I'd recommend thr quad bikes trip in Sharm go for a late afternoon/dusk booking, fantastic riding throught desert and mountains.
Also a decent boat/snorkelling trip, I will dig out my stuff and let you know which company we went with, wooden sailing boat, drink & food all day and loads of stop offs for diving/swimming, Sharm is the snorkeling/diving capital of the world apparently.
We went there in October with three kids under eight. Loved it. Sharm is a tourist magnet with all that entails, but it is relaxed, relatively cheap, child friendly and the sea is utterly fantastic. We went on lots of boat/coach trips to beaches where the snorkling was superb. I haven't had as much fun in years.
Also flew up to Cairo for a couple of days. The city is a smog-ridden dump but the pyramids and the museum are astonishing. You can climb on the pyramids to an extent and more importantly go inside them. Funny how attitudes to these things differ between countries. In places like Cairo and Naples you can walk around and on the pyramids or Pompeii and really get a feel for them. If they were in the UK they would be cordoned off by the National trust and you wouldn't get within a mile, like stonehenge.
[cite]Posted By: Ledge[/cite]anyone been with the kid?
bored of europe fancy a change looks stunning - but reading some of these comments. but then some of clowns comments mean nish lol
I went (without child) but despite being of iron stomach and being massively careful with hand wash got the shits a few time. So, my guess is that a kid who gets their paws in everything and tend to be more susceptible than adults to that kind of thing would, would turn into a squirty shit dispenser for two weeks. I'd say Solidgone's advice above is as good a summary of it as anything, if you want to go to Sharm, don't go to Dahab. I like travel and I've been to some out of the way/tricky places like Columbia, India, Brazil and Equador and enjoyed them; Sharm's the only place that's struck me as an awful shit hole that I'd never go back to. A mixture of the worst kind of Benidorm chavvery and third world filth. Locals, as they'll do anyplace where there's a massive cash imbalance are all about hassle: but worse than I've ever seen, and appeared to be almost uniformly dishonest. It's just a relentless attempt to rip off westeners. Throw Russians into the mix (there's millions of them there, for some reason, and they're as classless a nationality as you could (n)ever hope to meet).
People rave about the scuba, but I even thought that was pretty poor. Sure there's zillions of fish, but there's also zillions of divers, so you spent most of the time with some baffled incompetent bumbling into you. Spent half my dives putting my reg back in my mouth as it was constantly finned out by flappers.
On the positive side, the weather is unbeatable. Lovely dry heat, perfect sunshine and reasonably cool in the evenings.
If you leave the Sharm area you need a visa, you can get one at the airport when you land but make sure you got the right money because they won't give you any change, if don't leave Sharm then don't let them con you into buying one coz you don't need it...There's plenty of things to see and do in and around Sharm where you don't need a visa....Egyptians are really nice people, they might act a bit thick at times but they're deinitely not, they'll sell you a bag of camel shiite if you're daft enough not to look in the bag before you leave the shop, and don't forget to haggle, they love it and expect it and the more you haggle the more they respect you for it, I got a lovely AK47 for just a couple of hundred dinar...And as for the Russians, they may act as if they own the place but they're really great fun once you get to know them, they're really interested in the English an most of them speak surprisingly good English...
[cite]Posted By: Ledge[/cite]anyone been with the kid?
bored of europe fancy a change looks stunning - but reading some of these comments. but then some of clowns comments mean nish lol
A mixture of the worst kind of Benidorm chavvery and third world filth.
That's pretty much it summed up in my experience but if you don't want to leave the hotel and can put up with a freezing cold pool (why do they do that?) then it'll be fine. I think there's another thread on this somewhere.
In 1987/88 I taught in a school in Cairo and we used to go to Sharm el sheikh at weekends. There were three hotels, one always empty because it was Israeli owned. We used to sleep in tents on the beach (not our tents, you hired them) and hire dive gear from one of two huts. I wish I'd bought some land while I was there...
Haven't been back to Cairo but it was a great place to live and full of stunning history.
Comments
Also a decent boat/snorkelling trip, I will dig out my stuff and let you know which company we went with, wooden sailing boat, drink & food all day and loads of stop offs for diving/swimming, Sharm is the snorkeling/diving capital of the world apparently.
bored of europe fancy a change looks stunning - but reading some of these comments. but then some of clowns comments mean nish lol
Iberotel palace 5star lovely hotel good entertainment and lovely beach area.
Also flew up to Cairo for a couple of days. The city is a smog-ridden dump but the pyramids and the museum are astonishing. You can climb on the pyramids to an extent and more importantly go inside them. Funny how attitudes to these things differ between countries. In places like Cairo and Naples you can walk around and on the pyramids or Pompeii and really get a feel for them. If they were in the UK they would be cordoned off by the National trust and you wouldn't get within a mile, like stonehenge.
People rave about the scuba, but I even thought that was pretty poor. Sure there's zillions of fish, but there's also zillions of divers, so you spent most of the time with some baffled incompetent bumbling into you. Spent half my dives putting my reg back in my mouth as it was constantly finned out by flappers.
On the positive side, the weather is unbeatable. Lovely dry heat, perfect sunshine and reasonably cool in the evenings.
That's pretty much it summed up in my experience but if you don't want to leave the hotel and can put up with a freezing cold pool (why do they do that?) then it'll be fine. I think there's another thread on this somewhere.
In 1987/88 I taught in a school in Cairo and we used to go to Sharm el sheikh at weekends. There were three hotels, one always empty because it was Israeli owned. We used to sleep in tents on the beach (not our tents, you hired them) and hire dive gear from one of two huts. I wish I'd bought some land while I was there...
Haven't been back to Cairo but it was a great place to live and full of stunning history.