We were a bit put off by our first view of the run up to the hotel. The surrounding area is very barren but will obviously be developed in the future. The room we were allocated was really good. It was on the ground floor overlooking the large pool area. The room was cleaned every day and fresh towels were provided every day. There is no hairdryer in the room but fortunately we had taken our own. I believe you are able to borrow one from reception. The reception staff on the whole were ok with the exception of one or two who seemed unable to speak or understand English. The one major problem is safety deposit boxes. We experienced problems in trying to obtain one. We were told on the first day to come back later and one would have been reserved for us. You can probably guess what happened, we went back and no box had been reserved. This happened 3 times and finally they did manage to give us one. The problem is there are over 300 rooms and only 150 boxes. Common sense would dictate that it would be better to situate the boxes in the rooms.

There is building work going on all the time around the hotel which you can hear if you stay around the pool area. There are mechanical diggers making a loud clanging noise from 10:00am until about 4:00pm. We went down to the beach to escape the noise. There is a small open bus provided to take you down to the beach - free of charge and the drivers are very pleasant. The beach area is fine. The entertainment group start at about 11:00am and the music blares out disturbing any peace you thought you may have had. They stop at around about 1:00pm and commence again at 3:00pm. Quite a few of the people on the beach asked that the music be turned down.

We stayed all inclusive for one week and on the whole enjoyed the experience. The food is ok but very samey. I would say that in our opinion this hotel does not cater very well for small children.

we spent 2 weeks at the sol sharm and as it was our 4th trip to Egypt we had an idea what to expect.
If you want luxury go elsewhere but if you want a bargain, clean hotel with pleasant staff book the sol sharm. I found the hotel a bit tired looking but clean.

ROOMS= twinbeds,mini fridge,TV, couple of chairs and coffee table. Bathroom large vanity mirror,shower over the bath. No hairdryer so take your own or you can get one from reception.

RESTAURANT= Each night they have a theme night but all the food was the same(the norm in egypt) its buffet style didnt find it very hot but you wont starve, they have a pasta chef everyday who makes it in front of you.

POOLS= 2 pools split within the resort, large pool has a bar and a restaurant around it and is near the health club, childrens pool is small but much more peaceful.

BEACH=you can walk to the beach or you can take the free shuttle bus down, we spent nearly everyday here not to big but does it get busy they also have a bar on the beach that is open from 10am.They have a jetty out in to the sea but most of the coral is dead but while there we saw a large selection of sealife exp. parrot fish,butterfly fish,picasso fish the best was a lionfish and an octopus that changed colour in front of me it was fantastic.

SHUTTLE BUS= the hotel have a shuttle bus that goes in to naama and old sharm 3 times a day it cost 2 euro to naama and 3 euro to old sharm so when you get fed up with the food in the hotel it is easy to get in to town, you can gat a taxi back from naama for about 50EP agree the price before you get in.

STAFF= we found mostly helpful and happy to help but not always on the look out for tips as it has been in some of the hotels we have stayed in. They do have their work cut out with some very rude guests.Our room boy did towel sculptures most days swans, bunnies , flowers etc.

ENTERTAINMENT= one word CHEESY ok for young kids but if you have a brain cell make your own or go in to naama bay, they have a disco at 9pm for the kids followed with the show at 10pm. The entertainment staff also work through the day with keepfit,yoga, belly dancing etc

BARS= they have 1 at the beach,1 at the pool and 2 indoors. AI drinks can be a bit like paint stripper but they do sell brand drinks as well but expensive but once you have a few cocktails you wont have any taste buds left anyway so why bother.

GOOD POINTS V's BAD POINTS= it was a bargain and near the sea, Bad points RUSSIANS , large mix of guests italians, german, spanish,english but the worst was the Russian guests very rude to other guests and the staff and no table manners what so ever.
would i go back again? yes if i could get another bargain that we had but if i had to pay more No i would go elsewhere

We stayed at this hotel for a week from the beginning of March. The hotel is very clean and the majority of the staff are very helpful - we had a problem with the reception staff - they were at times abrupt.
The food is the same every day - but i think this is something that happens in a lot of all inclusive hotels - breakfast was very good.
Drinks are served in very small glasses - so a couple of gulps and your beer is finished - it isn't very strong. The bars do have a few cocktails but wine is only served with lunch and dinner.

At the bottom of the hotel there is a building site, this didn't bother us too much as we went to the private beach (less than 5 min walk or free bus if you want) and you couldn't hear it. If you stayed at the pool you would be able to.

the main problem with the hotel is how isolated it is, Naami Bay is approx 30 mins on coach for bars and resturants. The beach is clean and the sea life is fantastic

I must start this review by saying im writing this in the comfort of my own home on the 24th of February. Why is this significant? Because my stay at the Sol Sharm officially ends tomorrow yet my girlfriend and I paid £85 pounds each to come back a few days early (21st Feb). So we booked a 2 week holiday and only stayed for 10 days. So let me begin...

(I apoligize for the length of the review, skip to the last paragraph for the sum up if you want a quick read).

My girlfriend and I are 18 years old and in the last year have finished our A Levels and gone straight into full time employment. After lots of hard work and stress we wanted nothing more than a couple of weeks away somewhere hot to completely relax. Sol Sharm seemed ideal, all inclusive, good Egyptian climate and pretty good price. In reality it wasn't ideal at all. The biggest problem we found was the location of the hotel, situated about 15 minutes from the airport it was in the middle of nowhere. The first few days this wasn't a problem, the weather was great and we had no problems spending the day by the pool soaking up the sun, getting up only to eat lunch. When the weather got too windy to sit in your underwear we found ourselves in a predicament, nothing to do at the hotel and about 25 minute taxi drive to the nearest town 'N'aaama Bay'. This is when the boredom started to hit us and we found ourselves spending more time than we would have liked watching DVDs on the little player I brought with me (smartest thing I have done ina while!).
After 5 days we decided to brave N'aama Bay, having some idea that it would involve a lot of hassle from the locals. As soon as we stepped out the taxi some guys decended on us asking how we were and where we were from etc. All the while ushering us to a certain zebra crossing in the road (we were dropped off by the main road) so he could walk us across and expect some money in return. Luckily my girlfriend spotted another crossing in the opposite direction so we managed to break away and use that. We then walked down past the N'aama Bay stalls getting chatted up the whole time. The men constantly try and hook you in by asking 'Where you from?' and as soon as you reply BAM they are there over you trying to sell you their grandma. I politely said 'No Thankyou' but that didnt work. They stay in your face so you just have to be a bit 'rude' and just walk off.
An Egyptian selling english newspapers then approached me and wouldnt leave me alone until i bought one of his 2 day old papers. I made the mistake of picking one up and that was a big mistake coz once that paper was in my hands he was not taking it back unless I coughed up some dinero. Anyway I digress, to cut the N'aaama Bay experiance short it involved so much hassle I felt uncomfortable and unwilling to return.

So back to the hotel, N'aama Bay was out of the question so we had to find a way to pass the time whilst we were there. On the second day we each paid £40 for a 2 and a half hour Spa treatment session which included a coffee scrub, massage and sauna session. I had a great time, it was relaxing and enjoyable being pampered. My girlfriend however was chatted up and leched over by a complete unproffesional which ruiend her experiance. We were seperated for our coffee scrub and massage sessions and met up inbetween in the sauna where she told me her 'masseuse' would tell her he missed her when he returned to her and would start most of his sentences with ' Don't tell you're boyfriend but...'. Ok so he was only being 'nice' but when you are in a vulnerable situation and paying good money you don't want that sort of behaviour. She got a lot of 'compliments' from the Egyptian men and in N'aama Bay I constantly had 'Lucky Man' being shouted at me. It felt like I was amongst of British Building site with all the comments shouted. The icing on the cake was on our final night when we were using the internet facilities (3 ten year old computers) and behing us were two Egyptian men delighting over a naked woman showing off her backside on her webcam. Right behind us with no attempt to hide what they were doing. The internet facility is also located in the Spa resort area of the hotel which is obviously the centre of sexual frustration in the hotel so women beware.

Now the food, the one thing which everyone has criticized is the food, and with good reason. The first few days it was alright, a nice selection of pasta, fish, chicken, salad and bread. Unfortuantley none of the dishes tasted brilliant so after day 4 when you have tried everything you find yourself eating the same food everyday and become fed up with it all. We mostly lived on pasta and bread so with our carb-full diets we found ourselves to be starving an hour or 2 after eating.The best meal we had was out of eating hours when we paid £2.50 for burger and chips. Now I'm very open minded with food, I enjoyed the octopus and Koftka that they served and I'm not one of those people who complain if there is no chips and pizza on the menu, it's just we never actually had a proper meal because you end up trying and picking at all the different things on offer and not eating much of any of it because of the taste. So to have a basic and tasty burger was great and properly filling with no hunger pangs in the following hours.

I found the staff to be quite helpful, but obviously their attitudes vary from customer to customer because we didnt recieve the same level of service that others have written/said about. They are friendly nonetheless, most of them anyway. We didn't have any personal bad experiances with the russians althought their arrogance annoyed me, especially in the bar. When queuing for a drink which we were told to do at a specific place at the bar, the russians would march in and bark orders for a coffee and get it right away whilst me and others will be left dumbstruck at why we were having to que. The beer was alright, supposedly 5% vol. which is Stella strength yet it definitley wasn't. It tasted weaker than Fosters and takes quite a few to get tipsy. The local spirits were undrinkable unless mixed in with one of the super sugary sweet cocktails. Although you can't have more than 2 of them without OD-ing on sugar.

So to sum things up, I don't want to completely slag Sol Sharm off nor give it a bad review. It's a nice hotel however not ideal for a 2 week stay, especially if you are 18-25. If I went for a week I would of given a much more favorable review. The problem is after a week you start to find the little things really grinding on you and the negative comments begin. The weather was good, the place was clean and the food WASNT bad. But the lack of entertainment and situation of the hotel made us want to leave early and spend the last few days of our holiday relaxing at home where we have things to do. One more thing to mention, the staff treated us like lepers when we told them we were checking out early. They were demanding an explanation (why do they need one?) then as we walked away from the reception desk they shouted for us to come back and ordered us to write in words on paper our reason for leaving early. I mean wtf?