Our 3rd Great Holiday at the Sunrise Royal Makadi!
After our 2 previous holidays here in 2009 and 2010, there really was no contest when it came to deciding the destination for our honeymoon and holiday. This big hotel offers us everything we want from a holiday and more. Clean, comfortable bedrooms, lots of pools to choose from, 3 with swim-up bars, a large buffet restaurant and a total of 7 A La Carte Restaurants offering wonderful meals and service! On top of all its other facilities, this hotels crowning glory is its staff, what a fantastic, polite, friendly and hardworking set of people they are. From the General Manager, Mr Sami Kaplanki , his management team, down to the army of cleaners, gardeners, laundry, maintenance, entertainment, kitchen, restaurant and bar staff, security personnel, reception etc., all are approachable and very keen to please and ensure you have a very enjoyable stay.
Most of the rooms in the hotel are located in 2 and 3 story blocks spread over a large area of the complex. The grounds are very well tended with grassed areas and many colourful plants and shrubs. You are never more than a nice 5 minute stroll from any of the hotel¡¦s facilities and amenities however.
We had been given a nice 2nd floor room in which to celebrate our honeymoon and we were extremely pleased with it. It had a very large bed and lots of storage space. A nice large bathroom with a lovely walk in shower room with probably the best shower we have ever used. The large balcony overlooked one of the family pools, and had a lovely view of the complex. Our room had a good digital safe, again free of charge, a small fridge which was loaded with soft drinks and bottled water, a tv with lots of channels but only the BBC News in English, an hairdryer in the bathroom, 3 telephones, and good air conditioning. As well as being essential during the day to keep the room cool, it was also nice in the evenings (In early to mid November) to be able to warm up the room as most nights were quite breezy and cool once the sun had gone down and darkness fell. Temperatures during the day were nice and hot (Low 30¡¦s) and perfect for sun bathing. I would recommend to any one holidaying here during the winter season to take along some warmer clothes for the evenings as the breeze can be quite chilly at times.
Our Room Attendant, a guy called Mohamed Said, kept our room spotless and nothing was too much trouble for him. The towels were changed daily and the bed linen regularly.
I think there are about 6 swimming pools at this hotel plus a small paddling pool area at each of the 2 Family Pools. The pools which are unheated in winter are too cold for all but the toughest of swimmers to bear in winter but the sports pool and a small pool near the Main Pool are heated and these were very popular. The Family Pool 1, the one with the big slides and swim up pool bar isn't heated but we did give it a try but didn't last too long! Fortunately while we were there, the smaller Family Pool 2 was heated for the first time and it was lovely and warm. We spent the majority of our days by this pool and it also has a nice swim up pool bar. The bar captain there, Nazmy, gave us great service and the Pool Attendant/ towel guy called Abdo was a fantastic character keeping us entertained every day with his friendly banter and huge smile. He kept his area round the pools very clean and tidy. He was popular with all the guests, young and old, and we hope he is still there when we return again in the near future.
We did see lots of cleaning and maintenance work taking place at all the pools while we were there. A lot of this takes place very early in the morning and late at night, sometimes through the night and of course goes unseen by the majority of guests. We saw samples of the pool water being taken regularly by the engineers for quality analysis and monitoring purposes.
We used to have a late afternoon stroll down to the pool at the VIP/Entitled Guest Area where our friend Saleh, the Bar Captain, would serve us our cocktails while we relaxed looking out over the beach and sea. It was a nice place to be as the sun went down.
All the pools have lots of sun beds available and we never had a problem finding one. You are provided with towel cards which you exchange on a daily basis for big beach towels so no need to take your own!
Restaurants
There are now 7 A La Carte Restaurants at this hotel and you can book one every night of your holiday if you want. These offer a great dining experience with fantastic meals and service to match. Our evenings here were the highlights of our holiday. Our favourites were the Dalila/ Mediterranean, Asian, and especially the new Mexican. On our first night back at the hotel, our friend Ayman Elrefayu, a waiter in the Dalila/Greek Fish Restaurant had remembered which was our favourite table from our previous visits and had prepared it with a heart made from flower petals to celebrate our honeymoon. After a lovely meal in the romantic setting, a large group of the waiters and chefs appeared round our table clapping and singing to celebrate with us and got us up to dance with them, a very special occasion and one we will always treasure, thank you Ayman and the rest of the guys in there.
The Asian is also a very nice restaurant with a lovely authentic atmosphere, and again superb Chinese, Indian and Thai cuisine and service. You also get the bonus of seeing the Tepenyaki chef at work displaying his great skills as he prepares speciality meals for guests. It was pretty spectacular at times as flames rose to the ceiling from his hotplate, all intentional of course!
We also enjoyed our meals at the T-Bones Steak House and the Italian Restaurant which again had a really authentic Italian atmosphere and was nice and cosy.
The real highlight for us though, was the Mexican Restaurant. This really was a nice place to spend the evening and we always went to the later sitting. We had seen photos of the interior from when it first opened but they didn¡¦t do it justice. The decor was lovely, the lighting just right and Mexican style music played quietly in the background. The service and food in here was absolutely superb and we dined in here on 3 occasions we enjoyed it so much! The Chef, Ahmed Salem Mansiur came out to speak to us on each occasion to ask if we had enjoyed our meal and have a little chat. We have never met a more enthusiastic chef whose attention to detail with cleanliness, hygiene and the meals he prepared was amazing. Such a nice man too.
We had great service from all the waiters in there but especially Ahmed Ibrahim Mahmoud Minio and Hatem the Assistant Manager; nothing was too much trouble for them.
There is also a very large buffet restaurant where the majority of guests seem to take their breakfast, lunch and evening dinners. We never used it on this holiday but on previous visits found it to have a vast selection of food on offer and always found something to our liking. It did however get pretty busy and hectic at peak times.
We had breakfast every morning in the Around the World Restaurant which faces on to the beach and is lovely in the morning as the sun comes up over the Red Sea. Being early risers we were usually one of the first people in when the doors opened at 7am.
We¡¦ve always enjoyed the relative peace and quiet in there compared to the Main restaurant at breakfast. All though nowhere near as big a selection of foods as the main buffet, it was fine for us and we had nice omelettes cooked freshly by Mohamed, natural yogurt, cereals, orange juice, toast and as much coffee as we could drink. This was served to us by the young waiter Mohamed Farag who really looked after us well during breakfast. The Assistant Manager in the ATW at breakfast time, a guy called Mohamed Tawfik, who we remembered from the Asian Restaurant the previous year, also did a great job making sure everything was running smoothly and doing his bit to keep the place clean and tidy. Air conditioning has been installed in the ATW/Dalila Restaurant since our previous visit, a definite plus during the heat of the summer season here. The Dalila/ATW Manager, Mustafa went on vacation a couple of days after we arrived, but we did have chance to have a couple of chats with him. He is a lovely guy, very courteous and respectful and it was nice to see him again.
For lunch every day we went over to the T-Bones Restaurant where they serve a selection of made to order pizza, steak ,burgers, hot dogs, liver (fortunately this was only served once in the time we was there ƒº) and chips. There was also salad, fruit and a few other items to choose from. We enjoyed everything but the liver ƒ¼. It was lovely to sit in the shade from the mid-day sun with a nice breeze to keep you cool. Our friend Islam Ibrahim always came over from his bar to serve us our favourite cocktails (Non-alcoholic during the day, for us)
One of the things we like about the SRMR is that we are free to do whatever we like. We just go to basically chill out and do little else but sunbathe, rest, eat and drink, all in moderation of course! There are loads of organised activities during the day and evening.
The Night Manager Mr Salah Mahdy is another of this hotel's really good managers. Even tho he is one of the busiest people in the hotel, he always made time for a quick chat whenever we saw him.
One of the tests of a hotel's popularity is its number of repeat guests. Friends of ours have visited the hotel on 14 occasions, and they have met people who have returned to the SRMR for 27 visits! Real proof that the hotel is getting most things right! We ourselves have been 3 times, already, booked again for next spring and again in the late summer. Many other guests are returning year after year. Even on our first visit we settled in quickly and found the staff to be exceptionally good. Treat them with respect, dignity and good manners and the service you receive from them will be repaid many times over.
Unique Quality: The SRMR may not be the most luxurious hotel in the world, but its value for money is 2nd to none!!!
