The Makadi Palace Hotel — Hotel in Makadi Bay

The architect who designed it surely deserves 5 stars and a raise!:-) It is typically oriental in style and the lush greenery adds to the general atmosphere of the place. The rooms are huge and beautifully designed, though the furniture and the linen are very old. The wardrobe in the hall has no doors, so your clothes will be exposed to anyone who comes to your room. The lush greenery in the complex comes with the cost of falling leaves and flowers everywhere. The hotel manager might want to insist on cleaning the are constantly. Gardeners tend to sit in the shadow a lot and pretend working. No tea/ coffee in your room. Cleaning is also an issue in the main restaurant, The Melange - the handles of the doors are sticky, the glass on the door has oily prints all over, and I had an impression that even the cutlery is slightly sticky there. The old wooden doors are being pushed with hundreds of hands every day, whereas the Dome (spectacular restaurant but only offers dinners) has automatic sliding doors. The same old sticky wooden doors in the Discovery Restaurant but this one makes up with the service/ food choice. The waiters are just well mannered and well behaved, unlike some in the Melange (very pushy and obvious in demanding a tip). The same good mannerism in the Dome. I haven't tried the A La Carte restaurants (Thai & Botanical) although advertised daily on the beach. The beach is a small distance walk and it offers lounges (old but sturdy, old mattresses) and sunshades (quite old, not opaque enough to block the sun). The beach itself doesn't match the luxurious looking aspect of the hotel premises, as it looks old, outdated and poor. There are guys who bring you the mattress and insist on placing the beach towel on it (too obvious). The entrance in sea at Makadi Palace beach is via corals - quite flat at the beginning but a lot more difficult to walk on after 100 m. It opens at 9 and closes at 5:30. You can swim along and above (quite a new experience for me) the coral all the way from the pontoon to Stella di Mare if you want. The pontoon opens at 10 and closes at 5 pm. Snorkeling here is definitely not as interesting as in Marsa Alam. The beach towels are provided everyday in the room, around 6 pm (one odd aspect I found unpleasant as it is the first hotel where you cannot exchange your towel yourself and "need" a service provided for it!). It got me by surprise when there was a knock at the door on the first day. After sunbathing all day long the only thing you are looking forward to is having a shower not staying dressed up and waiting for the knock & towel as the guy insisted he came by your room to drop a clean towel (although I ran into him almost every day on the corridor). Every employee makes sure you understand they expect a tip - and they invented a service for actions you could we'll do them by yourself. If you an extra 100 euros to pay everyone, good for you. But for me, the constant "only for you, madame" was quite annoying. Beach Services - BIG NOPE!!! It's not how it should be done! There isn't what I call a Beach Bar but a beverage station that opens at 10 - bad idea if you ask me (had to carry my water on the beach every day in a thermos and my coffee in a plastic mug I had packed). The entire beachfront is rocky from the pontoon (Grand Makadi) to Makadi Spa (very fancy hotel). After that, the entrance in the sea is sandy and suited for families with children (Grand Waterworld Makadi & Fort Arabesque).There are shops and different services by the beachfront and a wide, beautifully paved alley that offers relaxing walks in the evenings. The events I saw organized was a disco on the beach on Wednesday (14 euros entry) and some jet ski show in the big pool on Friday (some entrance fee). Out of the 4 hotels managed by Red Sea hotels in Makadi Bay, The Makadi Palace seems the little poor sister. I will not...

Worst hotel I’ve ever stayed in. So first of all: This is supposed to be a 5 star all inclusive hotel. It’s everything but. The only thing that’s free here is the horrible food and the nastiest drinks you can possibly imagine. Fun fact: even if you were willing to pay, you have to go to a restaurant or out of the hotel to drink or eat something decent. But that costs money and they are not shy asking 3-4 times the real price of things. As an example: 1 alcohol free cocktail that consists of a fruit juice (not from real fruits, from a can) and sprite costs €3,5. Now you might wonder why I’m talking euros here when this is a hotel in Africa. The reason is that EVERYTHING is priced in euros but all the ATMs only give you Egyptian pounds. And when it comes to the conversion they obviously change it on the worst rate you’ll ever see. If you ever decide to waste your money and time on this place, at least try to avoid the people going up to you on the beach/around the pools. These people are basically scammers that operate legally on the site of the hotel. They will try and get you to go to spa, safari, or attend the programmes all for extra charge. When there is an event, (eg. “disco night”) they would charge you €15-20 for it. They offered us a photoshoot and said we only have to buy the photos that we like. This took around 30 minutes and the next day when I offered the guys to buy all the pictures that he took, (bare in mind I’m talking unedited pictures here) he said he’ll give me a discount and quoted €415 for all the pictures. If you live in the 21st century and require internet for your stay, be prepared to pay €25 for a week for 1 device, but the speed is very bad, disconnects every 2 minute and whenever it reconnects asks for the password again. And again. And again. If you have a short temper I don’t recommend. (There is free wifi in the lobby which is even worse.) In terms of the rooms, they are spacious but VERY neglected. This hotel opened around 2004 but by the looks of it nothing has been updated/refurbished/fixed since. In our room all the sockets were broken, fixing hanging off, literally every corner and edge is chipped off and kind of plastered back together. I’m not sure where the water from the taps is coming from but sometimes it comes out literally yellow. Let’s talk about the food. It is terrible. I personally tried everything apart from fish, but there was nothing that would just remotely be good. All the meats they serve are dry and tasteless. There are 3 buffets and 5 a la carte restaurants. Breakfast and lunch is only served in the buffets. Dinner is served in all of them but only between 7 and 9pm (one place is until 9:30). After that you have no chance to eat anything. They literally stop serving food after 9:30 and all the restaurants close at 9pm, so if you’re planning to stay up a bit longer you might want to stock up on snacks from the shops that also close at 10pm. If you want to grab an “ice coffee” make sure to wake up late because for some reason they will tell you that they don’t make ice coffees before 10am (btw it’s milk and a sachet of Nespresso in a shaker with ice). Overall this was by far the worst hotel experience I have ever had, let alone the fact that it was supposed to be all inclusive. Be ready to spend more money in the hotel, than your whole journey costed. I hope this review will change your mind of ever...

We are a very well travelled middle aged couple and this was our first time to Makadi Bay, although we have been to Sharm 6 times. Arrival was pretty stress free although the meal in a bag (because all the food restaurants were closed after about 9.30) was totally inadequate so not the best start. We were taken to our room (300 metres from Reception) and on the 2nd floor. The room, although big enough, was nothing like shown on the internet brochure, it was tired, dismal and old fashioned. It even had an old 18" box TV??? Nevertheless it was spotlessly clean. We chose this hotel because we are avid Gym users. We were dismayed to find out that it was an extra charge to use the Gym, I couldn't believe it. We have NEVER before had to pay to use a Gym at ANY hotel and we thought this was absolutely ridiculous! We used the Gym every day at a charge of 100 Egyptian Pounds per person per day......scandalous. There wasn't even enough free weights to use, although, to be fair there was plenty of stack machines and cardio equipment. The hotel was average and no way, based on our experience was this 5 star........I'd rate this a 3 star at best. There were 2 restaurants available for breakfast, lunch and dinner.....The Dome and Melange. The Dome (or as we affectionately called it.......'the slop bucket' was far to busy for us so we tended to use Melange. A £1 tip would ensure you had your drinks brought quicker than if you didn't tip. Fair play, that's pretty standard in most Egyptian hotels. drinks were only available to collect yourself at breakfast, lunch and dinner, you had to ask a waiter.......unless you wanted tea or coffee. There were plenty of Theme restaurants and we used Indian, Chinese and the Italian. First two were great, Italian awful...........don't waste an evening. On top of that all drinks were chargeable. I don't get it, this Hotel is either All Inclusive or it's not????? There is no mention of it being 'Part All Inclusive' and to add insult to injury, most of the meals were at an additional charge too!!!!! The staff at the Italian were rude and ignorant, but to be fair, they were rushed off their feet, more staff are definitely needed!! The bars around the hotel were just ok and again a tip went a long way. just leave a pound coin on the table and the waiters will be over to you regularly. One bar, the lobby bar, charged on ALL drinks if you sat inside.......yet if you sat outside drinks were included in the 'All Inclusive' package.......stupid....I will reiterate 'All Inclusive' should mean just that!! Swimming pools were plentiful but staff would often scrub the build up of 'scum' from the sides with a brush whilst people were actually in the pools. This is NOT good. We did E Mail the manager for some of our concerns, we met him one evening and he just wasn't interested, he must have heard the same complaints a thousand times.There is loads more I could add, but to be honest we ended up having quite a good time. I know we'll probably get one of the 'standard' replies from the manager but I've been totally honest. Would we come back to this Hotel? Probably, but it would have to be at the right price. Again, charging for using the Gym is scandalous!!!!!!!! Makadi Palace, sort...