Египет - Хургада - Sonesta Pharaoh Beach Resort апрель 2010 Egypt - Hurghada - Sonesta Pharaoh Beach Resort April 2010

Tour operator Pegas tourist. Airline Orinburskie airlines. Departure from Domodedovo was delayed for 1 hour. Travel time is 5 hours 10 minutes, when the pilot announced this, everyone who had already gone to Egypt gasped. As a result, they flew like that, either they chose a longer path, or the plane was not very powerful. We arrived, the visa is still the same $ 15, if you are too lazy to fill out the card yourself and stand in line (although there is nothing difficult here), then please $ 20 and everything will be done for you. Met, seated, taken, everything is ok. The Sonesta Pharaoh Beach Resort hotel seems to be not far from the airport, but we drove decently, because first we take everyone to hotels in Hurghada itself, and then we go further, another 25 minutes drive from the city. The hotel along the coast is like the last one, the neighbor on the left is the Titanic 5 *. Guide Pegasus, in principle, the hotel was regularly, but not with the stated constancy. On the first day, the guide Maria gathered everyone for a meeting, told what was happening in the hotel, about excursions, of course, intimidated that they would not take excursions anywhere else but her, collected vouchers, promising to return tomorrow. The next day, Masha was gone, there was another guy, whom we turned to to pick up our voucher, for which he dug in a pile and didn’t find our voucher, and this was on the 2nd day of our stay, he said that this was not a necessary piece of paper and they say go and relax and don't worry. Although Masha said at the meeting that for any trips outside the hotel you need to take a voucher with you, well, as an identification mark, who you are and where you are from. We flew back with Wim Air. Departure at 9:30 in the morning, moved to 8:50 in the morning, picked up from the hotel at more than 5, gave a lunch box to go. We took off on schedule, Wim is nicer than Orinair, and the atmosphere, and food, and the travel time is 4 hours and 20 minutes.
Hotel. Territory. We arrived at the hotel at almost 12 noon. The transfer guide said they say go have dinner, and then check out, we went to a restaurant, we stood for about 10 minutes until some worker accidentally came out, on the fingers they explained to him that they just came, if only we could eat, he ran after the manager, with whom the same scene happened , the manager ran to the reception, apparently we need to find out if he really should feed us, after another 10 minutes of waiting they took out the food. When checking in, they didn’t give money, we paid a standard with a view of the pool / sea. The hotel consists of one large main building and the rest of the territory is occupied by bungalows (see photo). Restaurant (breakfast, lunch, dinner) in the main building, here is the Italian restaurant Valentino, lobby bar, disco bar. There is also a fish restaurant on the beach. If you stay at the hotel for at least 7 nights, you are entitled to 1 free dinner at the Italian and fish restaurant by appointment. Registration takes place on the guest relay table to the left of the reception, where, according to Masha, a representative who speaks in any way sits, you want English, you want German, you want Russian, you should contact here if you have any problems with the number, for example. We had a problem with the bathroom, we tried to turn to this table, but the German woman didn’t understand us at all, well, maybe we just got on such a day, although all the following days we saw only her there. We turned to the reception with a bathroom and they fixed everything for us right away, there was always a person at the reception who spoke Russian. Leaving the main building you find yourself on the territory of the pool, there is one large pool, divided into a shallow area for children and a deeper one for adults. There are enough beds. Pool bar from 10 am to 5 pm. The water in the pool is not heated, so it is cold! Further along the territory there is a large pond, we did not understand its semantic load, there is no beauty, some hoses stick out, only beautiful cacti around. We go around this pond and get to the beach.
Number. Standard double with a view of the hotel and the pool. The room is standard like everywhere else, two beds, TV (channel 1, Russia, music, the rest are all strangers), refrigerator, mini-bar for a fee, the price hangs here, the safe in the room is free, you just need to go to the reception and ask for the key, maybe for some reason, when you check in, they don’t give it right away, there is an extra pillow, a bath, all the plumbing is in good condition, a hair dryer, like everywhere else, air conditioning. Balcony: table, chairs, no dryer, there is only a drying thread in the bath. See photo for number.

Sea beach. A fairly wide coastline belongs to the hotel. Sunbeds, mattresses, towels free of charge. The point of issue of towels by the pool and on the beach, I don’t know from which ones it works, but no matter how early we left, towels could already be taken. The beach is sandy and small pebbles, the entrance... well, I don’t know, I read reviews that it’s good for children and Masha said at the meeting that you don’t need anything, the entrance is sandy. But when the tide came out and this whole entrance was bare, it seemed to me that it would not be surprising for an adult to injure his legs there, and what about children. There is a bridge from which there is a ladder to the sea, you can go down and swim there, the small fish go far enough into the sea. At low tide, there are good places near the end of the bridge, such sandy islands, where it is really good for the kids to dig. See photo, decide for yourself. On the beach there is an All Inclusive bar, from 10 am to 5 pm.
Restaurant, food. There is enough food, you will not be hungry, I will not go deeper, but in my opinion the food does not reach 5 *. Drinks on the All Inclusive system, for lunch and dinner in the main restaurant, in the pool bar and beach bar from 10 am to 5 pm, in the lobby bar from 10 am to 24 pm. Wine red, white, rose, dry standard for Egypt, rum, whiskey, brandy, vodka, gin, beer, cola, fanta, sprite, various juices are poured from packages. Coffee is delicious from a coffee machine in bars, compared to coffee from a can at breakfast, it's just lovely. Beer is poured from bottles so-so, but canned beer is poured in a pool bar, which is a completely different matter. Simple bottled water can be taken in any bar for free, in the mini-bar in the room it is paid. From 12:30 in the pool bar and bar on the sea give ice cream, very personal.
Animation. Animation team is good. In the morning yoga on the beach, then volleyball, then belly dance or latin, at the same time in the pool water aerobics, in the afternoon something happens on the beach, like bocha and darts, were not, did not see, at 16 o’clock the step pool -aerobics, very fun and incendiary. There is a children's animator, a girl from Ukraine collects the kids in the morning and works with them throughout the day. In the evening, a show program, everything is quite standard, then a disco in the main building on the second floor. Something like a conference room was converted into a disco room, here the bar drinks are free until 24 hours. Disco can be said no. It all depends on the company, if a cheerful company gathers and dances, it will be fun, but this rarely happens, because. Basically the hotel is not a youth contingent. Even in front of the dance floor there are rows of chairs, like in a cinema, moms and dads come and sit down and, like in a circus, they look at everything that happens. Brad is complete. Once a company of Egyptian tourists came, they ordered their song and let's dance, they dance, they play songs, and all the Russians sit bored.
There is a hookah bar, from 18 to 24 hours. Hookah costs $3.

On the territory there is an indoor heated pool with a jacuzzi, it's nice to massage there, but after 17 hours of sunset there are usually a lot of people there, it's free. The gym is also free of charge. There are massages, braids, tattoos, baths, everything is paid. Free table tennis, there is a tennis court 2 pcs. with your rackets free of charge, rental of rackets with balls for 1 hour 7 euros.
Tours. If you stand on the beach facing the sea, then to your left at the end of the hotel beach there is a Dive in office, they organize various sea excursions with diving and simple. Of course, 2 times cheaper than the hotel guide. For example, an excursion to a paradise island with swimming on 2 more coral islands from 10 am to 4 pm with lunch costs $30. On a glass bottom boat for 3 hours with 2 dives, drinks included - $ 20, for 1.5 hours with one dive - $ 15, fins, mask included in the price.
Taxi. There is a taxi stand at the reception, they will take you wherever you want. We went to Hurghada and back for $ 15, it was possible to negotiate directly with the driver for 10. They bring you supposedly to a shopping street (this is some kind of horror booth), you walk there for 2 hours, return to the appointed place and they take you back to the hotel. The hotel itself has shops: bags, souvenirs, jewelry, T-shirts. When you exit the hotel, there are several Titanic shops on the right. In fact, you can bargain everywhere. I was offered a bag in the city, for the same amount I then bargained for it in a store at the hotel, only minutes spent money on a taxi and spent nerves in this garbage dump.
Nuance. I want to tell about one nuance. When leaving at the reception, they paid the bill (tennis, hookah... ), printed out an extract for us $ 13.02, I give $ 15, I get change 4 coins, for some reason I thought it was $ 2 at 50 cents and left without looking, as it turned out it was 4 Egyptian pounds, at a rate of $ 1 = 5.5 pounds, the change should have been 10 pounds, not 4. Later, when I realized this, I gave this receptionist his 4 pounds for tea, refused, I probably realized that it was not good, I left them him on the counter. A trifle, of course, but unpleasant, a 5 * hotel, an official reception structure, a check was printed out, and deceived for a penny, this is not worthy of it. So, as they say, check the change without leaving the cash register.

Outcome. The contingent of vacationers: 65 percent Russians, the rest Germans and other less represented nations, quite a lot of Egyptians vacationing. Their women, wrapped from head to toe, look at our naked women with undisguised hatred in their eyes.
Mostly families with children, adult couples. The hotel is 100% family-run, there are a lot of children, not youth, there are almost no young people, but the one that is got here, like us, by accident, because we took a tour of the day for 2 and there was nothing left. I even heard a conversation between two adult women that this was the only option left. Nice quiet calm hotel to just lie under the sun.