Charmillion Gardens Aquapark — Hotel in South Sinai

Charmillion Gardens Aqua Park (former Sea Gardens Resort) belongs to a group of 3 hotels, all next to each other. Gardens Aqua Park is the furthest from the sea, but the walk to beach is very enjoyable and quite quick - you'll get there in 10min max. All 3 hotel gardens and pools are accessible to all guests. Gardens Aqua Park guests can also use the buffet of Sea Life Resort, but not the Charmillion Club's restaurant. The food was ok - you can always find something that you'll likely go for seconds, especially if you like chicken, beef and roasted vegetables. The buffet restaurant on Gardens premises was smaller but also cosier and with the best service staff. The food selection seemed to be the same between Gardens and Sea Life. The buffet and bar offer soft drinks, like coce, beer, coctails, slushies, quite ok americano / cappuccino. Wine is only served in the restaurant. You can always ask for bottled still water. During your stay you can book a table on 3 nights in one of the a la carte restaurants on all hotel premises. We tried some of them, but found the selection & quality underwhelming. The raved Japanese restaurant was impossible to book. The pool view family room was specious for our family of 5. The rooms look a bit warn, but are clean. The warmest pool is located on the Club territory, closest to the sea. Sea Life pool was heated as well. The pools in Gardens, including the water park were not heated. But even in December our nordic kids were able to enjoy water without getting too cold. Wet suite tops are recommended. Our 6, 11 and 20-year old boys were very happy with the waterslides and usually spent several hours each day in the aqua park. It was a definite plus for picking this hotel. My goal was to pick a hotel with easy access to the sea with its own coral reef. And on that front Charmillion also delivered. The walk to the beach through Sea Life gardens is lovely. You could always find chairs in spots that were not windy. There's a long pier that takes you to the reef. If it is too windy, the pier is closed and then you can only swim in the mostly knee deep water which is on the other hand perfect for kids. Water shoes are a must as the seabed is uneven and sharp. But even in that shallow water you can wear a mask and enjoy all of the colorful fishes that surround you. This was such a great experience for the kids! Swimming along the stunning coral reef is the best feature of this hotel. With every snorkelling session you'll notice something new. As our 6-year old is an experienced swimmer, he was also able to enjoy the wonderous underwater life above a 30m drop. On the hotel premises there was always enough space - to pick a lounge chair at the pool/water park, at the beach or to find a table in the restaurant or at the bar. We especially liked that there was usually no-one bugging you about buying tours and other services. The animation team was more active in Sea Life and seemed to be tailored for the Italians which suited us fine as we prefer to take care of our own entertainment. We did go for one of the evening shows, which was quite terrible. We preferred hanging out in the bar area, playing pool or enjoying friend's company on the hotel room's balcony instead. Overall we were really happy with our stay. The staff were all very nice and always attentive. Especially the bar and restaurant staff of the small restaurant of Charmillion Gardens. Two pro tips: use the InDrive app for ordering a taxi - the fees are very reasonable and non-negotiable once confirmed. And a great grocery shop with ok prices and actual price tags was this one: All In Market ...

My family and I went here recently for our latest holiday (late review been busy will post pictures to prove we went). Overall it was one of the best and worst holidays we ever had. The hotel itself is very beautiful. Although it's not sea view (overrated anyway unless you aren't used to seeing the sea) we did have an incredible view of the Egyptian landscape from our front door. It's a bit surreal to see endless amounts of... well nothing at your front but at your back is this incredibly beautiful, well designed, and taken care of resort. I enjoyed this aspect very much and sometimes found myself just staring at the desert enjoying the warm breeze. The rooms are very spacious and clean, the beds are very comfortable, and the staff INSIDE the resort are very friendly and accommodating (I emphasize Inside for a reason). The water park is great my kids had a lot of fun and theres some cool contraptions you can figure out to manipulate the water flow. Perhaps the most unique part of this park however is the nightly entertainment. Although the shows are repetitive and not spontaneously thought of as we managed to catch about 2 or 3 of the same shows on our 14 day trip they were excellent! Particularly the fire bits 🔥.

Now onto the bad parts and there are a few. Getting here (by plane) was perhaps the easiest part of the entire ordeal. After we arrived however well the airport security is incredibly rude and disorganized. It took us about 4 to 5 hours to get through security and out into the hectic nightmare surrounding the airport. The immediate fear of scammers and over whelming bombardment of taxis trying to sell you their services is very off putting but we managed.

Later on during our trip we ended up meeting a great guy named Max who taxied us the rest of the trip even back to the airport when leaving (You can see his car driving around with a pornhub style sticker MaxiHub in the back window for anyone wondering).

As for the resort itself I have two primary complaints. The food albeit not to few choices or to many choices is not good lol often times I preferred to not eat 😅. Breakfast was great though and there were some good foods like the fried chicken, the all inclusive package meant endless alcohol which was probably the bulk of my calories during our stay.

The absolute worst part of the trip was the man operating the clothes store on the skirt of the resort but still within the property. This guy is a real piece of work when I walked around the corner to check my kids who ran ahead he grabbed my wife by the arm and tried to pull her into his shop. He made several remarks about her breasts while doing so and kept saying comments like "don't worry about him" when she said she had to go meet me literally around the corner. Needless to say when my wife told me about this I went and handled it without to many details, he didn't bother us the rest of the trip besides to offer my wife a gift one time to apologize and considering I'm making this review at home I'm willing to bet the camera in his shop is fake. My wife and I did not seperate the rest of the trip but I felt it important to include this part in the review because while everyone else is great this guy is a predator.

Lastly and sorry for the long review there are limited airlines coming in and out of here and of course our airline Wizzair had a 3 day delay and we ended up stuck there for several days while we also were incredibly sick. These places get so many people that travel sickness just goes around endlessly so expect to get sick and bring otc...

In comparison to sunrise and pickalbatros , it is soooo far from being a 5 star or even 4 star, overrated, the principle is to operate with the least staff, least equipments and least quality of everything. Regarding my experience; 1st of all, mr.osama in the reception was nice, helpful and quick to make check in room 6511, no welcome drinks , no golf car to send you to your room. Room is spacious, it was a family suit, unfortunately it was not prepared by any means, dirty, no towels, no slippers ( which are supposed to be basics), they provided us with all after we called the reception, only one person is cleaning the whole corridor( lack of staff). Restaurant is crowded, food is delicious, but any( ready to eat or to drink ) is of very poor quality like artificial juice, chicken nuggets and sausage, no fresh juices ( you have to pay for it, not like other 5 stars hotel), service is very poor in the restaurant, no one is helping you even for water, lack of staff again in the restaurant too. People in the pool bars are very rude, not smily, not welcoming ( mostly because of staff shortage and work load). Internet wifi is very slow. Lack of hygiene is obvious specially in the night where u can find lots of flies without any spraying. Gardens and pools are well maintained, aqua park is excellent for kids and adults, life guards are helpful, smily and very nice to everyone, i have to thank them all. Animation team is very poor, kids club have very limited time * mainly working hours are the same like aqua park working hours which is non sense. Regarding beach, is very large, plenty of umbrellas to stay, snorkelling from pier is very good with lots of living corals and fish( needs very good swimmer because if high waves and high current) but again, no shuttle service to the sea, pier is about 1500 meter walking from the resort, which is so far specially for kids and old age people, only one golf car in the whole resort upon request,but usually not available. Anyway my kids got lot of fun in the aqua, but generally i do...