На Святой Земле. Часть 1. Отель Movenpick Resort Taba On the Holy Land. Part 1. Hotel Movenpick Resort Taba

In Taba, and it was the Movenpick Resort Taba hotel, my family and I gathered 4 years ago, when planes were still flying from Kharkov to Sharm el-Sheikh and Taba (they still fly, but not at the peak of the tourist season, in autumn and winter). Then they delayed a bit, and there were no more seats on this flight. I had to fly to Turkey, and I did not fulfill my promise to show my ladies Cairo with the pyramids. This year, tickets to Turkey have risen in price to a level unthinkable for the lower middle class. So we settled on Egypt, although it was necessary to fly out of Kyiv, which, of course, is troublesome (try to get to the capital in comfort). Again they began to climb the Internet, looking for a place to shelter. The choice stopped at 2 hotels: Movenpick and Radisson, which had the most favorable reviews. They chose the first one, and as it turned out in practice, not in vain.
Movenpick Resort Taba is a gigantic area that houses a double 4-storey building of the hotel, painted in white, one-storey bungalows are scattered, located to the left of an artificial canal, through which a pair of graceful bridges are thrown. The banks of the canal are lined with emerald grass flooring, on which you walk, as if on a soft fluffy carpet. Two pools, date palms, from which heavy bunches of half-ripe fruits hang (you lie under one and you want to open your mouth to catch and gnaw a juicy date that cannot be compared with our dried-candied ones).
The hotel has 4 restaurants (main, fish, Chinese and local cuisine). All-inclusive dining with local liquor is, of course, what attracts our tourists the most. The cuisine at the hotel is distinguished by sophistication and variety. Every day the set of dishes changed (meaning, first of all, dinner is the main meal). In the mornings, I gorged myself on my favorite pita hummus, cheese, and a traditional omelet with "additives". During the day and in the evening he invariably ate soup: sometimes buoyabez with crabs, then melukhiya - Egyptian spinach soup. On Fridays they served fried lamb and kyufta-kebab, on Saturdays - a luxurious duck. Fruits and sweets were also innumerable: fresh dates, bananas, peaches, melons, apples, grapes, watermelons (for my favorite guava, the season has not yet come), donuts, baklava, kunafa... A feast of the stomach! Alcohol is also much superior in quality to Turkish drinks. An analogue of rake - uzu is quite original and I liked the taste more than Turkish anise. Rum, whiskey, gin, vodka, brandy, cocktails - whatever your heart desires. True, the system for serving these drinks is a little annoying. The waiter takes your order, goes to the bar and brings you what you requested. By the time it comes and goes, you can already eat. It's hard to get an order twice. However, no one bothers you to skip a glass or two of aperitif before or after a meal in one of the 3 bars, where you can mix a drink for any whim.

The hotel rooms are spacious and well ventilated-lighted. Cleaned up every day. The server gives you 2 or 3 bottles of mineral water for the day (night) and rubs with a rag. However, we were not very lucky with the server. I got some wild, poorly speaking, understanding English (I don’t speak Russian) boy. Removed it like that. For 11 days, I never changed bed linen (towels were changed daily). It was necessary to indicate that he put fresh shampoos and washing gels. At first I gave him the traditional pound of baksheesh, but this did little to change the situation, and tips were abolished.
The beach is huge, sand and small pebbles. Small colorful fish frolic in the clear water. At first, frightened by stories about corals cutting the defenseless legs of bathers, and sea urchins treacherously lying in wait for onlookers, we entered the water not without trepidation. But the stories turned out to be horror stories. I didn't notice anything of the sort. But what was bad was the temperature of the water. The sea was cold, as for me, and until the evening the situation with the temperature did not change. On average 22-24 degrees. It is much warmer in the Mediterranean, over 30. In Turkey, I did not get out of the sea for hours. Here, I often thought deeply about whether to climb into the water at all...
I would like to separately express my deep gratitude to the head of a small Hurghada travel agency "Saif tours" Ibrahim and his guys for the excellent work. It is clear that, like any normal person, he doubted, writing off and calling up strangers who are encrypted no worse than James Bond, giving them an advance. But no! Thanks to Ibrahim, he made 2 unforgettable trips: to Jerusalem (for $110) and Cairo (for $100). And this despite the fact that the native "Pegasus" beat 190 dollars for Jerusalem! But the service is the same. Compare, for the same Poles, their tour operator offered this trip for 130! Are we richer than the Poles, that you can tear money from us? ! Yes, a trip to Cairo at Pegasus is $15 cheaper. BUT!! ! I immediately asked Ibrahim to remove from the program 3 trips to expensive, but uninteresting shops (papyrus, perfumery and jewelry) and replace them with a trip to the Saqqara necropolis with the step pyramid of Djoser and the famous Cairo bazaar Khan el Khalili, where everything can be purchased once a day. 5 cheaper! Here, as our guide told us, Russian-speaking tourists are not taken at all. So thanks to Ibrahim, Ahmed, the great driver Mustafa and the great guide Dr Hassan! Do not hesitate, fellow citizens, you are not in the church, you will not be deceived.