning is terrible and this cleaning, or rather its complete absence, was during our entire stay three times the van dollar left did not solve anything. A dirty mirror, everything was covered with the fingers of previous guests, apparently a child, torn napkins under the glasses in the bathroom and a cupboard with glass shelves, on which there was a thick layer of dust, and even a non-working safe. In the mine bar, according to the concept of the hotel, once upon arrival, two bottles of water of 0.5 liters each are required, and that's it! We changed clothes and went to the sea, it was good at all nearby. There are old sun loungers on the beach, but the place was always free, Arabic music was playing in the hookah room on the shore, annoying guys went on offer, massage, juice, camel, diving and everything else. Sandy beach with clean sand. From the shore, a small sea in the afternoon is very warm, clean, turquoise in color, a long pontoon separating the hotel beach from the unfinished hotel next to one side and the bay on the other. A reef and a huge depth with all kinds of marine life begin from the pontoon. Beach rating is excellent.
Restaurant. In the hotel during our holiday, according to the story of the animators, there was another couple from Ukraine, a few Baltics, a few Germans, and, like, in the speech of the Poles. The rest of the Czechs are when the hotel is 50% full, there are 250 people and it was a complete f... c. When you see, punctual like the Germans, Chekhov, marching in orderly rows for lunch and dinner to the opening of the restaurant and sweeping away all the food from the distribution, and you at the same time, it seems that you ended up in a Savkov boarding house. Although all the food was served constantly, and when the restaurant closed in the evening, almost everything was enough, but the restaurant could no longer be called a restaurant, but this is not a complaint against the hotel. There is a lot of food and everything is very tasty. Only problem with cups and glasses. There were not enough cups for tea and coffee from time to time, and dirty cups were often found. For dinner, you can take red and white wine. "Savine" will pour it for you from 10 liter bags lying in the refrigerator (if you're lucky in a clean glass), they took it 4 times, once, at the beginning, it was tasty, and 3 times it didn't smell like a cologne. With hard liquor, the situation is the same, once in the pool bar, rum-cola was normal, then de-bodied liquor, and again with the same aftertaste. The bartender once asked me: “why don’t you drink whiskey rum? ” I think that this will do for the Czechs wandering with mugs, anyway everyone will lap up, and there will be a “whiskey finish”. Beer from bottles is poured into small plastic cups, beer from bottles is good, light as always. But everywhere the Czechs scurry about under all the bars with their big automobile mugs - thermoses and demand to pour beer for them. As you understand, beer in the evening is the “finish”. To sum up A good beautiful, cozy restaurant, apparently the chef is a master of his craft, tasty quite varied food, sweets are super. Minus the influx of a specific contingent of tourists, to put it mildly, so as not to offend anyone.
Territory of the hotel: Very beautiful, well-groomed gardeners are constantly swarming in the morning, 3 pools 1 for children, everything is in the photo. On the football field, the guys from the hotel staff played mini football at night. Everything is lit, so cool. Rating is excellent.

Animation: the hotel has animators from Russia and Vitalik and Gulnar, Belarusian girl - Olya, 2 girls from Ukraine, Czech, and chief Animators German - Alex. Given that the Czechs were not up to animation, and the animators were not up to pompous Czechs (in their words), we talked a lot with them, and learned a lot, in particular, why we ended up in this "anthill" that has nothing to do with the fabulous Elphiston resort from the reviews tourists. So, operational information, the hotel entered into an agreement with a Czech operator and filled the hotel to the eyeballs, we even found out about the cost of the tour for the Czechs, and the tour was much cheaper than ours, hence the specificity of vacationers. Seeing the number of abandoned and unfinished hotels, it seems that the hotel has gone “All In” in an attempt to survive during the tourist crisis. If the hotel is designed for 500 adequate vacationers, then 250 Czechs are “kaput” for it. I can’t give an assessment to the animators, they were more like vacationers like us, with whom you could chat on various topics, play darts, tennis, beach volleyball....In the evening they put on a show or arranged themed competitions in the “amphi theater”, they did their best, well done. Why touch once again people who came to swell by the pool, and people who do not know English, and for a number of historical reasons, do not want to understand Russian. The animators said that the Czechs shouted to them: remove the Russian songs. It seems that they have a military conflict with Russia, and not with us.
There is nowhere to go outside the hotel territory at all, on one side the desert, on the other, an unfinished hotel and a little further an abandoned hotel, an eerie sight. Withered palm trees, a covered pool, the wind scattered sun loungers and umbrellas along the beach. In an unfinished hotel, an Arab calling himself Aladdin set up a shop selling all sorts of souvenirs, T-shirts, where we bought every little thing as a keepsake. Aladdin complained that there was no trade, as the Russians stopped flying to Egypt. And the abandoned hotel was Teza's hotel and he was also "kaput". I understand from his bad Russian that in April there were no Germans, Poles and Ukrainians in our hotel and no one goes to his shop. Attached is a photo of Aladdin.
Transfer from the hotel is clearly scheduled minibus Tayota. Departure time arrival too. Before the trip, we were most worried about Join UP! and believed in the super hotel Elphiston, but it turned out the other way around. Maybe? was the expectation too high? there was not a single bad review for this hotel. Actually, we can’t say anything bad about the hotel, except for cleaning the room, but still something is wrong. In short, the hotel is good, the rest is super if everything goes well in Egypt, only Safaga and Marsa Alam.
P. S. The words "finish" and "kaput" are a local phraseological dialect constantly heard from the lips of the Egyptians.