Serenity Fun City Resort — Hotel in Makadi Bay

Very Disappointed. How this Hotel has such a good rating is beyond me. Overall i feel that we are highly overpaid for this holiday. We booked via Tui (Germany), and paid over €6k, for 2 adults and a child, 10 nights all inclusive. The good reviews helped make our decision, how could so many people be wrong i thought? Well In my opinion, they are because it is not even close to a 3 star standard. To give some context, i have travelled to over 30 countries, have stayed in Hurgarda before in 2019, and also lived in sharm el sheikh for 6 months previously. We are as happy camping in a field, in our own tent, as we are staying in 5 star hotels in New York or Moscow! We have reasonable expectations, The price / quality ratio here was probably the worst i have experienced in my life. The standard of the rooms was a joke. Parts of the hotel are very dirty. The hotel was very badly renovated in the beginning and now is falling apart. We booked this hotel as we were hoping for guaranteed good weather in April, and for the activities to help keep our 13 year old daughter entertained as we were travelling without some key family members for the first time. The Weather, activities and the Animation team saved the holiday!

The water pressure in the shower was at times none existent. We had to tie a hair band around the tap to keep the water coming out of the shower head rather than the tap. When we arrived the handle on the door was missing so we could not close the bathroom door (which was also heavily water damaged). And the tiling was so bad it was funny. Throughout the entire hotel the tiling in the bathrooms was another level of awful. There were no shelves or hooks in the bathroom, only the worktop at the side of the sink for our things. The toilet whilst working, was heavily stained. In our ten day stay we were left with an insufficient number of towels on four occasions. The first time we called reception, but they took over an hour to bring replacements, by which point we had already left to meet a diner reservation.

The room was very dirty. It was clear that they only make the beds, and sweep the floor. The fridge, and surfaces do not get cleaned. No dusting takes place either. Or cleaning of the mirrors or windows. We complained numerous times about this, and were offered some free bottles of soft drinks (to put in our still dirty fridge)! To be fair, it looked from his cleaning trolley that the cleaner had very few tools to do his job efficiently!

The room door had been very badly fitted and had a gap, which meant that we were often woken by other inconsiderate guests (of which the hotel had many) being noisy returning to their rooms in the night. After a few days we noticed that the balcony door was also broken and would not lock. Thankfully we were on an upper floor that did not share a balcony. There was no clothes iron, and only 8 hangers in the wardrobe, for 3 of us. We tried to spend as little time as possible in the room as it was depressing.

Wifi in the room was almost unusable. You had to hang around in the hotel reception, to get a decent signal, and even then it kicked you out after a few minutes.

Overall the food was very good. In the main buffet restaurant, the selection of different types of breads, Salad, deserts was especially good. Sometimes I feel there could have been a few more options for the main meal, especially for children. But everyday the menu was different and varied. There are a number of a la carte restaurants for a small extra fee. We ate at the French, Italian and the Asian. We were very impressed by the service, quality and price on each occasion.

My only complaint in this area was that they were very slow at cleaning and resetting up the tables.

In summary, if you can get a good deal here, the food, entertainment team and childrens activities are as good as anywhere else. But you certainly wont be posting your holiday pictures on Instagram, because the...

Two stars is me being generous, still, because I'm having very mixed feelings about this hotel.

Let me start off by saying that we expected more, a lot more from a 5-star rated hotel and that this (considered as it is classed as a 5-star hotel) is how I will review the hotel on.

The rooms are atrocious. Not worthy of a 5-star hotel in the slightest. The first room we had, which was on the first floor of building 5 was without an elevator (there is only one elevator in the entire complex, which is close to the reception and unable to get to from building 5 without encountering a staircase (in case you're on levels 1 or 2). Very handy if you have a stroller and a one year old baby (not!!!). This was not mentioned anywhere when we looked to book the hotel, otherwise we would've opted for a different hotel.

We then got transferred to a different room after complaining that it wasn't doable with a small baby and a stroller, the room was more spacious with a nice garden view, but the room itself was dated, much like the previous one.

The beds are dingy and not that stable, the mattresses are too old to lay on and quite frankly, cause you backpains. The rooms (the whole hotel, really) were cleaned with dirty cleaning supplies, the beds weren't changed ONCE when we were there and towels (even when left on the ground, as requested) were often put back as 'clean'.

The main restaurant is a pig stable when it's busy. The food is tasteless and the drinks are pure sugar. The only positive about the whole restaurant is the staff, they're so helpful and so polite, absolutely love children. The restaurant also opens WAY too late to be child friendly (6:30PM).

The restaurants by the pools were OK-ish. The food was bland and tasteless and mostly full of fat. Drinks, again, were pure sugar.

As for the Luna Park, yes you get free tickets when you're all inclusive, but only for one hour per day. Between 7:30PM and 8:30PM. Sorry, but that's not an all inclusive.

The shops (and the medics) rip you off where you're standing. A few visits, some antibiotics, examinations and the bill presented neared €5000. Luckily we were insured, but beware visiting the doctors here. The photographers, while very friendly, will try to sell you packages and put you off on selecting the photos you want (I'm not buying pictures where people are pictured with their eyes closed, I'm sorry). If they want higher prices, start with a starting price, but pushing people to buy the packages worth hundreds of euro's when you say purchasing even just a few photos is fine without a surcharge, is not a way of working. For context, I selected about 30 photo's and it cost €258.

The reception is disinterested, although helpful. They are very difficult about letting Uber/external drivers in for safety, which I understand, but when you notify them, even then they still keep being difficult about letting them in.

The submarine boat people in the lobby conveniently 'forgot' to inform us the bus had arrived us to take us to the boat. When we had been sat in front of their desk in the lobby for one hour and a half and had arrived half an hour before they had requested us to arrive. I was very pushy to provide us with a refund and that they were at fault for forgetting us, when we'd even called out to them and asked them how long it would be taking. When they up and left, I headed on over to the reception to tell them what had happened, which eventually triggered the guys of the boating company to provide us a full refund.

Really, the only good thing about the hotel, was the cleanliness and upkeep of the hotel grounds and the pools. That's about it.

Never again...

We do a lot of travel all over Carribbean, Europe and Egypt l and like all inclusive so take a balanced approach to reviews.

This Lovely hotel and we would all definitely return.

This place is very well run and kept immaculately clean. Even pool and beach toilets were kept immaculate unlike most places we have been in Egypt! Lovely hard working cleaning staff everywhere you look.

We all had a great time here and it's brilliant for kids . Our son is 13 and had a great time we hardly saw him he had such fun. Lots of other kids to meet.

The aqua park was on as par with one you would pay for excellent selection of sides felt safe,

Luna park was free for 45 mins a day (special offer usually 30).

Buffet very good today lamb, duck, beef , kebabs , BBQ every night and lots of stations. Cooked well and plentiful. Chef amazing if you want something you can't see he will get it for you from the kitchen to your table.

Adult only section for seeing was nice touch.

Pools immaculate, staff will always find you sun beds.

Lovely staff in a hard month was mid to high 30s while we were there and Ramadan saved they still worked really hard.

Mohammed and Ahmed at beach bar great

Ramadan at pool bar really lovely

Snacks cooked freshly to order at the beach bar restaurant were excellent.

Very wide choice of snack bars from aqua park, really good choice not just the usual burger and chips

Our room. 5210 was lovely and kept really clean and well stocked, never shy issue with clean towels etc thank you. Great location massive king sauce bed and put up need for our son.

One free WiFi card on arrival 8gn lasted a week.

Amazing Street party Easter Monday really pulled out all the stops bucking bronco inflatable footy bouncy castles, fire does dance shows, style walkers, kids characters, live bands and singers

Quality of dance shows in theatre professional tango one was great as was circus show and oriental is a favourite too. Singer outside every night also as an alternative. Evenings were low key here.

TVs showing sports by the arcade

You are out of the way here so not a shoppers paradise I'm afraid but you can get taxis easily from hotel pre paid returns if that's your thing.

You pay extra for pool table 100egptian

You pay extra for tennis court day or night it was 100egptian.

No al a cartes included at all really be really unusual for AI and a waste as they were mostly empty. If you got one per week you may be more inclined to re book or try others

You could buy arcade tokens and ride tokens and not a mega rip off at all, 200 Egyptian for 16 tokens. Great arcade was open till 11pm.

Free crazy golf by beach very well kept not no putters make it very difficult lol 7 irons?

Volleyball and kids play area by beach can be used also.

Great snorkeling off the beach jetty and a dive school on site.... Shame about dumb tourists trampling past the red flags low tide killing the small corals that take decades to grow THE FLAGS ARE TO PROTECT THE CORAL AND WILDLIFE don't ignore them please.

be in aware this is NOT shared facilities with serenity beach you can walk through and use beach bar and restaurant but not savvy other bars not the quieter pools or bars... ridiculous really and again not like any other AI I've ever used with more than one resort on site. What difference does it make if I want to sit at a quiet pool and have a beer .... Same chain same drinks same shared site etc.... They should reconsider this.

All in all a great place nice modern stylish feel to lobby and restaurants, we would...