Wondeful stay - couldn't fault it
This was our first time to Egypt and also our first time doing an all inclusive holiday and we were certainly not dissapointed!
From the moment we arrived at the hotel, the staff were helpful, friendly and very polite. As recommended on this website, we did tip very small amounts of around 10 egyptian pounds (one english pound) to some of the staff, but even the ones that we didn't tip were still just as friendly.
The food was excellent. We ate most meals in the main restaurant but there was a massive selection for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
For breakfasts, you could have anything from toast, to fruit, to fried food and then there was the grill area where you could have omlettes, fried eggs, french toast and even pancakes cooked up!
For lunch and dinner, there was a wide selection of salads and hot food, a grill area too where they would cook up a different kind of roast meat or fish every night. You could also have fresh pasta or your own pizza made up.
Being a pudding person, I was also thrilled to find such a good selection of those too.
Not a place to go if you want to loose weight!!
Drinks included in the all inclusive were all soft drinks, local beer called Sakara (which was actually pretty good), wine and some local spirits. They even offer a range of cocktails.
Unique Quality: The hotel itself is very clean, nice room and walk in showers.
The room cleaners kindly make your towels into wonderful shapes, swans, flowers (and if you tip, even Crocodiles - trust me, it's worth it!)
There are loads of pools, shallow ones for the kiddies, deeper ones for the adults, ones with water volley ball nets across and the main one even has seats in so you can sit at the pool bar and have a drink. Excellent idea!
There are lots of sunloungers around the pools, but these are normally snapped up early by greedy sunlounger hogs. If you're a slightly later riser, head to the beach end of the resort which is a lot more empty, right next to the sea, has it's own beach bar and is slightly cooler due to that wonderful sea breeze.
Towel hire is free of charge and each hotel has it's own private beach area and jetty for snorkellers. We spent a lot of time snorkelling as the sea is so warm and clear and the fish life is amazing. It's like immersing yourself in the "Finding Nemo" film.
If you were planning on ignoring the rules and feeding the fish anyway, be warned - they can be feisty. I saw a fair few small kiddies get a bit teary after they went in with a bread roll and were surrounded by tonnes of them.
There are also lots of other watersports available on the beach such as paragliding, banana boats and diving courses.
Because Shark's Bay is a much quieter resort than the lively Naam Bay down the road, the hotel puts on a shuttle bus that runs there and back every hour at a very small cost. Naam Bay is great to go to for shopping, casinos and shisha pipes and general eating and drinking.
If you are booking excursions, I would recommend a trip to Naam Bay first as they come up a lot cheaper booking there than with your tour operator.
Anyway, I digress.
In short, the hotel was great, the staff were great, the food was great, the weather was great.
I'm one of life's biggest moaners and this place gave me nothing to moan about.
I definitely recomend it!