Весьма средний отель, плохонький коралловый риф Very average hotel, poor coral reef

We rested in this hotel together from September 10 to September 17.2015. Tour operator Anex tour, airline - UTAir. There are a lot of rave reviews about this hotel, and a lot of bad ones. Therefore, I wrote a detailed review of how everything really is (it turned out to be long).
The territory of the hotel is small and densely built up. Greenery is available, but not very much.
Virtual tour of the hotel - http://www. sunrisehotels-egypt. com/ru/resorts/sharm-el-sheikh/SUNRISE-SELECT-DIAMOND-BEACH-RESORT/

The hotel itself is 5-level, but the rise from the beach to its highest point is approximately the rise to the 3rd-4th floor of the house, that is, if you walk along the path for cars along the fence with the Royal Grand Sharm hotel, then this does not bother you. You can also walk from the beach to the main restaurant along the paths and 2 stairs past the main and relaxation pools, or (if you don't like stairs) along the serpentine path from the main pool. Most of the staff either speaks or understands Russian. Russian speakers in the hotel were 75-85%, there are Italians, British, Germans.
There were few Arabs, but they climbed into the restaurant without a queue and collected dishes simply with their hands. Many families with children (there are special low tables for them in the main restaurant and a separate table with a children's menu). There are few young people.
We paid for the "Standart sea view room dbl". We asked at the reception for a nice room in a quiet location and on the top floor (they gave us $20). We got a good, according to the reception, number 2074 in building No. 4 (to go to the sea 3-4 minutes, back - 5 minutes, about 200 m). Our suitcases and us were delivered to the room and back by an electric car. They gave 1 dollar - the driver was delighted. The sea is visible from the room, but on top of the roofs of buildings No. 5 and No. 7. Everything worked in the room - a 32-inch LCD TV, a small refrigerator, with a cake in it upon arrival (well, who will eat protein cream, which it’s not clear how long it has been in the heat), 2 Pepsi-Cola for a week + two 0.6 l of water every day, also on the table was a plate with an apple, a banana and an orange. The air conditioner worked well and was not noisy.
Kettle and set for making coffee and tea - replenished daily.
But the awful bathroom is a narrow slit room with a water hole in the floor. You take a shower - it costs 1.5-2 cm of water on the floor. The fan in the bathroom worked like a jackhammer even though we called a member of staff to fix it. The door to the balcony opens to the middle and gets stuck - you have to push it hard. And it is considered a good room in this hotel.

Worst of all, in the room every night we were badly bitten by mosquitoes. Fumigator and RAID spray did not help. The furniture is not the first freshness, but everything is whole. The mattress on the double bed is soft, the sheets are clean and without holes. There were two white coats. It's a bit dark in the room - take a 100W bulb with you. It is stated that the hotel has 2 Russian TV channels, in reality one is “1”.
Rooms in the hotel: 1xxx - 1st floor, 2xxx - 2nd floor, 3xxx - 3rd floor (available only in the reception building). Tip - before checking in, check where they give you a room according to the hotel scheme.
For the daily Alyonka chocolate bar, the janitor sprinkled flower petals on our bed and twirled swans. He also determined when we were at the beach and always cleaned up when we were away.
Beach.
Consists of 5 separate plots. There are places on it even at 10 o'clock in the morning. Entry into the sea, both from the pontoon and from the shore. True, if you go from the sea from the stairs leading to the beach from the beach bar-restaurant, they can whistle and not let you in (there you can step on a hedgehog). But they rarely whistled. It is better to go into the sea from the beach near the pontoon - there the coral is much smoother and there are no numerous holes in it. The beach is full of small annoying flies - well, they got it very much.
You can swim from the shore to the depth at high tide, when 4-5 stones located on the coral north of the hotel pontoon will hide under water. The hotel pontoon itself is simply terrible - it sways a lot and you can easily just fall on it and break your leg.
Therefore, we went swimming on the nearby pontoon of the Royal Grand Sharm hotel, which is in good condition, and even has a ladder to get out of the water in fins. Once they made a remark to us - they say, this is a pontoon of another hotel, we just began to hide the bracelet, and there were no problems. The pontoons are open in the morning (already at 8-00 we swam from them) until sunset (in October, somewhere around 17-00 ...17-30).

The coral near the hotel and the two neighboring ones is very mediocre and monotonous - if you sail north (to the pontoon of the Monte Carlo Sharm hotel - 442 m) it is a little more interesting than if you sail south to the pontoon of the Veraclub Queen Sharm hotel (267 m). There are many small fish, but there are no large ones (more than 50-70 cm) at all. Neither Napoleon, nor moray eels, nor stingrays could be seen. True, once at the edge of the reef, at a depth of about 1 m, I saw a poisonous lionfish - I sailed away from sin.
Pools.
There are many in the hotel. But in the relax pool, Italians are constantly standing by the wall - you can’t swim, but Arab women in clothes swim in the main pool - and we didn’t swim there.
Weather.
On October 15, it seemed to be summer, and then it clearly turned towards autumn - clouds and the sun appeared in a haze. The water temperature (in the middle of the pontoon) in the morning was from 28.5 to 30 degrees C, in the evening - from 30.5 to 31.5 degrees C. This made it possible to swim without freezing for 40 ...50 minutes. and more. Air - 30 ...32.5 - a couple of times in the evening the sea was warmer than the air. The humidity was comfortable except for one evening when it was stuffy. The beach is either calm or a slight pleasant breeze is blowing. The roughness of the sea periodically reached 0.5 - 1 points, but no one forbade swimming from the pontoon, although the pontoon swayed strongly, and the red flag hung constantly.
Animation.
Yes it is by the main pool. But neither she nor the evening shows delight. The show of M. Jackson, praised in the reviews, is actually a cheap amateur performance. There is not even music on the beach, although animators periodically come and invite you to volleyball, aerobics and yoga. On the beach, employees of the diving center and the SPA center pester.
There is also a restaurant by the beach, where they offer fast food from 12-00 to 17-00 (actually until 15-30). It's nice to sit there with a cup of coffee and a view of the sea. But coffee, as well as other drinks, is poured into a plastic glass - it is harmful to drink hot drinks from it.
Since the food is very spicy in the Indian and Oriental restaurants, we did not go to them. From the terrace of the Indian restaurant offers a great view of the sea and the hotel. The Italian restaurant offers almost the same as the main one, but it is smaller and has a smaller selection of dishes.

In the main restaurant, the dishes are arranged in such a way as to minimize queues, but they are still available: for breakfast, lunch and dinner to a place that serves freshly prepared dishes (scrambled eggs, french fries, etc. ). For dinner, a second line is added to this queue to the table, where portioned dishes from the chef are served. We came across inedible beef and chicken there twice, and we stopped standing in this queue.
There were always boiled, stewed and grilled vegetables.
From time to time I came across just tasteless cooked food (probably depends on which cook is on shift). There were always chopped tomatoes and cucumbers, as well as salads, including with mayonnaise, which we did not take for fear of poisoning. By the way, I have not heard that there were poisonings in the hotel.
For breakfast, a standard set of food from inedible: sausage, cheese, packaged butter and two types of sausages. However, there was cheese and cottage cheese, curdled milk (plus a set of different jams for it), pancakes and eggs in various forms, as well as cereals and beans, couscous + pancakes with chocolate and more + a lot of pastries.
For lunch there were always two different soups. Hot garnishes are very diverse. For lunch and dinner there is a meat (usually 2-3), fish (3 times a local type of mackerel, the rest of the time - unhealthy pangasius) and a chicken dish (usually 2). There are salinities. There seems to be a lot of pastries, but they are all kind of monotonous.
But fruit is just a problem. There were never watermelons. Bananas and melons had to be caught. Dates and oranges were somehow inedible, sort of like fodder.
The drinks
3 types of juices that are cooled with ice, which is why they are always diluted either more or less. There are also cocktails, cola and other sweet sodas. Tea bags. Coffee, both from disposable bags and from coffee machines.

Wine red and white - both not very good. Sometimes they are served with ice - this is too much. Beer tastes good, but some low-alcohol. From strong drinks: vodka, gin, rum and brandy. The first 2 can still be drunk somehow (but without ice, which is made either from bottled water, or from desalinated), but in them (even in a sealed bottle) alcohol is somewhere around 28-33 degrees. There were no problems with the rudeness of the bartenders - in the bars of the main restaurant, on the beach, near the relax pool and on the terrace, they always quickly poured what you want.
But a portion of vodka (gin) is somewhere around 30-40 grams, I had to come up more. Water can be taken from coolers, or bottled at the bar near the reception. Coffee is served in glass cups. In the main restaurant, there is a constant shortage of glasses and glasses for drinks - the waiters immediately take empty glasses and glasses from the table. Sometimes because of this, the bar of the main restaurant pours drinks into disposable cups. Glasses are not just rinsed, but washed - a couple of times I was poured drinks into hot, freshly washed glasses.
Number extension.
We had a bus to the airport at 16-00, and we did not want to sit at the reception for 4 hours. The official extension for 3 hours costs 20 euros (23 USD). Be sure to take your receipt
Tours
We are in Egypt for the 6th time and did not plan excursions. At 12 min. walk from the hotel (to the left, then to the right and then along the main road to the right) there is the shopping street Il Mercato (at the beginning of it stands the hotel of the same name).
If you walk from the hotel to the main road and go left (walk 15-17 minutes), then come to the Alf Leila Wa Leila complex, where the 1001 night show takes place. Admission $7.3 shows $20.3 shows with food $40/person Show starts at 21:30. There are Russian-speaking travel agencies on Il Mercato Street that will take you from the hotel and back to 3 shows for $17. If you have any questions, write to alex823@i. uh, I'll answer.
findings
The hotel corresponds somewhere to the level of good Turkish 3*…. 3+*. A lot of laudatory reviews about him are written by numerous Russian-speaking hotel employees themselves (see reviews for September 2015, where there are repetitions in the reviews). The hotel corresponds to the money paid for it, but "Oh, how cool ... " you don't have to wait here.
Thank you for reading the review to the end, it did not work out in short.


Pros: Friendly responsive staff, At 12-00 at check-out, bracelets are not cut off and you use the service until departure, New water park.
Cons: Mosquitoes and flies, Terrible pontoon, Uninteresting coral, Mediocre, sometimes tasteless food, Few fruits, Minor flaws in the room.

Alexander.