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 | Sharm El Sheikh General Tips | Tips 1 - 10 of 81 |  |
Popular General Tips | Miscellaneous General Tips Tips | All Tips (81)  | |  |  | Organised day trips | Tip Rating:   |  |  | |  |
The traffic in Egypt is pretty crazy, and for most tourists it's really not advisable to rent a car - so organised day trips are often a good, cheap option when you want to see a bit of southern Sinai. There's a huge number of travel agents and tour operators in Sharm, most offering seemingly identical day trips by car and boat. There are many different trips available, the most popular seem to be the ones to Ras Mohamed (by car or boat), the Coloured Canyon, St. Catherine's monastery, Mount Sinai - as well as the quad trips in the desert, the camel rides and the bedouin dinners... We went to Ras Mohamed by car and by boat, and to St. Catherine's monastery. The cost of the trips varies quite a bit, and it is always a good idea to check with several tour operators before booking a trip. Checklist: questions you might want to ask the tour operator: * Approx. how many tourists will be on the trip - many of the tours seemed to be *very* crowded. * What kind of car / minibus do you use, and how long does it take to reach the destination - some of the minibuses were pretty uncomfortable & crowded * For how long will we actually be snorkelling / riding the camel / whatever the trip is about;o) - this seemed to vary *a lot* with the different companies * Is snorkelling gear / entrance fees included - some tour operators will quote you a price that includes everything, others won't. Be aware that schedules & such usually seem to change a bit after you've booked your trip - take what your tour operator tells you, and assume that things will be ...perhaps 25% worse than what he says... ;o) (Snorkelling for a shorter time, the Russian guide you were promised might not be all that fluent in the language after all, more people in the bus etc...;o) We are usually not the "group tour"-kind of tourists, but the trips we went on were quite ok and well worth it. Leave a Comment
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There is a Sun 'n Fun excursion desk at the Hilton Fayrouz, Novotel and Marriott (on the beach). You can book the following types of excursions a day in advance: Arabian Horse riding USD20 Camel rides in the desert USD15Discovery Glass bottomed boat LE55 Ras Mohammed snorkelling USD20 St Catherine & Dahab USD40 Mount Moses & St Catherine USD45 Coloured Canyon, Dolphin Beach & Dahab USD50 Bedouin Dinner USD35 Quad runners USD35 By plane to: Luxor USD265 Cairo USD 285
www.sunnfunsinai.com Leave a Comment
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| | | | Prepare for the heat! | Tip Rating: | | | | |
Ok fellow tourists, you may have heard like us before we left for Sharm, that it might be wise to take a sweater for the evening (we were travelling early May). I'm so glad we didn't bother! We reckoned that daytime temps must have topped 40 degrees......as you can see from the photo, it was even 32 degrees at 8pm, and that was with a cloudless sky. A cloudless sky usually cools things down a little as there are no clouds keeping the heat in. This was definately the hottest destination we have visited and you can see from my travel pages where else we have been to compare it to.
So, my advice is if you are travelling between April - September, rest assured it will be hot hot hot!! I am a sun lover and if it wasn't for the lovely breeze, I think I would have struggled in this heat (can't believe I'm saying that!). Therefore, I would advise you that you are likely to fry during the months of June - September, where temperatures are WAY into the 40's according to our travel rep, Sayed of Cosmos. One thing that did help us was a true once a day sun protection lotion called Ultrasun, which we got from www.ifsogo.com in the UK. This helped us not to get burned like with other sun lotions we have used in the past where it's easy to forget to reapply it after you come out of the pool, or after a few hours in the sun. With Ultrasun, we applied it once in the morning and then could forget about reapplying for the whole day :-) Leave a Comment
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Just remember everything you wish to buy has a negotiable price, there are one or two shops that I came across in Fantasia that had fixed price stickers on things, but this is very unusual. Haggle for everything start as low as you can ( hubby would start at a penny!)and look to pay about a third to a half of what he first said it was worth! Just enjoy it, dont feel aggro. Leave a Comment
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| | | | Camels! (Or dromedaries, actually:o) | Tip Rating: | | | | |
The camels of Egypt are actually (almost) all dromedaries (one hump) - when you do a trip into the Sinai desert you'll get to see *loads* of these cool animals... :o) You'll see some camels walking about on their own in the desert, there are many in bedouin settlements along the road - and if you visit Mount Sinai, St. Catherine's Monastery or any other places where tourists gather, there will be plenty of camels all saddled up and ready to go - the bedouins hanging around the area will more or less constantly be offering you camel rides.. :o) I'm quite fascinated by camels - you've just *got* to love their looong, thick, curly eye-lashes (which help keeping desert sand and dust out of the camel's eyes) and the huge, sharp funny-looking teeth (which along with the sturdy lining of its mouth enables the camel to eat thorny desert bushes). The camels are chewing more or less constantly, slowly moving its jaw from side to side, the big yellow teeth protruding - occasionally you'll hear a loud gurgling noise as one of 'em regurgitates yet another load of food to chew on... :o) The camel is known as the "ship of the desert" - and it does sway quite notably from side to side when it's walking, as it always moves both legs on the same side together - this, along with the wide cushioned feet, prevents the animal from sinking into the desert sand. Beautiful animals - and so well adapted to their harsh desert environment! (Oh, and they're photogenic too!;o) Leave a Comment
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