Sharm El Sheikh

My friend Katherine and I went to Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt for a week to do some relaxing, sunbathing and snorkelling.

After a 5.5 hour flight, we got to the Sharm airport which was a complete disaster! We were told that if we wanted to go on any excursions that we would need a "visa". So we wander over to a little booth and each paid approx 8 pounds for this visa which looked like two postage stamps. Then we waited in a line to get through passport control....this took ages!!

After finally getting through and getting our luggage, we hop on the shuttle to the hotel and check in. The hotel didn't get the request for 2 single beds so for the first night we had to share a double before moving rooms. Not a big deal as the bed was big enough to fit 4.

The hotel itself was fab. There was a restaurant which did buffet only. It wasn't bad as there was quite a bit of variety and each night dinner had a different theme....Italian, seafood, Egyptian etc. So good thing was that we didn't get sick of the food being the same every day/night.

The entertainment was something else altogether! We were probably two out of only 10 Brits which was quite refreshing. Most of the rest of the guests were Russians or Italians and they were very into their karaoke and activities like water aerobics, stretching and dance lessons. It was a bit insane.

The holiday was exactly what we wanted it to be, relaxing. We would wake up, spend a couple of hours on the patio eating breakfast and reading books or magazines. Then it was off to the beach to lay in the sun. We rarely ate lunch and went snorkelling instead. Then it was dinner buffet, some drinking, playing cards, more reading and sleep.

We did go on a snorkelling day trip which was alright. Unfortunately we picked the one day when the weather didn't cooperate. It was quite cloudy and a bit windy which didn't make for great snorkelling. All in all it was alright but not worth the 32 pounds we paid for it. Along with that, it was a trip that we needed our visa for but nobody ever checked that we had them so we think that it is just a way of scamming 8 pounds off of each tourist. Who knows...

Unfortunately I got a cold on the Saturday, two days after arriving in Sharm and then got a stomach bug on the Monday. But....seeing as we weren't doing much of anything it didn't make that big of a difference.

Naama Bay is the town/city that is in Sharm but is an awful awful tourist area where people are always trying to grab you and drag you into their shop, sell you something or get you into their restaurant. Too much hassle and not worth going more than the once.

After a week, we were off to the airport to head home and this time it was worse than when we arrived (hard to believe). We went from one line-up to the next which lasted for about an hour and was unbelieveably painful! We finally got on the plane but ended up leaving 1.5 hours late as they had to refuel twice (the first truck didn't have enough fuel in it?!) and then they realized that nobody had cleaned the bathrooms. Quality.

It was great to have a week off and Kat and I both really enjoyed it but having said that, I would never go back to Sharm El Sheikh. It was beautiful with great weather but the airport was unbearable and there really wasn't anything to do there.