We stayed for 5 days and did some diving with the hotel owner who’s also a diving instructor. We liked the hospitality of the hotel staff. They were... read more very polite and tried their best to accommodate our every request. However, the room had many issues. First, the bathroom ventilator was broken and the water trap had a foul smell so the bathroom always smelled terrible. Moreover, the toilet shakes when you sit on it and some of the towels looked dirty. Lastly, the fridge was broken but they replaced it upon our request. After chatting with our next door neighbours, it turned out their room suffered from a broken fridge and a smelly toilet as well. The hotel restaurant’s food was below average in general and the bread was often dry but their sea food lunch was really nice and we’d recommend it. We were also grateful that they accommodated our request for an Egyptian style scrambled egg for one breakfast. As for diving, the hotel owner gave us some good diving tips but we were quite unsatisfied with the dive sites he chose. We dived for three days with two dives per day but both dives were always at the same spot and were always shore dives. The dive sites were similar to average sites in other dive locations in the Red Sea but for a higher price. Lastly, the equipment was in a bad condition and often leaked... We stayed for 5 days and did some diving with the hotel owner who’s also a diving instructor.
We liked the hospitality of the hotel staff. They were very polite and tried their best to accommodate our every request. However, the room had many issues. First, the bathroom ventilator was broken and the water trap had a foul smell so the bathroom always smelled terrible. Moreover, the toilet shakes when you sit on it and some of the towels looked dirty. Lastly, the fridge was broken but they replaced it upon our request. After chatting with our next door neighbours, it turned out their room suffered from a broken fridge and a smelly toilet as well.
The hotel restaurant’s food was below average in general and the bread was often dry but their sea food lunch was really nice and we’d recommend it. We were also grateful that they accommodated our request for an Egyptian style scrambled egg for one breakfast.
As for diving, the hotel owner gave us some good diving tips but we were quite unsatisfied with the dive sites he chose. We dived for three days with two dives per day but both dives were always at the same spot and were always shore dives. The dive sites were similar to average sites in other dive locations in the Red Sea but for a higher price. Lastly, the equipment was in a bad condition and often leaked some air.
We wouldn’t recommend Marsa Alam for diving except if you do a live-aboard. Diving sites from the shore are average and the city feels like an abandoned ghost town or a construction site with many half built buildings and nothing going on.
One thing we’d caution against is getting the hotel owner to arrange outside services for you as he marks up the price. The first incident was the transport from the airport to the hotel. The owner asked for 35 Euros but a quick search online and we got two offers. One for 23 euro and the other for 750EGP. We went for the later and it was a perfect ride.
The second incident was our transport to Luxor. We had arranged for a driver with a sedan car that leaves at our chosen time for 3000 EGP. Upon hearing this, the owner told us that it’s not safe to travel with just one car as the road has no phone coverage and a couple of people recently got shot by illegal miners. Instead, he suggested the safe way is to leave with a tourist convoy protected by the police. His offer was 4300 (300 goes to the owner) for a limousine car but we had to leave at 4 AM. We trusted him (despite other foreign female travellers confirming they used the normal route safely) cause he said that’s the way he’d trust for his wife and kids. At 4 AM, we were greeted by a van which is not as comfortable as a sedan car as the van’s engine is normally very strong and noisy and you can feel it’s vibrations through your body the whole long journey (I had to explain this point as it wasn’t clear to the owner). Furthermore, the van was gonna take us to Luxor from the same secluded road and without any tourist convoy. Having no ability to arrange another transport on a short notice, we had no choice but to proceed with that. Upon reaching, we informed the owner and he wasn’t even apologetic. So in the end we paid higher price for nothing and used a less comfortable transport at an inconvenient time and no “protection”as promised. Please be cautious if getting his help to arrange things. More
