All references in this report to £ are in English Pounds

I won’t go into detail which has already been covered in previous reports so lets see if we can cover something else.

Food

We went Bed & Breakfast so we didn’t have to worry about the Russians in the evening and so ate where we wanted to.

Verdi’s Italian was excellent – could not fault it.

Sea Shore Sea Food Restaurant – they like to cook with lots of salt whether grilled or fried, if you don’t like a lot of salt then tell them up front when you order the seafood/fish at the ice counter.

They weigh up what you want and price it per 100g – for this you get a starter, soup, green salad, main course and a desert.

If we ate outside the hotel locally – 10 mins up the road to the right and second left are loads of gift shops etc. and 100 metres down opposite the shops on the right is Columbus Restaurant who do anything from lovely cheeseburger/chips/salad/garlic bread for £2.35p, bowls of cheese pasta for £3 and steak with prawns etc.

If you go into Naama bay – you must try Dananeer Grill and Seafood restaurant near Beach road – their fillet steaks are to die for and only cost £5.00.

Drink/Wines

Wines were very expensive, if you really want French then it will cost you around £40. If you want a close alternative to nice white and red try the Obilisk red which is a Shiraz grape and the Omer white which is a Pinot.

The same wines at a local Supermarket are £5.50.

Sakara Beer was £3.00 and a Scotch was £4.10 so not cheap.

A 1.5Ltr Bottled water in the hotel is £1.50 – it is £1.20 at the local supermarket but then you have to carry it 10 minutes back to the hotel.

Cheapest supermarket in all of sharm is in Naama bay near the beach – same water cost 30p!

Accomodation

We e-mailed reception a week before our holiday and asked for and got a lovely room on the lower level right next to the swimming pool and a sea view – the swimming pool was 25 feet away from the room and was ideal for popping back to change, eat or drink or use the toilet.

Positives:

Nice pools - though ladder down to baby pool !!!
Fair sized beach with comfy double mattresses
great snorkelling
good dive centre
lovely italian restaurant

Negatives ( which did outweigh the positives)

Shabby rooms - old mismatched furniture, hard mattresses, grubby floor ( and we were staying in one of the top rooms!) Cleaning not up to scratch - noticed a dead fly in corner of the room, was still there after 2 days. Perhaps if they spent a little less time on towel art......

Poor service - took 1.5 hours to get 2 coffees to our room. Similarly by the pool everything took ages. Went to latino bar one afternoon and asked for some tea and cake - was told it would be at least 30 mins as chef had to make the cake -when i said I was surprised it arrived after 20 mins - but wrong one - etc etc. Asked for room service menu - took 2 days, asked for a tv guide - took a day. I could go on.......

Restaurants - All bar the Italian one were not very good quality. Evening buffet particularly bad.

All in all - I wouldn't recommend this hotel if you are looking for a luxury 5* holiday - go and stay at the four seasons or ritz carlton. It is in my opinion not more than 3-4 *.

Resort number (circa) 400 in Sharm with little to differentiate it from others, but does that job well enough. Room was great, staff were very good, some of the other guests were obnoxious and unpleasant however. The restaurants for evening dining were very bland.

We have just returned home from a fantastic week at the Hilton Waterfalls resort. This is our fith visit to Sharm and this has certainly been the best hotel so far.

On arrival we were met with our welcome drink and a smooth booking in procedure, we were then taken by buggy to our room which was very spacious and clean and had a great sea view.

On our first night we generally eat within the hotel and this is normally the only night we do as we usually eat out in Naama Bay, however we discovered the Italian restaurant at the hotel called Verdi's is not only very reasonably priced but outstanding quality of food. So in the end we ate at Verdis at least three times (the cheese leek and potato soup starter is marvellous). Booking is a must though as it is very popular!

Breakfast is the normally buffet style set up, eggs as you like, pastries, fresh fruit etc and they have very sharp freshly squeezed orange juice. and plenty of coffee/tea.

There are many pools to choose from at this resort but the best for us was certainly the Chillax pool. It is so quiet here and most of the people appeared to be fellow Brits reading or listening to MP3 players. This pool also has the added benefit of no kids allowed! It is quiet entertaining watching the children try and get in the pool, they are quickly ushered off and the most I saw was one dip a toe!!!! The staff around the Chillax are brilliant our sunbeds were saved for us everyday thanks Waheed and Mohamed and the pool bar staff were very polite and jolly. Sayed (who never seems to go home) and Abdullah were great we only had to head in the bars general direction and our drinks were ready before we got there!

Snorkelling is also excellent here. The jetty is reached by crossing a small beach where if you want to you can lie on big mattresses however it looks a bit like a Costas resort down there and was mainly Russians so we felt it best to just pass by. This jetty is rather good as it has seats built into it so you can just sunbathe down there if you wished. We found it best to snorkel in the mornings after breakfast before the sunworshipers from Russia descend!

One down side although it did not effect us as we didnt use the service was hotel taxis they wanted to charge £20.00 English to go to Naama Bay! I dont think so!!!!! They do have a shuttle bus as well but that appeared to be very popular so you would have to book your place if you wanted to use that!

We will most certainly be returning to the Hilton Waterfalls very soon. In fact I would go back tomorrow!!!!!