Desert Rose — Hotel in Red Sea

This is our 7th visit to this resort.| Firstly, the improvements the hotel has made throughout different areas is phenomenal. The lobby looks amazing...as does the rose bar and new Bistro restaurant and surrounding outside areas. A lot of great work has been done here and it shows. The Bella vista and Del mar restaurants have also seen amazing transformations and are wonderful. It is great to see a hotel investing in making it even more pleasant for its clients.| Secondly, although the hotel and grounds are fantastic, it is the staff here who really make your stay memorable. They are outstanding. so friendly, welcoming and genuinely happy to make your holiday special. Every member of staff strives to make your stay the best it can be. We stayed in room 4105 again and our cleaner Mohammed was great. He made sure our room was spotless and left lovely pillow art everyday. All the lads in the Tropicana bar are so friendly and eager to serve and love nothing more than having a bit of fun and a laugh with you and making your pool area experience brilliant. The same can be said for the lads in the Sunset bar and Club Soda.They truly make you welcome and ensure your drinks are topped up if you need them to be. The lads in Sand bar and Bella Vista..Thank you.|All the restaurant staff in each and every restaurant welcome you in and ensure you have the best dining experience possible. The food in the Palm is great with lots of choices every day but the food in the a la cartes is even better and the service is wonderful. We ate in all of them but think the Del Mar and the new Bistro are our favourites. The breakfast in the Del Mar is fantastic with excellent service and wonderful views. | There are though, some staff who we have become especially fond of they deserve an extra mention....|Lucia in guest relations is a lovely person who goes the extra mile, even before you get to resort, to make sure everything is exactly as it should be when you arrive and is there throughout your time in resort to speak to should you have any little issues at all.|We didn't and all was perfect for us. Think she thought of everything beforehand.|Thank you very much Lucia!|Mamhoud in Harrys bar is also such a genuinely nice person who wants you to have the best experience possible while you are there. |Special thanks too to Omar, Mohammed and Adham in all the bars.|Mohammed in the Bistro. Thanks for being so welcoming and serving such lovely food. It was an absolute delight to eat here. Thank you.|All the lads serving our breakfasts in the Del Mar. We had great banter every morning and the service you guys provide is second to none. You all made us feel at home and so welcome there. Think your manager teaches you well.....and on that note.....last but not least is our true friend Adel in the Del Mar...He is a truly genuinely nice man who cannot do enough for you. He is such an asset to the hotel. He strives to make sure you want for nothing and each day you enjoy your stay as much as possible. Again this shows in the way he trains his staff at the Del Mar as they all too are very welcoming as I have mentioned before. Adel also will go out of his way to help you in any way he can while you are enjoying your holiday. I needed a bit of help with medication I ran out of and he was right there to help put things right.|Thank you for everything Adel and we miss you already!!|All in all this is a fantastic hotel where the all the staff go the extra mile to ensure your holiday is the best it can be. This is why we, and lots of other guests, keep coming back. The management here have got it exactly right...They re-invest in improving the hotel in all departments. But most of all they in-still an ethic in their staff, that from the top manager right through the ranks of department managers, bar and restaurant staff, gardeners and the cleaners that they serve and look after their guests amazingly...and with a smile on their faces. The staff are well looked after and so they can look after the guests just as well...|The only improvement I think the hotel could make is easier access into all pools as we did struggle using the ladders as my wife's mobility is limited and I had a knee issue unfortunately...We seen quite a few elderly guests struggling to access them too. A gradual ramp or steps and handrail would make all the difference.|Thanks to everyone at the Desert Rose for another amazing holiday.|Sorry if I missed any names out..|See you all soon...as we will definitely be back again shortly.!!!|Graham and Mo Cannell ...

This place is marvelous.

Rooms: Very clean, definetly not 5 star resort room by European standards, but still very nice, they are cleaned every day, you get your mini fridge restocked, toilet paper, towels, everything ! There is also a metal safe where you can keep your valuables. There is also a phone you can use to call the reception to handle any issues or requests.

Food and Drinks : Food is amazing, and you can eat almost any part of the day, multiple times, whenever you want, which is amazing. There are plenty of beverages too, tea, juice, coffee, water, etc …. all free. The amount of different foods every day is astonishing.

Restaurants : There is a main restaurant called The Palm, where you eat and drink everyday. There are also 4 other restaurants : Libanese Fish Mexican Italian You can visit all except Italian for free once per each, but you have to make a reservation the day before. I only visited Mexican, and it was nice. Note : Not all meals in Mexican restaurant are free, so be sure to ask the waiter.

Beach : The resort has a huge circle shaped private beach, you get free towels every day for the beach when you arrive, and the water is very nice. There are also couple of bars on the beach, where you can also get free drinks anytime you want. In some of them you can also get some snacks, I think after 2PM.

Entertainment : There are 3 giant pools before the beach part, there is a gym, good music every night, open bars with DJ-s. There is also a theater where they project new movie every night (Despicable Me, Spider Man, Mulan, etc…).

Staff : Beyond words. Amazing people, always smiling, always treat you perfectly, opening door for you, taking care of any issue you have at once. AMAZING !

Security : Resort is 200% safe, they check every vehicle that enters the resort, and every apartment building in the resort has 2 security guards that rotate 24 hours every day. They are super nice and smiling.

Price : I went with a travel agency, and paid 1050 euros in total for 10 days here, and another 245 euros for all of the good excursions. And maybe 40-50 euros for tips and souvenirs. So, for this treatment, unlimited food and drinks, comfort and places you can see on excursions, this is beyond cheap. And its an amazing choice.

Cons : The only thing that is a little annoying is that you do not have Wi Fi in rooms. There is Wi Fi on the beach and on pools, but it breaks often. Wi Fi on reception is fine. So you’ll have to use your own internet most of the time (read point number 5 from my local tips below).

Local tips for Egypt : Tip local staff in resort, the Egyptian currency is not worth much, so even half a euro is a big deal for them. People in Egypt will try to sell you everything, be wary. If someone offers you to take picture of you or your family, do not accept, they will take the picture, and then they will demand money from you. When you arrive at the airport, they will try to take your money any way they can, by telling you they will move your suitcases and backpacks and stuff for free to your bus, and then they will ask for money. The man that puts stuff inside your bus asked me for 5USD to do that, just dont do it. Internet here is very cheap, you can buy SIM cards at the airport from the Orange stand, or in the city. Be wary tho, they told my friends that they will get 18GB of internet for 5 euros, but my friends ended up using 8GB and then they had no more internet. Still a very good amount of internet for that price, but still not as much as they said. When buying souvenirs here, always bargain, sellers will always start with a very very high price for that item, you can almost always get it 40-60% cheaper, just start walking away, or say that you will go to the next store. It will always work, because they all sell same things.

In conclusion, not a 5 star resort by European standards, but it exceeded all my expectations by far, and its a beautiful and huge place that you cant afford to miss.

Thank you for...

We were 2 families of 3, had a pleasant stay. at desert rose which was just 15 mins by car from airport. Upon our arrival, we were greeted well, our luggage was carefully escorted and we checked-in at the reception area (Winter garden) - the decor was stunning, very calming atmosphere, and where you probably get the best of the wifi in the entire resort so pretty much full. The rooms were clean, good view of the beach, temperature was perfect, found the pillows a bit hard, but the reception exchanged them for soft pillows. The housekeeping team did a great job, was quite thorough in cleaning. The animation team was great, very cheerful throughout. The outdoor gym was a great plus (in addition to a small indoor gym), although didn’t have time to make use of it, a fitness coach was doing some sessions everyday there. We had morning wake up stretch, step aerobics, Aqua fit, dance classes, Zumba which was run efficiently by the fitness team. The outdoor games area was quite popular as well - table tennis, curling, croquet, darts, archery, table football and some others. Lots of facilities were available in-house at the resort - Diving, parasailing, wind surfing, fish spa, beauty salon, spa etc.. The decor in the Bella vista, sunset bar were so soothing and not overly stimulating. The views from Bella vista bar was simply stunning.

Food could do with a bit more variety (The Palm), and the waiters could be a little more accommodative to the needs of the customers (we were group of 6, and they would constantly tell us no space and push us off to the other dining area, when we can see some space available, was a bit off-putting). They were always rushing, clearing off pepper, salt, sugar from table (those can probably wait until we have left?). Very few had smiles and were warm in their service. The omelette station as in any resort was always the one with long queues but they did a fantastic job and were very quick. The head chef could be spotted checking on everything and was greeting everyone. The waiters kindly helped us out in delivering some food for our kids to the room, (More details of food below). The other restaurants (El Ranchero- Mexican, Del Mar - Fish restaurant, Fatoosh - Local cuisine) served great food which we had complimentary once during our stay. The life guard came on time and helped out my friend’s daughter when she went into the deeper part of the beach and freaked out. Kudos! There were some work happening in parts of the resort and we didn’t get to see the big water slides etc… so can’t comment My friend felt the massage at the spa wasn’t great, the lady who massaged probably didn’t know what she was doing and was just applying oil, mine was decent. The beauty salon people were trying to get you to do more treatments, came across rude when he said ‘I’m sorry but your feet needs a pedicure, you need to colour your hair’. In this day and age, we know exactly what we want to have done guys. Wi-fi is good only at the winter garden and probably by the pool area, which was mentioned to us before but I had a local sim with data and the reception wasn’t still good in the rooms. They had an app that would send notifications of the main events on the day, would be better if it had all the other activities as well, perhaps it was there somewhere but wasn’t easy to navigate. (It was displayed in the board by the beach, which we noticed only 4 days after our stay). We used the taxi service from reception to visit the sand city museum, a bit pricey but door-to-door so okay, same with parasailing. My son did his open water diving course from the conveniently place Red Sea life diving centre at the resort and had a great experience.

Would definitely recommend and would give a

5-star for the hygiene, cleanliness, safety, decor, location, facilities, room service, entertainment and fitness team,

4- star for the variety of food, and service at the dining area and

3.5 for the room cabinets, spa, beauty salon and general outlook of rooms ( a bit tired...