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Review of the stay at the Albatros Aqua Blu Resort Sharm El Sheikh 4 * (Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt), rest from 12.11. 2016 to 18.11. 2016.

Weather.
The weather was typical for November Egypt, it was hot during the day, 26-27C, in the evening around 23C and after 24:00 around 21C, which felt like the most comfortable temperature (it was warm for walking even in shorts and a T-shirt, but if you sit at a table, it is preferable wear pants and a T-shirt). The sun set around 5:00 pm, and by 6:00 pm it was already dark.

Hotel.
Huge area, clean, well maintained, lots of greenery and flowers, there are beautiful architectural solutions.

Aquapark.
They took a ticket to this hotel, and it was for the sake of the water park. The entertainment complex consists of 4 separate towers (each with its own unique rides) for adults, and 4 playgrounds with their own slides and fun.

There are both harmless and quite extreme slides (descent on mats on some of them, if not positioned on the mat, is guaranteed to peel off your elbows, and sometimes even your heels, although you can protect your feet with slippers from corals).
Rafting and gondola rides were not available as the hotel was undergoing renovations and upgrades. There were also separate pools: with a wave; for playing in water with a ball; relaxing and a bunch of some small pools and pools (there was a feeling that this hotel has pools and canals at every step).

Water.
In the pools and the water park, the water is warm, clearly above 21-22C. In the sea, where we went diving, the water also turned out to be surprisingly warm - as we were told 21C, but compared to the Odessa summer, it seemed to me even warmer.

Number.
We were given instead of the standard room for a family with children - two adjacent rooms, separated, in theory, by a curtain or blinds ...
from which only hooks remained : ) In the main room there was a double bed, two bedside tables, a table with a mirror and a minibar, a table for suitcases and 1 (! ) chair with a back. In the children's room there was only a huge bunk bed. In the hallway-corridor there was a closet, consisting of 3 compartments: - shelves + safe; shelves closed with doors; a wardrobe with hangers (I describe everything in such detail, because on our previous visit to a 5-star hotel, the wardrobe was not only from one compartment, it was also divided by a shelf in the middle, which did not allow hanging long things normally). The room also had a TV (2 Russian channels, the rest Arabic and a couple of English) and air conditioning.

Case.
The air conditioner in the room worked for 6 days without incident, but (! ) right before departure, on the 7th day, at 3 in the morning, condensate flowed in a thin stream through the suspended ceilings on the closet in the hallway (fortunately, there was not much water, and nothing but the closet wet).
On the call of the master from the reception, according to the phrases "we have water dripping from the ceiling" and duplicating "please help, water from air conditioner" for fidelity, they sent us ...a cleaner with 2 bottles of water : )

Nutrition.

Food, despite the 4 * was almost around the clock! Not only did the 4 main bar-restaurants (all inclusive) cater to almost every taste, there were also 2 paid restaurants and 2 paid bars on site. And the presence of 3 more mini-bars separately (the lobby, the alcoholic one near the evening animators, and the cocktail one near the main restaurant made almost the entire territory of the hotel a solid "guzzle") : )
Meat could be found every day for lunch and dinner (I focus on the word meat (beef and chicken), because the rest of the meat menu was from soy or something similar). Sweets every day in such an assortment that it was unrealistic to even try to try everything, let alone eat it.
Fruit juices consisted of a concentrate diluted with water (however, these are the juices we buy in stores, if anyone didn’t know, because there are literally a couple of natural ones among them). The soda was real, undiluted (Coke, Sprite, Fanta, and combinations thereof). The teas are very tasty (6 varieties were noticed), there was also coffee, hot chocolate, beer (I liked it), wine (also quite pleasant), and spirits (we don’t drink). Fruits changed every day, repetitions were very rare (persimmons, apples, oranges, tangerines, grapefruits, guava, dates, bananas, pomegranates). There was also plenty of vegetables, and in salads there were almost all their varieties that I had only seen and heard.

Staff.
Everyone is very smiling and helpful. Unlike our previous visit (the Italian hotel Grand Plaza Resort Sharm 5 *, where the attitude towards Russian speakers is disgusting, and the food barely reaches 4-), I liked everything here.
There is a small nuance, though - the cleaner of the room first pleased us when he laid out a beautiful flower from towels framing the bed with fresh flowers (this was a response to a swan with a dollar in its beak, which the wife made for a joke), and then upset us a little when he did not react to an elephant with a dollar and even badly wiped the floor in the bathroom (however, this didn’t hurt me, because I assumed that it would be unprofitable for him to spend half an hour on decorations on the bed a second time, but his wife was upset, who spent an hour searching the Internet for how to twist with elephant towels).

Internet.
Free WiFi throughout the hotel. Skype worked everywhere without problems.

Tours.

Despite the firm conviction not to go on any excursions (most of the sights of Egypt were visited on our last visit) - they could not resist the adequate offers of the guide, and took: ATV safari for $ 10 per person; a trip on a yacht to Tiran Island with diving and lunch for $25 per person; a free tour of Sharm el-Sheikh with a stop at a mosque (it was interesting to listen to the imam), an oil factory (we already went through this), and a visit to the mini market (silver, papyri, souvenirs and clothes).

Warnings and tips for newbies.
1. In the evening, after the closing of the water park, a mandatory mosquito-baiting procedure took place - an employee with a smoke generator passed through the entire territory of the hotel, which clouded the entire territory with quite acrid smoke with the smell of burnt kerosene for about 15-20 minutes, so it was impossible to sit in street bars at that time not very comfortable.
2.
Silver products in stores are silver-plated only on the outside, inside there is not even stainless steel, but some kind of dark metal (I almost bought into such a fake).
3. Towels for trestle beds were not taken. Firstly, they were taught by the bitter experience of a previous trip to Egypt, when 2 towels were safely stolen from us right from under the pool bar, and secondly, the guide warned that this hotel had exactly the same problem with towels and slippers, and both should not be left unattended. Although, without much fear, the wife left a t-shirt on the trestle bed for half an hour or more without any consequences.
4. The newlyweds are given a fruit plate, those celebrating their birthday are given a cake, and those leaving home should not forget to ask for a dry breakfast on the road.
5. Bargain anytime and anywhere (the exceptions are stores that have price tags and pharmacies).
You can bring down the price by 2 times in 90% of cases (unless you don’t try hard on food products, there is a lower margin). The Egyptians honor warriors and merchants, so if you drop the price by 4 times in half an hour of trading, they only smile at you and say "well done, good price"!

6. For those who came to Sharm el-Sheikh just to soak up the sea and are not going to ride further than the hotel, I want to remind you that the Sinai visa "Sinai Only" will allow you to save a little on costs. A Sinai visa allows you to freely move around the Sinai Peninsula, but will not allow you to go on excursions to Cairo (to the famous Egyptian Pyramids), to Luxor (the City of the Dead and the Valley of the Kings), and naturally will not suit those who have chosen Hurghada as a resort, which is located in Africa. However, if you change your mind, the guide will arrange a standard Egyptian visa for you at any time.

Security.
The security at the entrance was quite zealous enough to ensure that people without water park bracelets did not enter the territory (they checked both after walking in the Old Market and after returning by bus from excursions). But the lifeguards on the slides, although they threw themselves into the water at the slightest danger to the vacationers (when descending the three of us, we once managed to turn a huge 2-meter circle upside down), yet once they didn’t keep track and allowed 2 people to go down one slide at the same time (although , here the problem was more likely in the girl who went first, because she simply rested her hands and feet on the surface of the slide to slow down and not fly out into the pool, and the man who left the second, fortunately, managed to go around her side at a speed, but if did not dodge, it would be very painful for both). However, on the most extreme slides, the lifeguard stood constantly, and released everyone strictly in turn, so this simply could not happen there.
Contingent.
80% Russian speakers (overwhelmingly Ukrainians, there were also Belarusians, Russians (a guy from Nizhny Novgorod, due to the ban on Egyptian resorts for the Russian Federation, flew in an intricate route HN-Moscow-Minsk-Sharm), saw a couple of Moldovan passports), 15% Arabs (mostly local, but after talking with one from Saudi Arabia, I was surprised to find out about the popularity of this hotel in eastern countries), I also heard German, English and Polish speech, but there were only a few of them.

Beach.
Alas, we didn’t make it : ) Every day was filled with so many events that there was simply no time left for the beach (for which the last day of rest was planned).

Pros.
1. Water park.
2. Good, varied food (this, of course, is not the level of hotels with exquisite seafood + sushi / rolls for dinner, but for 4 stars the food is simply wonderful).
3. The staff reacted quite calmly to taking food to the rooms ...

I confess, but the sweets were taken out right on the plates ...they walked and thought "what insatiable savages we are" : )
4. Close to Old Market - 20 minutes walk there and 25 minutes back, because back up the hill and with full bags : )

Minuses.
1. There is only 1 chair in the room (not even an armchair)!
2. The disco until exactly 2 am was quite loud, although, given that the disco cannot be quiet, this should not be surprising (however, it seems to me that the rooms that were not in the central circle and near the entrance to the hotel should not have suffered from loud music).

Summary.
Despite the fact that the hotel has only 4 stars, our rating will be 5 with a small minus! I liked everything, got a lot of impressions and brought home a solid positive!