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FIVE-STAR LUXURY HOTEL
July 1.2017 Saturday
Today I am flying to the Sunerise hotel, but not the usual one, which I visited this year in early January and which made quite a pleasant impression on me, but a hotel of a higher category, one might consider, for VIPs. And this is the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort (Grand Select) 5 * hotel.
I have taken a significant step towards achieving my goal: to experience the delights of Egyptian hotels and the Red Sea at a higher level - in a hotel close to the VIP level. And because of the hotels-applicants for my increased attention, of which there were more than a dozen, I chose a relatively inexpensive hotel - "Sunerise Arabian" 5 *. Yes, and immediately take the most luxurious hotel - it is irrational: you need to get used to VIP hotels gradually ...
In some, no more than five, of these most prestigious hotels, these embarrassed me, firstly, the too high price of tours, secondly, the lack of such a level of food system in many hotels as “All inclusive”, thirdly, the checks, which is why I refused them.
I went to the airport without an air ticket and vouchers - a computer attack of hackers was to blame. But everything worked out: the representative of the tour operator at the counter next to the registration desk issued the necessary copies of the documents, it was enough to say your last name.
In addition to a large number of blank sheets of paper and a few (so, in reserve) ballpoint pens, a movie camera, a mask with a snorkel, clothes and other things, I carried with me quite a lot of introductory information about the hotel I was going to and a dictionary - Phrasebook printed on paper. Which time, on the eve of the trip, I set myself up to do such information and not without benefit.
A preliminary but thorough acquaintance with the hotel was very useful in the future when writing this book.
Transfer to the hotel. Hotel. reception. Hall
We landed at night - after nine. Unlike our latitude (Kyiv), when the sun sets below the horizon closer to ten o'clock, here, in Egypt, the night falls already at 19-00, even in summer. About an hour was enough for various customs and passport formalities. By the way, new visa rules have been introduced: for a tour lasting more than 15 days, a visa is required. So I advise everyone to take a tour for 14 days. But no more than 15. Although this did not happen in January last year: I flew to Poinciana Sharm Resort 4 * for 19 days, but here, in Sharm El Sheikh, I did not have visas.
And already at a quarter to ten we were taken by minibus to the hotels. Why is it so undignified: a small minibus, and not a chic huge bus? It’s just that we have one or two people in each hotel, because Ukrainians don’t go to such expensive hotels.
For me, for example, going to such an expensive hotel, almost for VIPs, such a service seems undignified ...But I'm not proud. Somehow I'll survive.
But we got there quickly - in almost ten minutes: it’s good that the Sunerise Arabian 5 * hotel is located near the airport. And I was the first and only one to be taken to this hotel.
To be honest, I was not very impressed with the external entrance to the hotel. I've been in hotels several times cheaper, but their "Face" was more impressive. The first, as in many hotels in Sharm El Sheikh, is the entrance gate with security. Further - the main building with reception and other services. In front of the main building, a vertical waterfall pleased the eye and Soul, sliding down a few marble slabs and a small lake below with an even stream of water. A very original architectural and landscape solution.
As elsewhere, things remain under guard on the street - so as not to spoil the flavor of the lobby of the main building with the station view of suitcases piled up in a heap.
The lobby welcomes guests with a pleasant coolness, which you notice as the first positive sign (because it’s +35 ° C on the street even now, at night). hotel cleaners), with a huge vase of flowers on a marble counter in the center. Guards in uniform, a metal detector frame at the entrance, on the right - tables of hotel guides of various tour operators, a taxi, a tour desk. To the right of the entrance - a left-luggage office and a table of Russian-speaking Guest Relations. Chud in the depths, on the right, there is a barely noticeable reception desk, no more than two meters long, like mahogany. There is not even a clock with different cities - there are no time zones.
Somehow, even very modestly for such a respectable hotel as Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort (Grand Select) 5 *. But the reception staff are smiling and friendly. And, surprisingly, immediately, the first time they provide an excellent room on the second floor with a view of the garden, a little bit of the pool and a slightly side view of the edge of the sea. And my preliminary examination gave a positive result, as it was one of the best in its category. Perhaps this was facilitated by the fact that before the flight I wrote a letter to Guest Relations with a request to reserve a decent room, just not with a view of the wall of the chic neighboring hotel, as I was given a room in the Grand Oasis, overlooking the four-meter-high wall of the Four Hotel. seasons" 5 *.
At the end of the hall on the right is the Churchill Lobby Bar, and opposite it is the Mayfair Tea Room. And between them, a full length glass wall with a panoramic view of the sea and the island. Tyrant.
There are also two glass doors with access to the terrace with tables, where it is also nice to sit with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, admiring the panoramic view that opens wide before your eyes. What is interesting and is a feature of the Arabian Beach Resort (Grand Select) 5 * hotel, glass railings are installed everywhere on the terraces and even on the roofs of buildings, which makes for a wider and more complete overview of beautiful views. By the way, the roofs are covered with artificial grass, sun loungers for relaxing and even in the VIP area on the roof (! ) there is a swimming pool!
Negative of late check-in at the hotel
I arrived at the hotel late in the evening - a few minutes to ten. And only now I realized how disadvantageous for us, tourists, such a late departure from Kyiv and beneficial for the tour operator, especially if he has a share in a particular hotel.
At the same time, a whole day is saved for him and the hoteliers from each tourist, since with a late check-in after 22-00 there is no need to feed the tourist with breakfast, lunch and dinner, which had to be done upon arrival early in the morning. True, with early check-in and late check-out, since April of this year, Anex-tour began to cheat: add $ 15 to the cost of the tour for each such case. I also fell into this trap, paying an extra $30 when I bought a tour to the Grand Oasis Hotel.
And so with a late arrival, the quality of the tour, at first glance, remains the same: after all, the duration of the tour is estimated not by days, but by nights. As I wrote earlier, nights are valued and therefore only newlyweds and lovers consider them. But we, ordinary tourists who came to contemplate the delights of the underwater world of the Red Sea, swim and sunbathe, appreciate the day more than the night, and therefore we count every day.
After all, with a late check-in and early departure before 8 in the morning, two days are definitely lost (with the same number of nights), which with short-day tours, their number is almost halved (with five nights, in reality - three days! ) Therefore, I I risked getting a "licker", that is, not sipping salty, going to bed hungry with such a late departure, at most - it's drunk after visiting the lobby bar, if I had not been persistent in my desires.
Knowing from the preliminary information about the hotel, which I also printed out on about forty sheets for operational use, that dinner ends at 22-00, I, immediately after returning my passport with a registration voucher, hurried to the restaurant. At the same time, he neglected the rule established in the hotels of the system to serve wet towels and a glass of cold juice to arriving guests (by the way, in this hotel - packaged).
I went through all this six months ago in another hotel, and therefore the element of hospitality in the form of a wet towel and a glass of juice was not so significant for me, compared to looking at an empty stomach at night. After all, you know that Ukrainian airlines, which have a monopoly of flights to Egypt from Ukraine (seem to be the sphere of the famous Kolomoisky), in the last two years have refused their customers even sandwiches ...And a man, when he is hungry, he is angry. And I, in order not to be angry on the first night at the hotel, immediately inquired at the reception about the location of the restaurant. Although I knew roughly from the map of the hotel, which I previously ordered to be copied at the travel agency when I signed the contract for tourist services. I was surprised by the reaction of the reception worker, who, pointing to his iPhone, began to prove to me that it was already ten o'clock and the restaurant was closed.
I, like a crest, did not believe his words until I myself saw and “felt” and insisted that he nevertheless show where the restaurant was. His face expressed obvious dissatisfaction with my agility. But he did not know that this is my fourth hotel this year - in just six months! But he nevertheless showed me vaguely - down there ...Probably, clearly hoping that I would fly with my idea of a normal snack before a sleepless night. And that I would not sleep, I already knew for sure from the results of my past late arrivals at hotels. And the reason for this is not a female person (s) of a sexual temperament ...On such a night, I am controlled by a completely different woman ...who can keep me awake until dawn! But more about her later...
So, I quickly went “down there”, where the reception employee showed me, hoping, at least under the “pig squeal”, to be in time for the restaurant. And I got "down", but not the one I need and obviously not the restaurant.
Remembering the Arab “not with an evil, quiet word” (I haven’t used foul language for twenty years now), I again jumped out into the hall and saw two young Ukrainians, like ours, cooing about something, and asked them: “Where is the restaurant? » And they have already shown me exactly the way to it.
My late dinner
And so, having found a restaurant with grief in half, I still managed to run along the distribution and grab the most delicious dishes, until the kitchen workers began to take them off and mercilessly dump them into one bucket on a cart - for disposal, or just for throwing away. Such extravagance, accustomed to living modestly and saving on everything, led me to wild horror: mountains of delicious meat - and to scrap!
And the restaurant worker, as if mocking my feelings, continued to withdraw unique dishes from the distribution, prepared with such skill by the chef and laid out on trays with the amazing grace of a designer, even draw a picture from them, and turn all this art into one single indecent mess in a big vat on a cart, which can only cause a gag reflex, even for me, who has eaten practically nothing all day ...
But then I remembered the comment of the representative of the administration of the hotel "Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort", in response to criticism of the quality of food by one of the unfriendly guests, I would say "nasty type", trying, for some personal offense, to desecrate a pretty decent restaurant. Here is the comment from the hotel management:
“One of the advantages of the chain's hotels is quality control.
The hotel is monthly checked by a local company that works according to international standards for: food hygiene; safety measures in the hotel; pool hygiene; cleanliness of the room stock. The results of the checks are excellent, no violations were found ...Food is why we have a large number of repeat guests! . . »
I remembered this comment and immediately calmed down: the hotel administration is worried about my health, always eating freshly prepared meals and luxurious rest at a high service level, like a mother. And he does not save on my health, so that again, on the second day, pulling out of the refrigerator, serve me yesterday's dishes again. (And confirmation of this, I remembered - moving the leftovers of dishes and especially pastries on carts and racks on wheels - to refrigerators at the end of the day - in some other hotels).
Indeed, to be honest, many four, and even some five-star hotels in Egypt, in which I have been and therefore swallowed dozens of activated charcoal tablets and drank excessively strong Ouzo for disinfection, sin in such an unkind way. And the crisis is no excuse. Believe me, health is more expensive and cannot be compensated by any cheap tours! And that is why there are so many people who want to get to this Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort 5 * hotel, despite the relatively high cost of the tour ...
Everything fell into place. And at that moment (already half an hour after checking into the hotel) I realized that I had arrived in a high category hotel, compared to the nine hotels in Egypt in which I had a rest over the past two years, and that even during the crisis, this hotel “Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort" 5 * keeps its brand at a high level ...
So, I had a great meal in one of the three common buffet restaurants - Nora Restaurant.
Unfortunately, the restaurant bar was already closed, and I was too lazy to run to the lobby bar "Churchill", and it was inconvenient in front of the restaurant workers for my late visit, and therefore I had to dine without alcohol. By the way, on all subsequent days and nights of rest (here the lobby bar on the “All inclusive” system works around the clock, that is, it serves for free), I have never tasted local strong alcoholic drinks, so I can’t express my opinion here on this occasion…
What I remember from the dishes of today's dinner is soft juicy beef in rather large pieces. An attempt to take an additive, after I tried the dish, was not successful: by that time there were empty stainless steel trays at the distribution and shone from the inside with their originality. But I was happy with what I had. After all, later I found out what kind of late dinner awaits me, or rather, a snack, if I were late for the main restaurant.
A day or two later, I went to the Mayfair, the Tea Room, to experience for myself the pickles and hospitality of the hotel in relation to late arrivals. And I took dozens of pictures. Just in the subject of my late arrival, but with a violation of the chronology of the record, I put my impressions of this visit in this place.
Late Snack at Mayfair, Tea Room
"Mayfair" The tea room is located in the lobby of the hotel, on the right, behind the Reception and opposite the "Churchill" Lobby Bar. If everyone has a lobby bar along the way (even in terms of location to get out of the hall to the main staircase to the main pool and residential buildings, then the "Mayfair" Tea room is modest and unremarkable in appearance. But, going inside, you are amazed at the sophistication of the designer's taste - the designer who completed this hall in a festive-ceremonial style.
Its whiteness is striking: wooden columns, empire-style sofas with white leather drapery, the same chairs and nearby tables with glass tops over a white leather top. It is like a logical, but more refined continuation of the hall and the homely warm welcome of newly arrived guests. Guests who are tired from the road, often from an air flight with turbulence and other "charms", sometimes even hungry, as usual in other hotels, go to a late restaurant to satisfy their physical hunger, here, having entered the "Mayfair" Tea Room, they forget about the physical food and that they are hungry: they receive full food of a completely different, more essential plan - spiritual and moral relaxation after nervous shocks on the road.
Here, in the right corner near the kitchen block, they will have a light “snack” in the form of a variety of fruits (I counted nine items) on a large tray, two or three dozen sandwiches with sausage, cheese, herbs and vegetables - under a transparent container and at least eight types portioned cakes - also in a container under glass. As soon as you sat down at the table, a waiter from the adjacent "Churchill" Lobby Bar immediately comes up and takes an order for drinks: be it non-alcoholic, packaged juice, coffee, tea, beer or local alcoholic drink.
Given the splendor and solemnity of the atmosphere in the "Mayfair" Tea Room, you even lose the initial thought of "eating up" to the hiccups, hungry from the road. In this exquisite Tea Room (named with an element of modesty, but in fact it is like the royal reception rooms), overeating an ordinary dinner would be sheer barbarism, insulting to this sophistication.
I allowed myself to have a snack with two sandwiches with sausage and cheese, washed down with beer, a few slices of cake (one of which was 50X50% filled with peanuts) with hot tea and at the end - banana, orange and peaches ...
What then awaits the late guest after, as I mentioned earlier, the royal front reception? Guessed right! By the same logic - a settlement in the royal mansions. And therefore my next story will be a residential number.
Rooms
The room at the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort (Grand Select) 5 * hotel pleasantly surprised me with its moderate style, rationality of furniture, necessary equipment and household appliances, cleanliness and unusually large size of 43 sq. m. - you can dance without touching the furniture! Here in the hotel there is such a room of the Superior category, and there is no smaller one here. Large and, of course, more expensive rooms: Deluxe - 51 sq. m, Family Suite - Family rooms (two rooms), an area of .53 sq. m. , Deluxe Swim -UP - an area of .51 sq. m, with a swimming pool, Executive Suite, an area of .61 sq. m.
A full-wall glass sliding door with access to the balcony extends the already large area of the living room, providing a panoramic view of the pool, garden and side sea view. And that created excellent conditions not only for recreation, but also for creativity, as I personally saw for myself. The lock on the balcony door is reliable and works like a watch, unlike the broken ones (even on the first floor) in some other hotels where I have previously been. The bathroom pleases with its cleanliness and excellent renovation.
There is also a toilet combined with a bidet, a washbasin with a large snow-white sink, a hair dryer, large and small mirrors with magnification (for shaving), as well as all kinds of toilet kit: four types of gel shampoos that are replenished every day, even if you spend everything, and even a toothbrush with toothpaste and a disposable razor… Next to it is a shower cabin with a translucent glass door; there are no complaints about the work of the shower and mixer.
The air conditioner works almost silently, even as if it just rustles. And it is so powerful that it cools such a volume of a living room in five to ten minutes. And if you put it in a cooling mode of less than 20C, you will be unpleasantly surprised by the coughs, sneezes and even colds that come from nowhere. So, on the seventh day of rest, my friend from Zhitomir had a cold - so much so that she could not even swim in the sea because of possible complications.
Therefore, I would advise you to be careful and it is better not to sleep with the air conditioner working, but to cool it during the day (two electronic keys are required for each room, even if one person lives), turning off the air conditioner when entering the room.
Closer to the balcony under the ceiling, a huge fan rotates, the blades of which, even when the air conditioner is turned off, create a pleasant coolness from the artificial breeze.
The room is provided with an electric kettle with two cups and bags of coffee, cream and tea, as well as two types of sugar. So on the balcony or terrace in the late evening you can enjoy your favorite drink.
The safe is located in the closet and is quite decent in size - such that even a laptop can fit into it.
The only thing that confused me was like a malfunction in the electronics of the safe that I had twice in five days at the beginning of my settlement: dialing my correct code, I could not open it ...I called the master twice by calling the reception: come the master with a supervisory worker , opened the safe and it started working again. This is not my "phobia", but I have some assumptions ...But nothing was lost from the safe.
Of the furniture in the room - a comfortable soft sofa, soft chairs, and a desk, on the balcony - wicker chairs and a round table with a glass top.
I was also surprised by the many lamps and lights in various designs, up to miniature spotlights above the beds. And they all have a rational application. To be honest, in five nights I didn’t even have time to figure everything out, especially the numerous switches.
There are slippers in the room, it seems that they are one-time, but I think they will be enough for a week of rest. I even saw one vacationer on the beach in these white slippers...Apparently, for him, not only the concrete tiled floor in the room was cold, but also the sand on the beach was too hot...
It will be useful for the reader, as a potential tourist, to know what categories of rooms are available in the hotel and the difference in their prices:
SUPERIOR ROOM / SGL …………………… 853 USD
DELUXE SEA VIEW ROOM / SGL…………. 915 USD
FAMILY ROOM / SGL……………………...1103 USD
JUNIOR SUITE / SGL………………………. 1186 USD
DELUXE SWIM UP ROOM / SGL…………. 1186 USD
EXECUTIVE SUITE / SGL…………………. 2553 USD
EXECUTIVE SWIM UP SUITE / SGL……...2803 USD
SULTAN SUITE / SGL………………………4420 USD
July 1-2.2017. Saturday Sunday
Late evening. Night
I love late evenings and nights, especially on the Red Sea, when the daytime noise and din of resort passions subside and not only the night falls on the territory of the hotel, but it seems that the sea itself expands its possessions and penetrates deep into the land - you hear and feel it in every corner hotel. And the closer to the shore, the stronger this feeling.
And that is why you, drawn by this magic of the sea, in addition to your consciousness, as if hypnotized, are heading towards the sea, to the very edge of the land. Here you sit on a rock steep above the sea and listen to the sea. And you are completely in his power ...
Inside, a raging avalanche of feelings arises that cannot be contained, and they break out in the form of your emotions. In order to capture this moment in this world from another world, you are trying to write it all down from nature ...But, alas, at the moment, as luck would have it, after a few phrases, the pen refuses to write ...Apparently, higher powers do not want me to write about such trifles I was distracted from such divine grace, which they now bestow on me. But even these few phrases are enough for me so that I could grab them there, in Kyiv, like the end of a rope and, remembering, begin to unwind the tangle of these unearthly feelings.
Night Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort
As I expected, the first night in the hotel was sleepless for me.
And the reason is not that someone or something did not let me sleep. And in another.
Checking into such luxurious conditions as the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort 5 * hotel, after the everyday bustle of everyday life at home, such a passion for creativity awakened in me that I can’t keep it inside me. Once I even noted that the passion of creativity is much stronger than sexual passion! Although in one and the other case there is a female person: in one - living female flesh, and in the other - the mythical Muse! And this Muse does not let me fall asleep until the morning, while I still have the strength to hold a pen in my hand and drive it over a blank sheet of paper.
And only when I'm exhausted, as after being fed up with sex, I fall, dropping a pen and a sheet of paper with an unfinished phrase on the floor, only then, my beloved Muse, satisfied, lets me take a nap for a couple of hours so that I can gain strength and again, in the morning engage with me in creative reproduction in material form, felt by the Soul of new impressions of the inexhaustible Red Sea and the delights of the hotel.
And so every time I check into the hotel in the evening, and even late at night. Unfortunately, an early morning check-in, after the physical body and the gentle nature of the Soul, exhausted by the night flight, and given the daily bustle with dozens and hundreds of distracting reactions to people - resort guests and hotel staff with the same distracting questions: “Is everything okay? ", obviously do not have an intimate relationship with a beloved woman - the Muse.
And now, having fulfilled my obligations and all sorts of formalities, including having satiated my thirsty for material food, the physical body (and where can I get away from it? ), I plunged into the alma mater of spiritual values - the Red Sea - the creation of Nature and into the coastal sphere - a fabulous hotel - a creation of human hands.
I've been in the hotel for an hour now. And during this time I managed to appreciate the face of the hotel - the vestibule (hall) sparkling in the mirror of marble, noted the modesty of the design of the reception, discussed with the hotelier about the quality of the room, both for a creative person and inspiration, delivered things to the room with the help of a porter, in it looked around and was pleased with them. It's amazing how such an excellent room can be provided the first time? Maybe it's an accident, or do I have low room requirements? But, as it turned out later, in this hotel all the rooms are at the highest level!
By the way, with regard to the night lights on the territory of the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort (Grand Select) 5 * hotel, I still have pleasant, with elements of envy, memories of two months ago. As I already wrote from the end of April to the beginning of May, I rested at the Grand Oasis by Look Hotels 4 *, right here nearby - through the Sharks Bay, Shark Bay. And so, in the same way as here in the hotel, I spent a long time at night on the shores of the Red Sea, listening to the silence of the night. And, of course, I watched the sea, the reflection of the lights of the hotels in the bay. Believe me, a very pleasant sight, except for one moment. With some sadness, I noted the dark areas of the "extinct" hotels during the crisis, as well as the "smoldering" lights of the illumination of the territory barely making ends meet connecting hotels on the coast of Shark Bay. But in one place such a bright and rich light poured that it seemed that some big holiday was being celebrated there, almost with fireworks. But the illumination was unusual compared to the rest of the gray and black coastal zone.
The unknown hotel was literally buried in a sea of lights and reflected in the dark mirror of the water surface of Shark Bay. I was far from thinking that this was a feast during the plague, but I looked at this miracle of the holiday on the shores of the Red Sea and, frankly, I envied those vacationers who were granted by fate to live in the center of this holiday. And then a miracle happened: two months after such a contemplation of the night diva, my thoughts materialized - and I myself, not in my thoughts, but in reality, am in the hotel that I dreamed about for another two months! And the name of this hotel is "Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort" 5 *.
And this miracle happened to me for the second time.
A year and a half ago, while relaxing at the Poinciana Sharm Resort 4 * hotel, in the evenings, from the height of the second line of hotels, I also watched with undisguised envy the celebration of life with loud music, animation and illumination throughout the Royal Grand Sharm 5 * hotel and , imagine, six months later, in August 2016, I was already resting in this hotel ...And how can one not believe in magic?
I don’t know if I will be able to relax in the Four Seasons 5 * hotel in the near future, which I watched with such magical lust in May of this year from the windows of the Grand Oasis by Look Hotels 4 * hotel and now I see it through Shark every day bay, but I will hope ...And if such a miracle happens, I will definitely leave my review about it and find, of course, a worthy place in my book about the Red Sea resort.
I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, but today I am at the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort 5 * hotel, wandering around its territory in the silence of the night, gradually descending to the sea, to the beach area. At such a late night time (and already well after midnight), I wander around the hotel alone.
Sometimes there are guards on the way - "Securiti". But, uttering a magical greeting: “Assalam alaikum! ” and, having shown a bracelet on my hand with the emblem of the hotel, I immediately get the “go-ahead” to follow in any direction (except for the VIP zone) and even to the seashore, of course, not to swim, but to look and meditate. On this occasion, I want to note that the security service at the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort hotel works day and night according to the highest class and you are on the territory of the hotel, like in Christ's bosom. Moreover, “Security” is everywhere and everywhere, at every turn. There are more of them on the territory of the hotel, especially at night, than cypresses.
With a glass of beer in one hand and a pen and paper in the other hand, I walked around the entire hotel area, including the beach, occasionally sitting down on something and making notes about the impressions of the night at the hotel and on the Red Sea. Until now I can not unravel all these squiggles, and I state most of my impressions again, from memory.
And only in the morning, meeting the dawn, I sat on the wide terrace of the main building in a comfortable easy chair with another glass of beer ...And at this time, the hotel workers finished tearing the floor in the lobby to a mirror cleanliness - they did this for about three hours. That's why the hotel lobby is amazingly clean! And there are no mosquitoes, because after their chemical etching for at least two hours there was such a chemical curtain that itching in the throat, sneezing and tears came out. Only, to my regret, the bartender of the Churchill lobby bar was not working at that time and I myself had to go behind the bar and pour myself a beer.
Sunrise over the island of Tiran
According to the laws of the universe, no matter how much the night clings to its positions won since yesterday evening, morning and dawn must still come.
And so, closer to four o'clock in the morning, when the darkness of the night in the east began to be diluted with grayness, in the midst of the darkness of the night, the outlines of the island of Tiran began to appear from the depths of the good of our World.
I am sitting on the terrace of the main building of the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort hotel and all these and subsequent pictures of the upcoming dawn are in front of me at a glance, thanks to the panoramic view and glass railings. By the way, such glass railings are available throughout the hotel, including on the roofs of residential buildings, which creates a special charm when contemplating the Red Sea and Nature.
Then a mirror of the sea surface appeared out of the darkness - a wide strip between about. Tyrant and shore. And the edge of the sky above the horizon began to turn pink, expanding to the left and right of the epicenter. In height, this pink color turned first into yellow, and then into blue.
A miracle was happening in Nature, only in reverse order, compared to the process of sunset, which I watched six hours ago through the window of an airplane at an altitude of 10.000 meters above the Earth, when I flew from Kyiv to Sharm El Sheikh. Only here the night, tired after six hours of its difficult domination, more easily gave up its possessions to the day than yesterday the day gave way to the night. And already that, the former darkness of the night, was not in sight. And over the entire dome of the sky poured from behind the horizon and the island of Tiran, as it seemed to me, a timid and insecure pink stream. The island of Tiran now lived up to its name: the black massif of its mountains bulged out as a dark spot between the living pinking sky and the brightening gray of the sea.
And, imagine, against the background of all this contemplation, the conditions of the observer: a wide area of the terrace of the main building of the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort hotel with a panoramic view of all this beauty: the Red Sea, about.
The tyrant, on the territory of the hotel, which cascades down to the sea and is just beginning to wake up from sleep ...And you are sitting in a comfortable easy chair and listening to light classical music, pouring as if from the depths of the hotel, you contemplate this wondrous phenomenon of Nature ...It's already five o'clock in the morning , and sleep is not in one eye, despite the sleepless night and the flight from continent to continent full of anxiety. Moreover, you feel an unusual cheerfulness and joy of the Spirit, which penetrate you along with the magic of the dawn and the rising Sun. You don’t pay attention to the bustle of hotel cleaners completing a three-hour “scrubbing” of the lobby ...
And all attention is riveted to a single point on the horizon above the mountain, which is seething, constantly changing in color from yellow to bright red, and which should give birth to something unusual in our world, which determines all future life in our World...
This goes on for quite some time.
Apparently, my desire to quickly see the culminating process and get ecstasy from this miracle, which is about to happen, slows down the flow of time and therefore time begins to pass into infinity. Pacifying my Napoleonic agility, I thought: “But who am I, a grain of sand in this World, imagining myself as a giant of this World, capable of controlling its processes? "And then he immediately descended from the command top to his proper place - a simple observer on the hotel terrace ..."Every cricket know your hearth! »
It occurred to me that the forthcoming miracle has a certain esoteric meaning: the Evil of darkness yields its possessions to the forces of Light and Good, in the center of which is the Luminary, which should soon show its face in this World. And in the place where it should appear, at first, a faintly pink color of fire began to flare up widely over the horizon.
But isn't the Sun a symbol of absolute Goodness in our thoroughly vicious World? And at the same time, the worship of the Sun of my pagan ancestors comes to my mind ...
In an instant they left, the outlines of the mountains melted in the gray haze, until recently, in the predawn moment, they seemed formidable servants and followers of darkness. And at the same time, those who gave birth to the Luminary from themselves ...Paradox, another mystery of our universe ...And not only the mountains became invisible, but everything that was in the vicinity of the Sun became invisible and seemed to disappear.
At the same time, I had an analogy with human society. When a genius appears among a mass of people, everyone in his immediate environment becomes invisible. And this is a reason for the manifestation of Evil to the maximum degree, and as a result - the destruction of this genius by Evil (Pushkin, Lermontov, Mozart, Paganini ...- there are plenty of examples! )
At the same time, the Sun confidently and with full dignity, sending inexhaustible streams of light and heat into this mortal World, has already fully entered into its rights as the day Master of this World!
And on the ground, specifically at the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort in Sharm El Sheikh 5 *, where I am now resting, a new holiday day has begun and the first holidaymakers have begun to descend to the Red Sea ...Resort life is entering its usual rhythm ...
The territory of the hotel «Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort»
The territory of the hotel is large - 16 hectares. The length of the sandy beach is across the entire width of the hotel and is 250m. It is easy to determine that the length of the hotel from the main building to the sea is at least 700 meters. Considering the location of the hotel on a mountainside and rising terraces of decent height, an open bus for 21 seats runs constantly around the perimeter of the hotel, at intervals of 15 minutes. In a particularly busy period, the second bus carries tourists from the beach to the buildings, to the restaurant and back.
This is very convenient, especially on a burning afternoon or for the elderly. Stops (and there are more than ten of them) are equipped with neat wooden benches for a maximum of 5 people with moderate figures, there are shady awnings. The seats are upholstered in white faux leather. Therefore, here you can comfortably relax while waiting for the bus. If you wish, you can also call from a landline phone here, at the canopy stand and order an individual electric car, which will also be served soon.
To the left of the hotel "Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort" there is also a prestigious hotel "Sultan Gardens Rtsort" 5 *, to the right - "Coral Dtach Tiran" (now closed) and further - an even more prestigious hotel - "Grand Rotana Resort & SPA" 5 * .
The placement of buildings, structures and other hotel infrastructure in such a territory is standard, as for all hotels in Sharm El Sheikh, located on a steep slope of the first coastline.
In the main building at the reception level and below, at the level of the main pool, there are all restaurants (except for the Italian one - it is on the seashore), a lobby bar, a hookah bar, a disco and souvenir shops, etc.
The hotel is located in Shark Bay just opposite Tiran Island. And this is an amazing sight: this island is visible from almost anywhere in the hotel - with high mountains, which are usually slightly hidden by a gray haze. Particularly impressive is the view of Tiran Island and the Red Sea from the hotel lobby, in which the entire wall towards the sea is made of glass. It is nice to sit and admire the beauty of the Red Sea and the island of Tiran in the rays of the setting sun in the evening on the wide terrace, which is immediately at the exit from the lobby. In addition, a panoramic view of the Red Sea and the island of Tiran is expanded by transparent glass terrace railings.
Below the main building, the residential and entertainment-pool area begins - on a rather large flat area - the first terrace. In the center of this site there is a swimming pool - for the entire width of the territory, leaving room for two buildings on both sides and small lawns along the edges. There are trees, but only young and undersized, flowers along the paths. The figured pool with numerous wooden bridges and passages is a unique building in terms of its beauty and design solution. Along the shores of the pool are wide wooden shade decks and deck chairs with mattresses in two rows. There are always a lot of vacationers here, especially with children, since the water level is from the shallowest to almost two meters. There is also a Bar, where those who wish, without leaving the pool, can order and drink their favorite drink. On the other side of the bar - tables for pre-dinner or after - a snack with sandwiches, french fries and so on.
Nevertheless, looking at the prospect, so, for eight years, to hope that 2.000 large palm trees will also grow violently here - there is no hope. Because they are not planted. There are only a few dozen young palm trees. But I think it's still not too late to fix it and prove to the Grand Rotana Resort & Spa that "We" are better by planting 2.001(! ) palm trees!
In the meantime, on the territory of the hotel "Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort" only sometimes you can see separate weak trees lonelyly breaking out from under the concrete, and so there are no whole green areas of lush plants, so necessary for a person for spiritual relaxation.
But in general, having visited ten hotels in Egypt over the past two years, including six hotels in Sharm El Sheikh and four in Hurghada (3 * -5 *), I must note that hotels in Hurghada, even of a low category, compensate for their low category with entire botanical gardens with dozens of exotic plants and flowers in a relatively small area.
Again, I admit that the structure of the territory with terraces is not entirely acceptable for botanical gardens, nevertheless ...
I got the impression that the principle of the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort is to create conditions for guests "Like at home", for guests, mainly urbanized residents of large metropolitan areas (village people go to simpler hotels). Therefore, the conditions of urbanization are unacceptable in this case! After all, on vacation you want to merge with Nature not only by diving with a mask and snorkel into the waters of the Red Sea, under the reef. but also to feel the charm of direct contact with the exotic Nature of the subtropics ...And the principle of glass, concrete and stone against the background of green lawns does not quite contribute to a good good rest. For me personally, as a pagan by nature - a passionate lover of Nature, up to her deification, this is very significant.
Nevertheless, I set a goal and still found enough unique objects of living natural beauty on the territory of the hotel that I want to share with my readers (I posted the photo on my Facebook page). The entire lower horizontal part of the hotel terrace is covered with a carpet of short-cut grass, in some of its sections, mainly in the Vip-zone, there are places to relax with plastic chairs and tables. Various flowers are planted on both sides of all paths throughout the hotel, and in front of the main building from the pool side there are original five-level terraces with at least ten varieties of cacti growing on them. All palm trees planted on the territory of the hotel are young, with a trunk height of up to one meter, however, thick leaves several meters long create a special flavor.
In some areas of the hotel, especially along the roads, topiary green shrubs create the appearance of a living green wall.
Architectural and landscape design of the hotel
I often visit Egypt in the resorts of the Red Sea, perhaps even more often than anyone who comes here on tourist packages. And I, apparently, have matured in order to ask myself the question: “What is it that draws me here so much? » Undoubtedly, the Red Sea is warm and gentle all year round with its corals and amazingly fabulous underwater world. But this is the first impression from my first visits here.
And so, on the Nth time of my arrival in Sharm El Sheikh, I clearly determined for myself that I was still so drawn to this resort. And I began to feel this from the first seconds I arrived at the hotel.
After the formalities with registration and check-in or before check-in, if the time has not come, I am drawn like a magnet to see and discover the mystery of a new hotel for me, hidden in its architectural and landscape design. Especially, upon arrival in the evening, when the Red Sea is closed for swimming for safety reasons. And I especially began to love hotels on the steep slopes of the first coastline, where God himself ordered the designer-designer to show his talent with such a wonderful source material. Because on the second line, almost on a plateau, the artist's creative imagination does not roam so freely. And I find myself like in a museum, where at every step there are such masterpieces of a genius that even in museums you will not find such a thing. Especially in hotels of a high category, during the design of which considerable funds were laid out in order to attract the most talented masters of their craft to the manifestation of creative talent.
These are the hotels for me for the first time and the hotels "SunConnect Sunerise Diamond Resort" 5 *, Sharm El Sheikh (January 2017) and "Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort (Grand Select) 5 *, Sharm El Sheikh (July 2017. )
Speaking of museums. It seems to me that now the significance of the museum, compared to what it used to be, has significantly fallen deep to the bottom. And museum masterpieces have moved to places where they are well paid for their creation. And such open-air museums are expensive hotels of a high category, in particular these hotels. However, only one thing confuses me, why next to the original and talented architectural or landscape and park masterpiece is not the name of the master who created it. Yes, he received more than one thousand dollars for his talented work, and that was it. And where is the public recognition of him as a talented master? – Yes, just now talent has become a bargaining chip! But that's not what this is about. Walking around the territory of the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort, I meet an architectural or landscape-park masterpiece at every step.
And I do not feel sorry for those several thousand hryvnias a day spent by me. to visit this little corner of paradise and enjoy what you see and feel to the very depths of the Soul.
I can't say that the original creative architectural and landscape solutions of talented craftsmen are unusual for me. I lived for about a year in an elite mansion of the royal inheritance in Kuskovo in Moscow (Yunosti street), when I defended my Ph. I often visited elite government sanatoriums in the "Working Corner" near Alushta after the collapse of the Soviet Union, as well as in many Palace Museums ...
But here, in the resorts of Sharm El Sheikh, the talent of an architect and landscape designer manifested itself much brighter, richer and more modern.
Yes, and the source material itself - steep slopes, and in the future - terraces, are an incomparable base for the manifestation of original artistic solutions - the dream of any artist to express himself by improving Nature. After all, Nature can and does create masterpieces, as I was convinced in the hotels of Hurghada, where almost every hotel has its own miniature botanical garden with exotic subtropical plants. These great masterpieces of Nature are embedded in the smallest grains - a person only needs to plant them and water them intensively. And the climate of the subtropics will do its job. Yes, a person must show his talent here too, arrange the plants in the right combination, creating the music of landscape design.
In the older hotels of Sharm El Sheikh, where subtropical plants have already left their childhood and manifested themselves in their true beauty, I could already observe the combination of the talent of a person - an architect-designer and the genius of Nature itself, for example, at the SUNRISE Diamond Resort » 5*, which is already 10 years old, despite the fact that its territory is half the size (7.5 hectares). And, to be honest, I like this hotel better, despite the fact that it is much inferior to the Sunerise Arabian hotel in terms of rooms, food and service (and, accordingly, in price).
The Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort hotel also has a sufficient number of examples of the manifestation of the talent of an architect and landscape designer. By large forms, this is the main pool (1835 sq. m. ) with its various wooden bridges, transitions and the "Island" bar by the pool. The waterfall with granite vertical slabs at the entrance to the main building is also impressive, as well as the fountain in the VIP area.
And in small forms - an inexhaustible amount: from lanterns and lights - to wooden benches for relaxing and various forms of sunbeds for sunbathing on the green lawns of the hotel, including on the roofs of residential buildings ...
Today, on the first day of my arrival, I walked around the entire territory of the hotel and saw with what care and how rationally every square meter of expensive land on the Red Sea coast is used here. And the genius of man here manifested itself to the maximum extent. (True, I have not yet been to hotels of a higher category, such as “Four seasons” 5 *, maybe there are more perfect examples - I will visit, I will describe ... )
However, I believe that Man cannot surpass Nature, the creator of the masterpieces of which is the Almighty. But I do not consider it a great sin to attempt by the geniuses of mankind to surpass Nature, that is, "Take God by the beard. "
Sea. Corals. Beach
Sea
After long obstacles in my quest for the Red Sea, I am again, for the umpteenth time this year, in close proximity to my beloved and so long-awaited element. And it seems to me that the Red Sea itself, possessing unearthly magic, controls me and my whole life, my destiny after I first set foot on its shore ten years ago, plunged into its waters and absorbed the joy of feeling its underwater world with goldfish and corals in close proximity - at arm's length! Otherwise, how can one explain the fact that over the past two years I have already visited Egypt ten times, on the Red Sea? At the customs in Sharm El-Sheikh, one Arab customs officer, seeing my passport, speckled with Egyptian stamps and visa excise stamps, either jokingly or seriously asked me: “Are you in Egypt for good?
”To which, in confusion, I could not even answer ...Indeed, if the magical influence of the Red Sea continues on me, then I will spend most of the rest of my life on the Red Sea, and not in my homeland, in Ukraine. Only one thing can disrupt the course of events - my old dream is to visit the Ocean coast ...
Today, again, like dozens of times before, even before breakfast, grabbing a mask with a snorkel, I rushed with a quick step towards my second element - the sea. Still far from the sea, a hundred meters away, I already heard his languid cooing in the coastal surf and inhaled his barely perceptible smell with full chest. Not at all the same as Cherny with an iodine flavor, but his own - special, which and only his beloved woman has.
And already, long before diving into the sea, I was already with him and in him.
I approach the wooden pontoon. By the way, the length of which is only 30m, and not three hundred, like some, which is already pleasing ...The entrance will be pulled over with a double rope with a sign in the middle: “Clozed”, and on a high pole a forbidding red flag vibrates in a light wind (the beach and the sea for swimming open from nine in the morning! ) But what are these conditional barriers of our no less conditional world to me, when the magic of the Red Sea controls me and attracts me with an irresistible force from another, subtle world? And let there be ten such prohibitions and the same number of guardians of the laws of the hotel - I can’t keep them!
And here I am, finally, putting on a mask and attaching a tube, on the last step of a wooden staircase and light waves splash at my feet - so gently and gently, as if a pet cat, purring, rubs its back against my legs ...I look on the sea, I feel its coolness and realize within myself a share of doubts, apparently laid down by our ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago: can the element of water be life-threatening? ..
But, having cast aside all doubts, I abruptly throw myself into the water, and with my whole body I feel the good that the sea can give and actually gives to a person. And my subtle creative nature of the Poet also perceives the benefits of the Red Sea with its inner spiritual essence, which is much more significant compared to any physical effect of our mortal world.
In 99% of cases, a person looks and perceives the environment informatively, as food for the brain and makes certain decisions: open his mouth to swallow a piece of tasty meat, or protect himself from the attack of an angry dog ...Any animal does the same. (May 99% of the people on earth forgive me for such their humiliation! But let this be a reason for them to break away from the world of animals into the real world of Man - not only “thinking”, but also “feeling”). But there is another "vision" - this is the perception of what is recorded by ordinary vision, the feelings of the Soul. That's what it is: to truly see how the main characteristic of the Man (I called him "Ozarwek").
And only on the tenth time of my visit to Egypt, I began to see and feel these corals. They began to open in front of me little by little, like shells, to show their inner beauty and, perhaps, large pearls inside.
If this happens, I will not miss the exceptional opportunity given to me by fate to get this pearl and put it on public display in our world in the form of a short story ...
When I walked along the pontoon to the sea and corals a few minutes ago, I looked at the sea to the right of the pontoon - to where the “wild” beach of the neighboring Coral Beach Tiran hotel is. And what I saw there plunged me into wild horror: the bottom of the sea, where until recently numerous corals arranged their lives, now looked like a lifeless lunar surface. The only thing that differs from the lunar landscape is that there are no meteorite craters. If you are in these parts, you can see for yourself. And I learned the true reason for such horror when I made a swim in this area in shallow water in a mask: starting from the reef and to the very shore.
And this is what I saw there: mountains of construction materials, including those destructive to Nature, limestone debris, pieces of reinforced concrete slabs, broken building bricks and even broken glass bottles with the tip up, which I tried to turn in the opposite direction for the safety of "wild" beachgoers aside… I hope you now understand why Nature, including corals, is in no hurry to reveal its secrets to the destroyer? . . After that, how can one hope that the Red Sea and corals can reveal to me all their inner beauty and essence? But I still hope that not for the tenth time of my visit to Egypt (as it is now), but for the twentieth or even the hundredth, I will be able to get to know the Red Sea and its inhabitants at least a little, on a harmless level.
How I love the Red Sea and its underwater world, especially relic creatures - corals!
And I am ready to take all the guilt of a person in relation to them and carry this heavy Cross, if only to revive that virgin Nature in the Red Sea, which I saw ten years ago, when I first visited Egypt. Just like Jesus Christ took upon himself all the sins of mankind. But, alas, I am too sinful for such a feat ...And such a miracle can hardly happen.
In the meantime, I will describe, as if photographing, what I see.
At the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort, the swimming area from the pontoon is limited by buoys: thirty meters in length towards the Sultan hotel, and up to ten meters in width from the coral reef inland. Such a restriction is justified: to reduce the harmful human impact on the ecology of the Red Sea. But there is no special ban on swimming with a mask along the coral reef: as the Arab rescuer, who immediately sits in his chair, says: “A little bit - you can!
And under the pontoon, motionless, especially on a hot afternoon, stands a flock of gray striped fish, in their coloring reminiscent of patients in a mental hospital ...A little deeper, at the foot of a coral reef, a large purple moon fish with overflow stands vertically and constantly pecks something from the bottom. In front of the pontoon, moray eels live in the crevices of the reef. If I knew the names of all the fish, I could list you more, at least twenty different names of beautiful fish. But that's next time...
After sea procedures and enjoying the view of corals and fish, you can sunbathe. The beach is well maintained and clean. Beach Cabin Tent at an additional cost of $30 per day. However, for hotel guests one individual cabana on the beach (free use once for the entire stay, subsequent use with a 50% discount).
And if you are hungry and unable to endure until lunch, you can have a bite to eat at the beach bar from 10-30 to 11-00).
Normal snack: sandwiches, french fries, salads, etc. But with a cold beer! And this is already a highlight for a beer lover: beer, unlike ours, is excellent! I checked it myself: I drank a bucket and my head didn’t hurt in the morning, as from our two-liter bottle of chemical powder. The main thing is to hold back and not mix with strong drinks, such as Ouzo (45? ).
Pools
I am not a supporter of splashing in pools, even if they are very fun and drinks are served without leaving the water - all this is an artificial entourage. But the Red Sea is natural and part of a great Truth, which is not so easy to comprehend. Yes, in fact, I flew here, thousands of kilometers away, not to splash in bleach ...
However, for pool lovers, the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort is a paradise: Main pool heated in winter (1835 sqm); Children's pool heated in winter (100 sq. m. ); Swimming pool with two water slides, unheated in winter (384 sqm)
each: Masala Indian a-la-carte restaurant; Sabai Thai a-la-carte restaurant; Waterfall Mongolian a-la-carte restaurant; La Pergola Italian a-la-carte restaurant; Cote d'Azur French a-la-carte restaurant; Felucca Fish a-la-carte restaurant.
I visited only two a-la-carte restaurants, the third, due to reservation problems, I could not visit. The service and quality of dishes in these restaurants is an order of magnitude higher than in the main restaurant and, most importantly, this is an acquaintance with the dishes of a particular country, the name of which the restaurant bears.
Dinner
The dinner exceeded all my expectations. I have never seen such a variety of second courses (this is my main criterion for lunch) in any hotel. And the taste is not far behind. Moreover, as I was convinced in the following days, the main courses are not repeated and this continues, as the general manager assured me, 14 days. But this is all in the main restaurant of Arabic cuisine "Nora".
If you are lazy and prefer to have lunch on the beach overlooking Tiran Island, then you should go to the Pergola restaurant (Italian).
Here lunch in the form of snacks from 12:00 to 15:00.
Dinner
Dinner at hotels in Egypt, including the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort, is famous for an even greater variety of main courses than at lunch. In addition, every evening - a grill that was not repeated in the assortment for all five days of my stay at the hotel. And dinner lasts from 18:30 to 22:00.
For a change and to get to know the high class service in this hotel, as well as the specialties of world cuisines, I would advise you to pre-book and reserve a table for yourself in the a-la-carte restaurant. I personally liked the Italian restaurant on the beach, right next to the Red Sea, under the sound of the surf and with a panoramic view of the island of Tiran.
bars
Bars at the Sunerise Arabian Hotel are everywhere. And if you have an “All inclusive” food system, then Paradise is for you all 24 hours a day. And this Paradise I checked out on the first night after my arrival at the hotel.
What is most remarkable about the hotel's bar system is that it is the Lobby Bar that provides this 24-hour bliss for body and soul. The peculiarity of the Lobby Bar is that alcoholic drinks are not served from 06:00 to 10:00 in the morning, even for a fee (? ). What the "fun" is, I didn't know until the end.
And during the day, you can constantly refuel with any drinks, including beer and alcoholic drinks, without leaving the pool (main pool), on the beach (La Pergola), near the relaxation pool, etc.
In general, the hotel has the following bars: La Pergola bar on the beach; Waterfalls Grill pool bar for adults only; Island bar by the pool; ice cream, snacks are served here; Churchill lobby bar; May Fair; The Gold Pub Abo Ali Shisha; Royal Club Lounge.
During my five incomplete days of rest, I did not have time to thoroughly familiarize myself with all the bars of the Sunerise Arabian hotel. Definitely, in such hotels “saturated” with all kinds of services, you need to take a tour for at least 14 days.
The “wild” business of the “Russians” and the greatness of the Egyptians
Visiting many hotels in Egypt after 2015, I constantly hear: “Crisis… Crisis… Crisis…”. Yes, I agree, difficult times for the tourism business and the Egyptian economy as a whole. Many hotels on the Red Sea coast in Sharm El Sheikh and Hurghada have closed, unable to withstand the waves of the crisis Tsunami, others live “barely in their bodies”, but there are also thriving hotels, such as the current “Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort (Grand Select)” 5* or its counterpart in the Sunerise system - SunConnect SUNRISE Diamond Resort 5* or the nearby Royal Grand Sharm 5* hotel, for which this crisis has passed by. At least, while relaxing in these hotels, you don’t feel it and at every step you don’t hear this vile word as a token of justifying some of your hotel troubles.
I understand that everything is much more complicated, and the external respectability and well-being of these hotels is based on titanic work, sometimes for a penny, hundreds and thousands of Arabs - the management and service staff of hotels and even simple Egyptian Arabs who grow food for hotels on their irrigated plantations - again, for a penny of their hellish labor! And therefore, they ensured the well-being of their hotel business - but by no means by bandit-wild methods, like some of our fellow countrymen (Russians and Ukrainians) in violent, even more than now, times of crisis. And the most successful of these "businessmen" are now sitting in Parliamentary and Duma chairs, continuing to rob the people. And the deputy mandate ensuring the inviolability.
So, visiting three-, four-star hotels in Sharm El-Sheikh and Hurghada, I often heard complaints from hoteliers that Russian tour operators leave them at a minimum - only $ 10-20 per person per day - and this is for All inclusive food, accommodation and other services. The rest is taken away! Apart from these complaints, I have no other facts. But the fact that Russian travel agencies are prospering, and Egyptian hotels are going bankrupt - this can be seen in reality, as they say, "you don't even have to go to your grandmother. "
But more convincing proof of Russia's "wild" business in the tourism sector of Egypt is the feeling of undisguised robbery and scam, for example, "Anex Tour" during a meeting of hotel guests with a hotel guide (an Arab, but at the rate and with methods of robbery of the "new" Russians ). Read any review of any hotel in Egypt and everywhere such a robbery or an attempted robbery is clearly or implicitly traced.
The most sophisticated and latest technology techniques are used, up to NLP (neuro-linguistic programming). As a result, hundreds and thousands of US dollars migrate from the pockets of unlucky tourists to the pocket of a hotel guide, and then, in a richer stream, to the highest manager and "owner" of the Russian tour operator. And all thanks to the skillful art of “selling” a tourist excursion that is several times overpriced.
Such a predatory business of Russian tour operators against the backdrop of a loyal and hospitable attitude of Egyptian hoteliers towards tourists, I see it as a fly in the ointment in a barrel of honey. And what can you do, how to eradicate this cancerous tumor without damaging the living organism of the Egyptian tourism business - remains a mystery to me. Most likely, it is not necessary for each of us to succumb to these scams and thus finance the robbers!
Reading such lamentations in hotel reviews that they were robbed, I want to exclaim: “Guys, hotel review sites are not a place for criticizing Russian tour operators and there is no need to cast a shadow on the wattle fence, blaming innocent Egyptian hoteliers for all the sins. They have plenty of problems even without you, scammed ones!
And, most importantly, unlike the “new” Russians (in this example, from Russian tour operators), who, even in a crisis, can make money by robbing the people, as in the gangster 90s, the Egyptians hoteliers still have fairly high decency degree. And this causes considerable respect for them, as a nation with a great past, a difficult present, and an equally great future!
Taking into account the development of world business and its globalization, I cannot fail to note the development of the hotel and tourism business in Egypt with the influence of gangster principles and methods of enrichment of the “new Russians”, in this case, Russian tour operators, including Anex Tour ". And this situation is similar to the saying: “let the goat into the garden! »
For a long time I wondered why the Egyptians tolerate and allow this fly in the ointment in their barrel of honey from Russia, why they can’t (or don’t want to? ) Pick up this infection on their healthy body? And only now, on the tenth tour to Egypt, I understood the reason: Russian business bandits with their monopoly firmly grabbed the Egyptian economy by the throat.
And this is facilitated by especially favorable conditions for Russian tour operators: the main consumer market for inexpensive and therefore unpretentious tourist services of the Egyptians is located in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, where a network of hundreds of thousands of travel agencies from monopoly tour operators is widely developed. At the same time, it still remains a mystery to me: why and for what global geopolitical reason, since October 2015, the links between Egypt and Russia that have been created for decades have been destroyed? After all, the reason is not in the personal ambitions of the Russian leader?
And finally, on the topic of this problem, I remembered an incident in one of the previous hotels in Egypt, which I described above under the title "Exaltation and humiliation. "
* * *
I have visited two of the best hotels of the SUNRISE Resorts & Cruises hotel chain, read hundreds of reviews about these hotels, looked at dozens of websites, and still I could not fully unravel the secret of such success in the hospitality industry and popularity among tourists of hotels of the chain. The words of the general manager still remain a mystery: “More than ten years ago, we set out to create new standards in the hospitality industry in Egypt. And as a result, eleven hotels on the Red Sea coast and seven cruise ships have become pioneers in organizing truly authentic Egyptian holidays today. ” But I really experienced the holidays of Soul and Body, like in no other hotel.
In abbreviation. Full text: "Holidays in Egypt"
https://www. facebook. com/sashasim. Egypt/
And in the book: Sasha Sim. Red Sea: Corner of the earthly Paradise. Travel notes from Egypt. - Kyiv: SIM & HAM Publishing House, - 2017. - 535 p. , illus. ISBN 966-8802-17-9
© Sasha Sim (Alexander Golovko), 2017
July 1.2017 Saturday
Today I am flying to the Sunerise hotel, but not the usual one, which I visited this year in early January and which made quite a pleasant impression on me, but a hotel of a higher category, one might consider, for VIPs. And this is the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort (Grand Select) 5 * hotel.
I have taken a significant step towards achieving my goal: to experience the delights of Egyptian hotels and the Red Sea at a higher level - in a hotel close to the VIP level. And because of the hotels-applicants for my increased attention, of which there were more than a dozen, I chose a relatively inexpensive hotel - "Sunerise Arabian" 5 *. Yes, and immediately take the most luxurious hotel - it is irrational: you need to get used to VIP hotels gradually ...
In some, no more than five, of these most prestigious hotels, these embarrassed me, firstly, the too high price of tours, secondly, the lack of such a level of food system in many hotels as “All inclusive”, thirdly, the checks, which is why I refused them.
I went to the airport without an air ticket and vouchers - a computer attack of hackers was to blame. But everything worked out: the representative of the tour operator at the counter next to the registration desk issued the necessary copies of the documents, it was enough to say your last name.
In addition to a large number of blank sheets of paper and a few (so, in reserve) ballpoint pens, a movie camera, a mask with a snorkel, clothes and other things, I carried with me quite a lot of introductory information about the hotel I was going to and a dictionary - Phrasebook printed on paper. Which time, on the eve of the trip, I set myself up to do such information and not without benefit.
A preliminary but thorough acquaintance with the hotel was very useful in the future when writing this book.
Transfer to the hotel. Hotel. reception. Hall
We landed at night - after nine. Unlike our latitude (Kyiv), when the sun sets below the horizon closer to ten o'clock, here, in Egypt, the night falls already at 19-00, even in summer. About an hour was enough for various customs and passport formalities. By the way, new visa rules have been introduced: for a tour lasting more than 15 days, a visa is required. So I advise everyone to take a tour for 14 days. But no more than 15. Although this did not happen in January last year: I flew to Poinciana Sharm Resort 4 * for 19 days, but here, in Sharm El Sheikh, I did not have visas.
And already at a quarter to ten we were taken by minibus to the hotels. Why is it so undignified: a small minibus, and not a chic huge bus? It’s just that we have one or two people in each hotel, because Ukrainians don’t go to such expensive hotels.
For me, for example, going to such an expensive hotel, almost for VIPs, such a service seems undignified ...But I'm not proud. Somehow I'll survive.
But we got there quickly - in almost ten minutes: it’s good that the Sunerise Arabian 5 * hotel is located near the airport. And I was the first and only one to be taken to this hotel.
To be honest, I was not very impressed with the external entrance to the hotel. I've been in hotels several times cheaper, but their "Face" was more impressive. The first, as in many hotels in Sharm El Sheikh, is the entrance gate with security. Further - the main building with reception and other services. In front of the main building, a vertical waterfall pleased the eye and Soul, sliding down a few marble slabs and a small lake below with an even stream of water. A very original architectural and landscape solution.
As elsewhere, things remain under guard on the street - so as not to spoil the flavor of the lobby of the main building with the station view of suitcases piled up in a heap.
The lobby welcomes guests with a pleasant coolness, which you notice as the first positive sign (because it’s +35 ° C on the street even now, at night). hotel cleaners), with a huge vase of flowers on a marble counter in the center. Guards in uniform, a metal detector frame at the entrance, on the right - tables of hotel guides of various tour operators, a taxi, a tour desk. To the right of the entrance - a left-luggage office and a table of Russian-speaking Guest Relations. Chud in the depths, on the right, there is a barely noticeable reception desk, no more than two meters long, like mahogany. There is not even a clock with different cities - there are no time zones.
Somehow, even very modestly for such a respectable hotel as Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort (Grand Select) 5 *. But the reception staff are smiling and friendly. And, surprisingly, immediately, the first time they provide an excellent room on the second floor with a view of the garden, a little bit of the pool and a slightly side view of the edge of the sea. And my preliminary examination gave a positive result, as it was one of the best in its category. Perhaps this was facilitated by the fact that before the flight I wrote a letter to Guest Relations with a request to reserve a decent room, just not with a view of the wall of the chic neighboring hotel, as I was given a room in the Grand Oasis, overlooking the four-meter-high wall of the Four Hotel. seasons" 5 *.
At the end of the hall on the right is the Churchill Lobby Bar, and opposite it is the Mayfair Tea Room. And between them, a full length glass wall with a panoramic view of the sea and the island. Tyrant.
There are also two glass doors with access to the terrace with tables, where it is also nice to sit with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, admiring the panoramic view that opens wide before your eyes. What is interesting and is a feature of the Arabian Beach Resort (Grand Select) 5 * hotel, glass railings are installed everywhere on the terraces and even on the roofs of buildings, which makes for a wider and more complete overview of beautiful views. By the way, the roofs are covered with artificial grass, sun loungers for relaxing and even in the VIP area on the roof (! ) there is a swimming pool!
Negative of late check-in at the hotel
I arrived at the hotel late in the evening - a few minutes to ten. And only now I realized how disadvantageous for us, tourists, such a late departure from Kyiv and beneficial for the tour operator, especially if he has a share in a particular hotel.
At the same time, a whole day is saved for him and the hoteliers from each tourist, since with a late check-in after 22-00 there is no need to feed the tourist with breakfast, lunch and dinner, which had to be done upon arrival early in the morning. True, with early check-in and late check-out, since April of this year, Anex-tour began to cheat: add $ 15 to the cost of the tour for each such case. I also fell into this trap, paying an extra $30 when I bought a tour to the Grand Oasis Hotel.
And so with a late arrival, the quality of the tour, at first glance, remains the same: after all, the duration of the tour is estimated not by days, but by nights. As I wrote earlier, nights are valued and therefore only newlyweds and lovers consider them. But we, ordinary tourists who came to contemplate the delights of the underwater world of the Red Sea, swim and sunbathe, appreciate the day more than the night, and therefore we count every day.
After all, with a late check-in and early departure before 8 in the morning, two days are definitely lost (with the same number of nights), which with short-day tours, their number is almost halved (with five nights, in reality - three days! ) Therefore, I I risked getting a "licker", that is, not sipping salty, going to bed hungry with such a late departure, at most - it's drunk after visiting the lobby bar, if I had not been persistent in my desires.
Knowing from the preliminary information about the hotel, which I also printed out on about forty sheets for operational use, that dinner ends at 22-00, I, immediately after returning my passport with a registration voucher, hurried to the restaurant. At the same time, he neglected the rule established in the hotels of the system to serve wet towels and a glass of cold juice to arriving guests (by the way, in this hotel - packaged).
I went through all this six months ago in another hotel, and therefore the element of hospitality in the form of a wet towel and a glass of juice was not so significant for me, compared to looking at an empty stomach at night. After all, you know that Ukrainian airlines, which have a monopoly of flights to Egypt from Ukraine (seem to be the sphere of the famous Kolomoisky), in the last two years have refused their customers even sandwiches ...And a man, when he is hungry, he is angry. And I, in order not to be angry on the first night at the hotel, immediately inquired at the reception about the location of the restaurant. Although I knew roughly from the map of the hotel, which I previously ordered to be copied at the travel agency when I signed the contract for tourist services. I was surprised by the reaction of the reception worker, who, pointing to his iPhone, began to prove to me that it was already ten o'clock and the restaurant was closed.
I, like a crest, did not believe his words until I myself saw and “felt” and insisted that he nevertheless show where the restaurant was. His face expressed obvious dissatisfaction with my agility. But he did not know that this is my fourth hotel this year - in just six months! But he nevertheless showed me vaguely - down there ...Probably, clearly hoping that I would fly with my idea of a normal snack before a sleepless night. And that I would not sleep, I already knew for sure from the results of my past late arrivals at hotels. And the reason for this is not a female person (s) of a sexual temperament ...On such a night, I am controlled by a completely different woman ...who can keep me awake until dawn! But more about her later...
So, I quickly went “down there”, where the reception employee showed me, hoping, at least under the “pig squeal”, to be in time for the restaurant. And I got "down", but not the one I need and obviously not the restaurant.
Remembering the Arab “not with an evil, quiet word” (I haven’t used foul language for twenty years now), I again jumped out into the hall and saw two young Ukrainians, like ours, cooing about something, and asked them: “Where is the restaurant? » And they have already shown me exactly the way to it.
My late dinner
And so, having found a restaurant with grief in half, I still managed to run along the distribution and grab the most delicious dishes, until the kitchen workers began to take them off and mercilessly dump them into one bucket on a cart - for disposal, or just for throwing away. Such extravagance, accustomed to living modestly and saving on everything, led me to wild horror: mountains of delicious meat - and to scrap!
And the restaurant worker, as if mocking my feelings, continued to withdraw unique dishes from the distribution, prepared with such skill by the chef and laid out on trays with the amazing grace of a designer, even draw a picture from them, and turn all this art into one single indecent mess in a big vat on a cart, which can only cause a gag reflex, even for me, who has eaten practically nothing all day ...
But then I remembered the comment of the representative of the administration of the hotel "Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort", in response to criticism of the quality of food by one of the unfriendly guests, I would say "nasty type", trying, for some personal offense, to desecrate a pretty decent restaurant. Here is the comment from the hotel management:
“One of the advantages of the chain's hotels is quality control.
The hotel is monthly checked by a local company that works according to international standards for: food hygiene; safety measures in the hotel; pool hygiene; cleanliness of the room stock. The results of the checks are excellent, no violations were found ...Food is why we have a large number of repeat guests! . . »
I remembered this comment and immediately calmed down: the hotel administration is worried about my health, always eating freshly prepared meals and luxurious rest at a high service level, like a mother. And he does not save on my health, so that again, on the second day, pulling out of the refrigerator, serve me yesterday's dishes again. (And confirmation of this, I remembered - moving the leftovers of dishes and especially pastries on carts and racks on wheels - to refrigerators at the end of the day - in some other hotels).
Indeed, to be honest, many four, and even some five-star hotels in Egypt, in which I have been and therefore swallowed dozens of activated charcoal tablets and drank excessively strong Ouzo for disinfection, sin in such an unkind way. And the crisis is no excuse. Believe me, health is more expensive and cannot be compensated by any cheap tours! And that is why there are so many people who want to get to this Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort 5 * hotel, despite the relatively high cost of the tour ...
Everything fell into place. And at that moment (already half an hour after checking into the hotel) I realized that I had arrived in a high category hotel, compared to the nine hotels in Egypt in which I had a rest over the past two years, and that even during the crisis, this hotel “Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort" 5 * keeps its brand at a high level ...
So, I had a great meal in one of the three common buffet restaurants - Nora Restaurant.
Unfortunately, the restaurant bar was already closed, and I was too lazy to run to the lobby bar "Churchill", and it was inconvenient in front of the restaurant workers for my late visit, and therefore I had to dine without alcohol. By the way, on all subsequent days and nights of rest (here the lobby bar on the “All inclusive” system works around the clock, that is, it serves for free), I have never tasted local strong alcoholic drinks, so I can’t express my opinion here on this occasion…
What I remember from the dishes of today's dinner is soft juicy beef in rather large pieces. An attempt to take an additive, after I tried the dish, was not successful: by that time there were empty stainless steel trays at the distribution and shone from the inside with their originality. But I was happy with what I had. After all, later I found out what kind of late dinner awaits me, or rather, a snack, if I were late for the main restaurant.
A day or two later, I went to the Mayfair, the Tea Room, to experience for myself the pickles and hospitality of the hotel in relation to late arrivals. And I took dozens of pictures. Just in the subject of my late arrival, but with a violation of the chronology of the record, I put my impressions of this visit in this place.
Late Snack at Mayfair, Tea Room
"Mayfair" The tea room is located in the lobby of the hotel, on the right, behind the Reception and opposite the "Churchill" Lobby Bar. If everyone has a lobby bar along the way (even in terms of location to get out of the hall to the main staircase to the main pool and residential buildings, then the "Mayfair" Tea room is modest and unremarkable in appearance. But, going inside, you are amazed at the sophistication of the designer's taste - the designer who completed this hall in a festive-ceremonial style.
Its whiteness is striking: wooden columns, empire-style sofas with white leather drapery, the same chairs and nearby tables with glass tops over a white leather top. It is like a logical, but more refined continuation of the hall and the homely warm welcome of newly arrived guests. Guests who are tired from the road, often from an air flight with turbulence and other "charms", sometimes even hungry, as usual in other hotels, go to a late restaurant to satisfy their physical hunger, here, having entered the "Mayfair" Tea Room, they forget about the physical food and that they are hungry: they receive full food of a completely different, more essential plan - spiritual and moral relaxation after nervous shocks on the road.
Here, in the right corner near the kitchen block, they will have a light “snack” in the form of a variety of fruits (I counted nine items) on a large tray, two or three dozen sandwiches with sausage, cheese, herbs and vegetables - under a transparent container and at least eight types portioned cakes - also in a container under glass. As soon as you sat down at the table, a waiter from the adjacent "Churchill" Lobby Bar immediately comes up and takes an order for drinks: be it non-alcoholic, packaged juice, coffee, tea, beer or local alcoholic drink.
Given the splendor and solemnity of the atmosphere in the "Mayfair" Tea Room, you even lose the initial thought of "eating up" to the hiccups, hungry from the road. In this exquisite Tea Room (named with an element of modesty, but in fact it is like the royal reception rooms), overeating an ordinary dinner would be sheer barbarism, insulting to this sophistication.
I allowed myself to have a snack with two sandwiches with sausage and cheese, washed down with beer, a few slices of cake (one of which was 50X50% filled with peanuts) with hot tea and at the end - banana, orange and peaches ...
What then awaits the late guest after, as I mentioned earlier, the royal front reception? Guessed right! By the same logic - a settlement in the royal mansions. And therefore my next story will be a residential number.
Rooms
The room at the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort (Grand Select) 5 * hotel pleasantly surprised me with its moderate style, rationality of furniture, necessary equipment and household appliances, cleanliness and unusually large size of 43 sq. m. - you can dance without touching the furniture! Here in the hotel there is such a room of the Superior category, and there is no smaller one here. Large and, of course, more expensive rooms: Deluxe - 51 sq. m, Family Suite - Family rooms (two rooms), an area of .53 sq. m. , Deluxe Swim -UP - an area of .51 sq. m, with a swimming pool, Executive Suite, an area of .61 sq. m.
A full-wall glass sliding door with access to the balcony extends the already large area of the living room, providing a panoramic view of the pool, garden and side sea view. And that created excellent conditions not only for recreation, but also for creativity, as I personally saw for myself. The lock on the balcony door is reliable and works like a watch, unlike the broken ones (even on the first floor) in some other hotels where I have previously been. The bathroom pleases with its cleanliness and excellent renovation.
There is also a toilet combined with a bidet, a washbasin with a large snow-white sink, a hair dryer, large and small mirrors with magnification (for shaving), as well as all kinds of toilet kit: four types of gel shampoos that are replenished every day, even if you spend everything, and even a toothbrush with toothpaste and a disposable razor… Next to it is a shower cabin with a translucent glass door; there are no complaints about the work of the shower and mixer.
The air conditioner works almost silently, even as if it just rustles. And it is so powerful that it cools such a volume of a living room in five to ten minutes. And if you put it in a cooling mode of less than 20C, you will be unpleasantly surprised by the coughs, sneezes and even colds that come from nowhere. So, on the seventh day of rest, my friend from Zhitomir had a cold - so much so that she could not even swim in the sea because of possible complications.
Therefore, I would advise you to be careful and it is better not to sleep with the air conditioner working, but to cool it during the day (two electronic keys are required for each room, even if one person lives), turning off the air conditioner when entering the room.
Closer to the balcony under the ceiling, a huge fan rotates, the blades of which, even when the air conditioner is turned off, create a pleasant coolness from the artificial breeze.
The room is provided with an electric kettle with two cups and bags of coffee, cream and tea, as well as two types of sugar. So on the balcony or terrace in the late evening you can enjoy your favorite drink.
The safe is located in the closet and is quite decent in size - such that even a laptop can fit into it.
The only thing that confused me was like a malfunction in the electronics of the safe that I had twice in five days at the beginning of my settlement: dialing my correct code, I could not open it ...I called the master twice by calling the reception: come the master with a supervisory worker , opened the safe and it started working again. This is not my "phobia", but I have some assumptions ...But nothing was lost from the safe.
Of the furniture in the room - a comfortable soft sofa, soft chairs, and a desk, on the balcony - wicker chairs and a round table with a glass top.
I was also surprised by the many lamps and lights in various designs, up to miniature spotlights above the beds. And they all have a rational application. To be honest, in five nights I didn’t even have time to figure everything out, especially the numerous switches.
There are slippers in the room, it seems that they are one-time, but I think they will be enough for a week of rest. I even saw one vacationer on the beach in these white slippers...Apparently, for him, not only the concrete tiled floor in the room was cold, but also the sand on the beach was too hot...
It will be useful for the reader, as a potential tourist, to know what categories of rooms are available in the hotel and the difference in their prices:
SUPERIOR ROOM / SGL …………………… 853 USD
DELUXE SEA VIEW ROOM / SGL…………. 915 USD
FAMILY ROOM / SGL……………………...1103 USD
JUNIOR SUITE / SGL………………………. 1186 USD
DELUXE SWIM UP ROOM / SGL…………. 1186 USD
EXECUTIVE SUITE / SGL…………………. 2553 USD
EXECUTIVE SWIM UP SUITE / SGL……...2803 USD
SULTAN SUITE / SGL………………………4420 USD
July 1-2.2017. Saturday Sunday
Late evening. Night
I love late evenings and nights, especially on the Red Sea, when the daytime noise and din of resort passions subside and not only the night falls on the territory of the hotel, but it seems that the sea itself expands its possessions and penetrates deep into the land - you hear and feel it in every corner hotel. And the closer to the shore, the stronger this feeling.
And that is why you, drawn by this magic of the sea, in addition to your consciousness, as if hypnotized, are heading towards the sea, to the very edge of the land. Here you sit on a rock steep above the sea and listen to the sea. And you are completely in his power ...
Inside, a raging avalanche of feelings arises that cannot be contained, and they break out in the form of your emotions. In order to capture this moment in this world from another world, you are trying to write it all down from nature ...But, alas, at the moment, as luck would have it, after a few phrases, the pen refuses to write ...Apparently, higher powers do not want me to write about such trifles I was distracted from such divine grace, which they now bestow on me. But even these few phrases are enough for me so that I could grab them there, in Kyiv, like the end of a rope and, remembering, begin to unwind the tangle of these unearthly feelings.
Night Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort
As I expected, the first night in the hotel was sleepless for me.
And the reason is not that someone or something did not let me sleep. And in another.
Checking into such luxurious conditions as the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort 5 * hotel, after the everyday bustle of everyday life at home, such a passion for creativity awakened in me that I can’t keep it inside me. Once I even noted that the passion of creativity is much stronger than sexual passion! Although in one and the other case there is a female person: in one - living female flesh, and in the other - the mythical Muse! And this Muse does not let me fall asleep until the morning, while I still have the strength to hold a pen in my hand and drive it over a blank sheet of paper.
And only when I'm exhausted, as after being fed up with sex, I fall, dropping a pen and a sheet of paper with an unfinished phrase on the floor, only then, my beloved Muse, satisfied, lets me take a nap for a couple of hours so that I can gain strength and again, in the morning engage with me in creative reproduction in material form, felt by the Soul of new impressions of the inexhaustible Red Sea and the delights of the hotel.
And so every time I check into the hotel in the evening, and even late at night. Unfortunately, an early morning check-in, after the physical body and the gentle nature of the Soul, exhausted by the night flight, and given the daily bustle with dozens and hundreds of distracting reactions to people - resort guests and hotel staff with the same distracting questions: “Is everything okay? ", obviously do not have an intimate relationship with a beloved woman - the Muse.
And now, having fulfilled my obligations and all sorts of formalities, including having satiated my thirsty for material food, the physical body (and where can I get away from it? ), I plunged into the alma mater of spiritual values - the Red Sea - the creation of Nature and into the coastal sphere - a fabulous hotel - a creation of human hands.
I've been in the hotel for an hour now. And during this time I managed to appreciate the face of the hotel - the vestibule (hall) sparkling in the mirror of marble, noted the modesty of the design of the reception, discussed with the hotelier about the quality of the room, both for a creative person and inspiration, delivered things to the room with the help of a porter, in it looked around and was pleased with them. It's amazing how such an excellent room can be provided the first time? Maybe it's an accident, or do I have low room requirements? But, as it turned out later, in this hotel all the rooms are at the highest level!
By the way, with regard to the night lights on the territory of the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort (Grand Select) 5 * hotel, I still have pleasant, with elements of envy, memories of two months ago. As I already wrote from the end of April to the beginning of May, I rested at the Grand Oasis by Look Hotels 4 *, right here nearby - through the Sharks Bay, Shark Bay. And so, in the same way as here in the hotel, I spent a long time at night on the shores of the Red Sea, listening to the silence of the night. And, of course, I watched the sea, the reflection of the lights of the hotels in the bay. Believe me, a very pleasant sight, except for one moment. With some sadness, I noted the dark areas of the "extinct" hotels during the crisis, as well as the "smoldering" lights of the illumination of the territory barely making ends meet connecting hotels on the coast of Shark Bay. But in one place such a bright and rich light poured that it seemed that some big holiday was being celebrated there, almost with fireworks. But the illumination was unusual compared to the rest of the gray and black coastal zone.
The unknown hotel was literally buried in a sea of lights and reflected in the dark mirror of the water surface of Shark Bay. I was far from thinking that this was a feast during the plague, but I looked at this miracle of the holiday on the shores of the Red Sea and, frankly, I envied those vacationers who were granted by fate to live in the center of this holiday. And then a miracle happened: two months after such a contemplation of the night diva, my thoughts materialized - and I myself, not in my thoughts, but in reality, am in the hotel that I dreamed about for another two months! And the name of this hotel is "Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort" 5 *.
And this miracle happened to me for the second time.
A year and a half ago, while relaxing at the Poinciana Sharm Resort 4 * hotel, in the evenings, from the height of the second line of hotels, I also watched with undisguised envy the celebration of life with loud music, animation and illumination throughout the Royal Grand Sharm 5 * hotel and , imagine, six months later, in August 2016, I was already resting in this hotel ...And how can one not believe in magic?
I don’t know if I will be able to relax in the Four Seasons 5 * hotel in the near future, which I watched with such magical lust in May of this year from the windows of the Grand Oasis by Look Hotels 4 * hotel and now I see it through Shark every day bay, but I will hope ...And if such a miracle happens, I will definitely leave my review about it and find, of course, a worthy place in my book about the Red Sea resort.
I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, but today I am at the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort 5 * hotel, wandering around its territory in the silence of the night, gradually descending to the sea, to the beach area. At such a late night time (and already well after midnight), I wander around the hotel alone.
Sometimes there are guards on the way - "Securiti". But, uttering a magical greeting: “Assalam alaikum! ” and, having shown a bracelet on my hand with the emblem of the hotel, I immediately get the “go-ahead” to follow in any direction (except for the VIP zone) and even to the seashore, of course, not to swim, but to look and meditate. On this occasion, I want to note that the security service at the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort hotel works day and night according to the highest class and you are on the territory of the hotel, like in Christ's bosom. Moreover, “Security” is everywhere and everywhere, at every turn. There are more of them on the territory of the hotel, especially at night, than cypresses.
With a glass of beer in one hand and a pen and paper in the other hand, I walked around the entire hotel area, including the beach, occasionally sitting down on something and making notes about the impressions of the night at the hotel and on the Red Sea. Until now I can not unravel all these squiggles, and I state most of my impressions again, from memory.
And only in the morning, meeting the dawn, I sat on the wide terrace of the main building in a comfortable easy chair with another glass of beer ...And at this time, the hotel workers finished tearing the floor in the lobby to a mirror cleanliness - they did this for about three hours. That's why the hotel lobby is amazingly clean! And there are no mosquitoes, because after their chemical etching for at least two hours there was such a chemical curtain that itching in the throat, sneezing and tears came out. Only, to my regret, the bartender of the Churchill lobby bar was not working at that time and I myself had to go behind the bar and pour myself a beer.
Sunrise over the island of Tiran
According to the laws of the universe, no matter how much the night clings to its positions won since yesterday evening, morning and dawn must still come.
And so, closer to four o'clock in the morning, when the darkness of the night in the east began to be diluted with grayness, in the midst of the darkness of the night, the outlines of the island of Tiran began to appear from the depths of the good of our World.
I am sitting on the terrace of the main building of the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort hotel and all these and subsequent pictures of the upcoming dawn are in front of me at a glance, thanks to the panoramic view and glass railings. By the way, such glass railings are available throughout the hotel, including on the roofs of residential buildings, which creates a special charm when contemplating the Red Sea and Nature.
Then a mirror of the sea surface appeared out of the darkness - a wide strip between about. Tyrant and shore. And the edge of the sky above the horizon began to turn pink, expanding to the left and right of the epicenter. In height, this pink color turned first into yellow, and then into blue.
A miracle was happening in Nature, only in reverse order, compared to the process of sunset, which I watched six hours ago through the window of an airplane at an altitude of 10.000 meters above the Earth, when I flew from Kyiv to Sharm El Sheikh. Only here the night, tired after six hours of its difficult domination, more easily gave up its possessions to the day than yesterday the day gave way to the night. And already that, the former darkness of the night, was not in sight. And over the entire dome of the sky poured from behind the horizon and the island of Tiran, as it seemed to me, a timid and insecure pink stream. The island of Tiran now lived up to its name: the black massif of its mountains bulged out as a dark spot between the living pinking sky and the brightening gray of the sea.
And, imagine, against the background of all this contemplation, the conditions of the observer: a wide area of the terrace of the main building of the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort hotel with a panoramic view of all this beauty: the Red Sea, about.
The tyrant, on the territory of the hotel, which cascades down to the sea and is just beginning to wake up from sleep ...And you are sitting in a comfortable easy chair and listening to light classical music, pouring as if from the depths of the hotel, you contemplate this wondrous phenomenon of Nature ...It's already five o'clock in the morning , and sleep is not in one eye, despite the sleepless night and the flight from continent to continent full of anxiety. Moreover, you feel an unusual cheerfulness and joy of the Spirit, which penetrate you along with the magic of the dawn and the rising Sun. You don’t pay attention to the bustle of hotel cleaners completing a three-hour “scrubbing” of the lobby ...
And all attention is riveted to a single point on the horizon above the mountain, which is seething, constantly changing in color from yellow to bright red, and which should give birth to something unusual in our world, which determines all future life in our World...
This goes on for quite some time.
Apparently, my desire to quickly see the culminating process and get ecstasy from this miracle, which is about to happen, slows down the flow of time and therefore time begins to pass into infinity. Pacifying my Napoleonic agility, I thought: “But who am I, a grain of sand in this World, imagining myself as a giant of this World, capable of controlling its processes? "And then he immediately descended from the command top to his proper place - a simple observer on the hotel terrace ..."Every cricket know your hearth! »
It occurred to me that the forthcoming miracle has a certain esoteric meaning: the Evil of darkness yields its possessions to the forces of Light and Good, in the center of which is the Luminary, which should soon show its face in this World. And in the place where it should appear, at first, a faintly pink color of fire began to flare up widely over the horizon.
But isn't the Sun a symbol of absolute Goodness in our thoroughly vicious World? And at the same time, the worship of the Sun of my pagan ancestors comes to my mind ...
In an instant they left, the outlines of the mountains melted in the gray haze, until recently, in the predawn moment, they seemed formidable servants and followers of darkness. And at the same time, those who gave birth to the Luminary from themselves ...Paradox, another mystery of our universe ...And not only the mountains became invisible, but everything that was in the vicinity of the Sun became invisible and seemed to disappear.
At the same time, I had an analogy with human society. When a genius appears among a mass of people, everyone in his immediate environment becomes invisible. And this is a reason for the manifestation of Evil to the maximum degree, and as a result - the destruction of this genius by Evil (Pushkin, Lermontov, Mozart, Paganini ...- there are plenty of examples! )
At the same time, the Sun confidently and with full dignity, sending inexhaustible streams of light and heat into this mortal World, has already fully entered into its rights as the day Master of this World!
And on the ground, specifically at the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort in Sharm El Sheikh 5 *, where I am now resting, a new holiday day has begun and the first holidaymakers have begun to descend to the Red Sea ...Resort life is entering its usual rhythm ...
The territory of the hotel «Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort»
The territory of the hotel is large - 16 hectares. The length of the sandy beach is across the entire width of the hotel and is 250m. It is easy to determine that the length of the hotel from the main building to the sea is at least 700 meters. Considering the location of the hotel on a mountainside and rising terraces of decent height, an open bus for 21 seats runs constantly around the perimeter of the hotel, at intervals of 15 minutes. In a particularly busy period, the second bus carries tourists from the beach to the buildings, to the restaurant and back.
This is very convenient, especially on a burning afternoon or for the elderly. Stops (and there are more than ten of them) are equipped with neat wooden benches for a maximum of 5 people with moderate figures, there are shady awnings. The seats are upholstered in white faux leather. Therefore, here you can comfortably relax while waiting for the bus. If you wish, you can also call from a landline phone here, at the canopy stand and order an individual electric car, which will also be served soon.
To the left of the hotel "Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort" there is also a prestigious hotel "Sultan Gardens Rtsort" 5 *, to the right - "Coral Dtach Tiran" (now closed) and further - an even more prestigious hotel - "Grand Rotana Resort & SPA" 5 * .
The placement of buildings, structures and other hotel infrastructure in such a territory is standard, as for all hotels in Sharm El Sheikh, located on a steep slope of the first coastline.
In the main building at the reception level and below, at the level of the main pool, there are all restaurants (except for the Italian one - it is on the seashore), a lobby bar, a hookah bar, a disco and souvenir shops, etc.
The hotel is located in Shark Bay just opposite Tiran Island. And this is an amazing sight: this island is visible from almost anywhere in the hotel - with high mountains, which are usually slightly hidden by a gray haze. Particularly impressive is the view of Tiran Island and the Red Sea from the hotel lobby, in which the entire wall towards the sea is made of glass. It is nice to sit and admire the beauty of the Red Sea and the island of Tiran in the rays of the setting sun in the evening on the wide terrace, which is immediately at the exit from the lobby. In addition, a panoramic view of the Red Sea and the island of Tiran is expanded by transparent glass terrace railings.
Below the main building, the residential and entertainment-pool area begins - on a rather large flat area - the first terrace. In the center of this site there is a swimming pool - for the entire width of the territory, leaving room for two buildings on both sides and small lawns along the edges. There are trees, but only young and undersized, flowers along the paths. The figured pool with numerous wooden bridges and passages is a unique building in terms of its beauty and design solution. Along the shores of the pool are wide wooden shade decks and deck chairs with mattresses in two rows. There are always a lot of vacationers here, especially with children, since the water level is from the shallowest to almost two meters. There is also a Bar, where those who wish, without leaving the pool, can order and drink their favorite drink. On the other side of the bar - tables for pre-dinner or after - a snack with sandwiches, french fries and so on.
Nevertheless, looking at the prospect, so, for eight years, to hope that 2.000 large palm trees will also grow violently here - there is no hope. Because they are not planted. There are only a few dozen young palm trees. But I think it's still not too late to fix it and prove to the Grand Rotana Resort & Spa that "We" are better by planting 2.001(! ) palm trees!
In the meantime, on the territory of the hotel "Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort" only sometimes you can see separate weak trees lonelyly breaking out from under the concrete, and so there are no whole green areas of lush plants, so necessary for a person for spiritual relaxation.
But in general, having visited ten hotels in Egypt over the past two years, including six hotels in Sharm El Sheikh and four in Hurghada (3 * -5 *), I must note that hotels in Hurghada, even of a low category, compensate for their low category with entire botanical gardens with dozens of exotic plants and flowers in a relatively small area.
Again, I admit that the structure of the territory with terraces is not entirely acceptable for botanical gardens, nevertheless ...
I got the impression that the principle of the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort is to create conditions for guests "Like at home", for guests, mainly urbanized residents of large metropolitan areas (village people go to simpler hotels). Therefore, the conditions of urbanization are unacceptable in this case! After all, on vacation you want to merge with Nature not only by diving with a mask and snorkel into the waters of the Red Sea, under the reef. but also to feel the charm of direct contact with the exotic Nature of the subtropics ...And the principle of glass, concrete and stone against the background of green lawns does not quite contribute to a good good rest. For me personally, as a pagan by nature - a passionate lover of Nature, up to her deification, this is very significant.
Nevertheless, I set a goal and still found enough unique objects of living natural beauty on the territory of the hotel that I want to share with my readers (I posted the photo on my Facebook page). The entire lower horizontal part of the hotel terrace is covered with a carpet of short-cut grass, in some of its sections, mainly in the Vip-zone, there are places to relax with plastic chairs and tables. Various flowers are planted on both sides of all paths throughout the hotel, and in front of the main building from the pool side there are original five-level terraces with at least ten varieties of cacti growing on them. All palm trees planted on the territory of the hotel are young, with a trunk height of up to one meter, however, thick leaves several meters long create a special flavor.
In some areas of the hotel, especially along the roads, topiary green shrubs create the appearance of a living green wall.
Architectural and landscape design of the hotel
I often visit Egypt in the resorts of the Red Sea, perhaps even more often than anyone who comes here on tourist packages. And I, apparently, have matured in order to ask myself the question: “What is it that draws me here so much? » Undoubtedly, the Red Sea is warm and gentle all year round with its corals and amazingly fabulous underwater world. But this is the first impression from my first visits here.
And so, on the Nth time of my arrival in Sharm El Sheikh, I clearly determined for myself that I was still so drawn to this resort. And I began to feel this from the first seconds I arrived at the hotel.
After the formalities with registration and check-in or before check-in, if the time has not come, I am drawn like a magnet to see and discover the mystery of a new hotel for me, hidden in its architectural and landscape design. Especially, upon arrival in the evening, when the Red Sea is closed for swimming for safety reasons. And I especially began to love hotels on the steep slopes of the first coastline, where God himself ordered the designer-designer to show his talent with such a wonderful source material. Because on the second line, almost on a plateau, the artist's creative imagination does not roam so freely. And I find myself like in a museum, where at every step there are such masterpieces of a genius that even in museums you will not find such a thing. Especially in hotels of a high category, during the design of which considerable funds were laid out in order to attract the most talented masters of their craft to the manifestation of creative talent.
These are the hotels for me for the first time and the hotels "SunConnect Sunerise Diamond Resort" 5 *, Sharm El Sheikh (January 2017) and "Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort (Grand Select) 5 *, Sharm El Sheikh (July 2017. )
Speaking of museums. It seems to me that now the significance of the museum, compared to what it used to be, has significantly fallen deep to the bottom. And museum masterpieces have moved to places where they are well paid for their creation. And such open-air museums are expensive hotels of a high category, in particular these hotels. However, only one thing confuses me, why next to the original and talented architectural or landscape and park masterpiece is not the name of the master who created it. Yes, he received more than one thousand dollars for his talented work, and that was it. And where is the public recognition of him as a talented master? – Yes, just now talent has become a bargaining chip! But that's not what this is about. Walking around the territory of the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort, I meet an architectural or landscape-park masterpiece at every step.
And I do not feel sorry for those several thousand hryvnias a day spent by me. to visit this little corner of paradise and enjoy what you see and feel to the very depths of the Soul.
I can't say that the original creative architectural and landscape solutions of talented craftsmen are unusual for me. I lived for about a year in an elite mansion of the royal inheritance in Kuskovo in Moscow (Yunosti street), when I defended my Ph. I often visited elite government sanatoriums in the "Working Corner" near Alushta after the collapse of the Soviet Union, as well as in many Palace Museums ...
But here, in the resorts of Sharm El Sheikh, the talent of an architect and landscape designer manifested itself much brighter, richer and more modern.
Yes, and the source material itself - steep slopes, and in the future - terraces, are an incomparable base for the manifestation of original artistic solutions - the dream of any artist to express himself by improving Nature. After all, Nature can and does create masterpieces, as I was convinced in the hotels of Hurghada, where almost every hotel has its own miniature botanical garden with exotic subtropical plants. These great masterpieces of Nature are embedded in the smallest grains - a person only needs to plant them and water them intensively. And the climate of the subtropics will do its job. Yes, a person must show his talent here too, arrange the plants in the right combination, creating the music of landscape design.
In the older hotels of Sharm El Sheikh, where subtropical plants have already left their childhood and manifested themselves in their true beauty, I could already observe the combination of the talent of a person - an architect-designer and the genius of Nature itself, for example, at the SUNRISE Diamond Resort » 5*, which is already 10 years old, despite the fact that its territory is half the size (7.5 hectares). And, to be honest, I like this hotel better, despite the fact that it is much inferior to the Sunerise Arabian hotel in terms of rooms, food and service (and, accordingly, in price).
The Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort hotel also has a sufficient number of examples of the manifestation of the talent of an architect and landscape designer. By large forms, this is the main pool (1835 sq. m. ) with its various wooden bridges, transitions and the "Island" bar by the pool. The waterfall with granite vertical slabs at the entrance to the main building is also impressive, as well as the fountain in the VIP area.
And in small forms - an inexhaustible amount: from lanterns and lights - to wooden benches for relaxing and various forms of sunbeds for sunbathing on the green lawns of the hotel, including on the roofs of residential buildings ...
Today, on the first day of my arrival, I walked around the entire territory of the hotel and saw with what care and how rationally every square meter of expensive land on the Red Sea coast is used here. And the genius of man here manifested itself to the maximum extent. (True, I have not yet been to hotels of a higher category, such as “Four seasons” 5 *, maybe there are more perfect examples - I will visit, I will describe ... )
However, I believe that Man cannot surpass Nature, the creator of the masterpieces of which is the Almighty. But I do not consider it a great sin to attempt by the geniuses of mankind to surpass Nature, that is, "Take God by the beard. "
Sea. Corals. Beach
Sea
After long obstacles in my quest for the Red Sea, I am again, for the umpteenth time this year, in close proximity to my beloved and so long-awaited element. And it seems to me that the Red Sea itself, possessing unearthly magic, controls me and my whole life, my destiny after I first set foot on its shore ten years ago, plunged into its waters and absorbed the joy of feeling its underwater world with goldfish and corals in close proximity - at arm's length! Otherwise, how can one explain the fact that over the past two years I have already visited Egypt ten times, on the Red Sea? At the customs in Sharm El-Sheikh, one Arab customs officer, seeing my passport, speckled with Egyptian stamps and visa excise stamps, either jokingly or seriously asked me: “Are you in Egypt for good?
”To which, in confusion, I could not even answer ...Indeed, if the magical influence of the Red Sea continues on me, then I will spend most of the rest of my life on the Red Sea, and not in my homeland, in Ukraine. Only one thing can disrupt the course of events - my old dream is to visit the Ocean coast ...
Today, again, like dozens of times before, even before breakfast, grabbing a mask with a snorkel, I rushed with a quick step towards my second element - the sea. Still far from the sea, a hundred meters away, I already heard his languid cooing in the coastal surf and inhaled his barely perceptible smell with full chest. Not at all the same as Cherny with an iodine flavor, but his own - special, which and only his beloved woman has.
And already, long before diving into the sea, I was already with him and in him.
I approach the wooden pontoon. By the way, the length of which is only 30m, and not three hundred, like some, which is already pleasing ...The entrance will be pulled over with a double rope with a sign in the middle: “Clozed”, and on a high pole a forbidding red flag vibrates in a light wind (the beach and the sea for swimming open from nine in the morning! ) But what are these conditional barriers of our no less conditional world to me, when the magic of the Red Sea controls me and attracts me with an irresistible force from another, subtle world? And let there be ten such prohibitions and the same number of guardians of the laws of the hotel - I can’t keep them!
And here I am, finally, putting on a mask and attaching a tube, on the last step of a wooden staircase and light waves splash at my feet - so gently and gently, as if a pet cat, purring, rubs its back against my legs ...I look on the sea, I feel its coolness and realize within myself a share of doubts, apparently laid down by our ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago: can the element of water be life-threatening? ..
But, having cast aside all doubts, I abruptly throw myself into the water, and with my whole body I feel the good that the sea can give and actually gives to a person. And my subtle creative nature of the Poet also perceives the benefits of the Red Sea with its inner spiritual essence, which is much more significant compared to any physical effect of our mortal world.
In 99% of cases, a person looks and perceives the environment informatively, as food for the brain and makes certain decisions: open his mouth to swallow a piece of tasty meat, or protect himself from the attack of an angry dog ...Any animal does the same. (May 99% of the people on earth forgive me for such their humiliation! But let this be a reason for them to break away from the world of animals into the real world of Man - not only “thinking”, but also “feeling”). But there is another "vision" - this is the perception of what is recorded by ordinary vision, the feelings of the Soul. That's what it is: to truly see how the main characteristic of the Man (I called him "Ozarwek").
And only on the tenth time of my visit to Egypt, I began to see and feel these corals. They began to open in front of me little by little, like shells, to show their inner beauty and, perhaps, large pearls inside.
If this happens, I will not miss the exceptional opportunity given to me by fate to get this pearl and put it on public display in our world in the form of a short story ...
When I walked along the pontoon to the sea and corals a few minutes ago, I looked at the sea to the right of the pontoon - to where the “wild” beach of the neighboring Coral Beach Tiran hotel is. And what I saw there plunged me into wild horror: the bottom of the sea, where until recently numerous corals arranged their lives, now looked like a lifeless lunar surface. The only thing that differs from the lunar landscape is that there are no meteorite craters. If you are in these parts, you can see for yourself. And I learned the true reason for such horror when I made a swim in this area in shallow water in a mask: starting from the reef and to the very shore.
And this is what I saw there: mountains of construction materials, including those destructive to Nature, limestone debris, pieces of reinforced concrete slabs, broken building bricks and even broken glass bottles with the tip up, which I tried to turn in the opposite direction for the safety of "wild" beachgoers aside… I hope you now understand why Nature, including corals, is in no hurry to reveal its secrets to the destroyer? . . After that, how can one hope that the Red Sea and corals can reveal to me all their inner beauty and essence? But I still hope that not for the tenth time of my visit to Egypt (as it is now), but for the twentieth or even the hundredth, I will be able to get to know the Red Sea and its inhabitants at least a little, on a harmless level.
How I love the Red Sea and its underwater world, especially relic creatures - corals!
And I am ready to take all the guilt of a person in relation to them and carry this heavy Cross, if only to revive that virgin Nature in the Red Sea, which I saw ten years ago, when I first visited Egypt. Just like Jesus Christ took upon himself all the sins of mankind. But, alas, I am too sinful for such a feat ...And such a miracle can hardly happen.
In the meantime, I will describe, as if photographing, what I see.
At the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort, the swimming area from the pontoon is limited by buoys: thirty meters in length towards the Sultan hotel, and up to ten meters in width from the coral reef inland. Such a restriction is justified: to reduce the harmful human impact on the ecology of the Red Sea. But there is no special ban on swimming with a mask along the coral reef: as the Arab rescuer, who immediately sits in his chair, says: “A little bit - you can!
And under the pontoon, motionless, especially on a hot afternoon, stands a flock of gray striped fish, in their coloring reminiscent of patients in a mental hospital ...A little deeper, at the foot of a coral reef, a large purple moon fish with overflow stands vertically and constantly pecks something from the bottom. In front of the pontoon, moray eels live in the crevices of the reef. If I knew the names of all the fish, I could list you more, at least twenty different names of beautiful fish. But that's next time...
After sea procedures and enjoying the view of corals and fish, you can sunbathe. The beach is well maintained and clean. Beach Cabin Tent at an additional cost of $30 per day. However, for hotel guests one individual cabana on the beach (free use once for the entire stay, subsequent use with a 50% discount).
And if you are hungry and unable to endure until lunch, you can have a bite to eat at the beach bar from 10-30 to 11-00).
Normal snack: sandwiches, french fries, salads, etc. But with a cold beer! And this is already a highlight for a beer lover: beer, unlike ours, is excellent! I checked it myself: I drank a bucket and my head didn’t hurt in the morning, as from our two-liter bottle of chemical powder. The main thing is to hold back and not mix with strong drinks, such as Ouzo (45? ).
Pools
I am not a supporter of splashing in pools, even if they are very fun and drinks are served without leaving the water - all this is an artificial entourage. But the Red Sea is natural and part of a great Truth, which is not so easy to comprehend. Yes, in fact, I flew here, thousands of kilometers away, not to splash in bleach ...
However, for pool lovers, the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort is a paradise: Main pool heated in winter (1835 sqm); Children's pool heated in winter (100 sq. m. ); Swimming pool with two water slides, unheated in winter (384 sqm)
each: Masala Indian a-la-carte restaurant; Sabai Thai a-la-carte restaurant; Waterfall Mongolian a-la-carte restaurant; La Pergola Italian a-la-carte restaurant; Cote d'Azur French a-la-carte restaurant; Felucca Fish a-la-carte restaurant.
I visited only two a-la-carte restaurants, the third, due to reservation problems, I could not visit. The service and quality of dishes in these restaurants is an order of magnitude higher than in the main restaurant and, most importantly, this is an acquaintance with the dishes of a particular country, the name of which the restaurant bears.
Dinner
The dinner exceeded all my expectations. I have never seen such a variety of second courses (this is my main criterion for lunch) in any hotel. And the taste is not far behind. Moreover, as I was convinced in the following days, the main courses are not repeated and this continues, as the general manager assured me, 14 days. But this is all in the main restaurant of Arabic cuisine "Nora".
If you are lazy and prefer to have lunch on the beach overlooking Tiran Island, then you should go to the Pergola restaurant (Italian).
Here lunch in the form of snacks from 12:00 to 15:00.
Dinner
Dinner at hotels in Egypt, including the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort, is famous for an even greater variety of main courses than at lunch. In addition, every evening - a grill that was not repeated in the assortment for all five days of my stay at the hotel. And dinner lasts from 18:30 to 22:00.
For a change and to get to know the high class service in this hotel, as well as the specialties of world cuisines, I would advise you to pre-book and reserve a table for yourself in the a-la-carte restaurant. I personally liked the Italian restaurant on the beach, right next to the Red Sea, under the sound of the surf and with a panoramic view of the island of Tiran.
bars
Bars at the Sunerise Arabian Hotel are everywhere. And if you have an “All inclusive” food system, then Paradise is for you all 24 hours a day. And this Paradise I checked out on the first night after my arrival at the hotel.
What is most remarkable about the hotel's bar system is that it is the Lobby Bar that provides this 24-hour bliss for body and soul. The peculiarity of the Lobby Bar is that alcoholic drinks are not served from 06:00 to 10:00 in the morning, even for a fee (? ). What the "fun" is, I didn't know until the end.
And during the day, you can constantly refuel with any drinks, including beer and alcoholic drinks, without leaving the pool (main pool), on the beach (La Pergola), near the relaxation pool, etc.
In general, the hotel has the following bars: La Pergola bar on the beach; Waterfalls Grill pool bar for adults only; Island bar by the pool; ice cream, snacks are served here; Churchill lobby bar; May Fair; The Gold Pub Abo Ali Shisha; Royal Club Lounge.
During my five incomplete days of rest, I did not have time to thoroughly familiarize myself with all the bars of the Sunerise Arabian hotel. Definitely, in such hotels “saturated” with all kinds of services, you need to take a tour for at least 14 days.
The “wild” business of the “Russians” and the greatness of the Egyptians
Visiting many hotels in Egypt after 2015, I constantly hear: “Crisis… Crisis… Crisis…”. Yes, I agree, difficult times for the tourism business and the Egyptian economy as a whole. Many hotels on the Red Sea coast in Sharm El Sheikh and Hurghada have closed, unable to withstand the waves of the crisis Tsunami, others live “barely in their bodies”, but there are also thriving hotels, such as the current “Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort (Grand Select)” 5* or its counterpart in the Sunerise system - SunConnect SUNRISE Diamond Resort 5* or the nearby Royal Grand Sharm 5* hotel, for which this crisis has passed by. At least, while relaxing in these hotels, you don’t feel it and at every step you don’t hear this vile word as a token of justifying some of your hotel troubles.
I understand that everything is much more complicated, and the external respectability and well-being of these hotels is based on titanic work, sometimes for a penny, hundreds and thousands of Arabs - the management and service staff of hotels and even simple Egyptian Arabs who grow food for hotels on their irrigated plantations - again, for a penny of their hellish labor! And therefore, they ensured the well-being of their hotel business - but by no means by bandit-wild methods, like some of our fellow countrymen (Russians and Ukrainians) in violent, even more than now, times of crisis. And the most successful of these "businessmen" are now sitting in Parliamentary and Duma chairs, continuing to rob the people. And the deputy mandate ensuring the inviolability.
So, visiting three-, four-star hotels in Sharm El-Sheikh and Hurghada, I often heard complaints from hoteliers that Russian tour operators leave them at a minimum - only $ 10-20 per person per day - and this is for All inclusive food, accommodation and other services. The rest is taken away! Apart from these complaints, I have no other facts. But the fact that Russian travel agencies are prospering, and Egyptian hotels are going bankrupt - this can be seen in reality, as they say, "you don't even have to go to your grandmother. "
But more convincing proof of Russia's "wild" business in the tourism sector of Egypt is the feeling of undisguised robbery and scam, for example, "Anex Tour" during a meeting of hotel guests with a hotel guide (an Arab, but at the rate and with methods of robbery of the "new" Russians ). Read any review of any hotel in Egypt and everywhere such a robbery or an attempted robbery is clearly or implicitly traced.
The most sophisticated and latest technology techniques are used, up to NLP (neuro-linguistic programming). As a result, hundreds and thousands of US dollars migrate from the pockets of unlucky tourists to the pocket of a hotel guide, and then, in a richer stream, to the highest manager and "owner" of the Russian tour operator. And all thanks to the skillful art of “selling” a tourist excursion that is several times overpriced.
Such a predatory business of Russian tour operators against the backdrop of a loyal and hospitable attitude of Egyptian hoteliers towards tourists, I see it as a fly in the ointment in a barrel of honey. And what can you do, how to eradicate this cancerous tumor without damaging the living organism of the Egyptian tourism business - remains a mystery to me. Most likely, it is not necessary for each of us to succumb to these scams and thus finance the robbers!
Reading such lamentations in hotel reviews that they were robbed, I want to exclaim: “Guys, hotel review sites are not a place for criticizing Russian tour operators and there is no need to cast a shadow on the wattle fence, blaming innocent Egyptian hoteliers for all the sins. They have plenty of problems even without you, scammed ones!
And, most importantly, unlike the “new” Russians (in this example, from Russian tour operators), who, even in a crisis, can make money by robbing the people, as in the gangster 90s, the Egyptians hoteliers still have fairly high decency degree. And this causes considerable respect for them, as a nation with a great past, a difficult present, and an equally great future!
Taking into account the development of world business and its globalization, I cannot fail to note the development of the hotel and tourism business in Egypt with the influence of gangster principles and methods of enrichment of the “new Russians”, in this case, Russian tour operators, including Anex Tour ". And this situation is similar to the saying: “let the goat into the garden! »
For a long time I wondered why the Egyptians tolerate and allow this fly in the ointment in their barrel of honey from Russia, why they can’t (or don’t want to? ) Pick up this infection on their healthy body? And only now, on the tenth tour to Egypt, I understood the reason: Russian business bandits with their monopoly firmly grabbed the Egyptian economy by the throat.
And this is facilitated by especially favorable conditions for Russian tour operators: the main consumer market for inexpensive and therefore unpretentious tourist services of the Egyptians is located in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, where a network of hundreds of thousands of travel agencies from monopoly tour operators is widely developed. At the same time, it still remains a mystery to me: why and for what global geopolitical reason, since October 2015, the links between Egypt and Russia that have been created for decades have been destroyed? After all, the reason is not in the personal ambitions of the Russian leader?
And finally, on the topic of this problem, I remembered an incident in one of the previous hotels in Egypt, which I described above under the title "Exaltation and humiliation. "
* * *
I have visited two of the best hotels of the SUNRISE Resorts & Cruises hotel chain, read hundreds of reviews about these hotels, looked at dozens of websites, and still I could not fully unravel the secret of such success in the hospitality industry and popularity among tourists of hotels of the chain. The words of the general manager still remain a mystery: “More than ten years ago, we set out to create new standards in the hospitality industry in Egypt. And as a result, eleven hotels on the Red Sea coast and seven cruise ships have become pioneers in organizing truly authentic Egyptian holidays today. ” But I really experienced the holidays of Soul and Body, like in no other hotel.
In abbreviation. Full text: "Holidays in Egypt"
https://www. facebook. com/sashasim. Egypt/
And in the book: Sasha Sim. Red Sea: Corner of the earthly Paradise. Travel notes from Egypt. - Kyiv: SIM & HAM Publishing House, - 2017. - 535 p. , illus. ISBN 966-8802-17-9
© Sasha Sim (Alexander Golovko), 2017
Translated automatically from Russian. View original
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