Ghazala Gardens Hotel — Hotel in South Sinai

We went for our honeymoon and to say it was the honeymoon from hell is putting it lightly.

It was dirty, the room stank of stale cigarettes, nothing in the room worked, lights wouldn’t turn off, fridge didn’t work, phone didn’t work, the sofa was dirty, you could see the build up of dust on the units. We were moved to another room to which the sink was leaking, it took them two days to repair, we had brown water running through the bathroom tap, no hot water for two days and the lights started discoing. We were hounded and fooled into signing a resolution form which to our knowledge was for the hot water repair, it turned out to be something that removed our rights and stating we were satisfied with our stay, which we clearly wasn’t. So we were then stuck at the hotel and could not get an early flight home. Well we could but we would have had to pay because the front desk Ahmed had tricked us into signing this form, which he still won’t take accountability for.

After speaking to cannon travel in hoddesdon it was brought to our attention that our request of wanting to leave and return home early our rights were removed because of this resolution form that we were hounded to sign. I did get this form back and ripped it up in front our rep as you could imagine my emotions were heightened.

Sammy our rep managed to sort out a transfer to another hotel but to our dismay we were made to stay the rest of our honeymoon in Egypt because cannon and res sea refused us to leave early and return back to the uk. We were left in the lobby for two hours after being told to leave our room as the transfers were there waiting, which was not the case, not knowing what was going on, because they kept playing it down not keeping us informed, and saying they were waiting on x person for our transfers and for the hotel to get back to them. Which was not the case. We were lied to and played for the whole duration of our stay.

If it wasn’t for our rep Sammy we would have probably still been sitting there come the evening. When I tell you the hotel is an absolute joke I am not exaggerating.

You get hustle and bustled everywhere you go, even on the hotel complex for massages, they don’t take no for an answer. You turn into a walking ATM as soon as they know your English. I honestly felt like a walking cash cow.

In the food court it was dirty along the skirts build up of dirt and old food all on the floor. The food is the same old every day. As a meat eater I didn’t see one piece of steak, or a burger the whole stay. I lived off fruit, salad and lattes throughout my stay. When landing they had no dietary needs in place. My partner is gluten, wheat free and also a vegetarian upon landing there was nothing for him or us to eat. Their response to this “our country is 70% meat”. So in all we went 28hrs without eating. Thankfully there was a cancelling at the Mexican and we manage to have something there. But it shouldn’t be this hard.

After talking with the catering staff they did go above and beyond, Aaron’s needs were being met. But it should not be this difficult when they have people travelling from all over the world to see the sights of Egypt.

Ahmed and the rest of the catering team were amazing, they were preparing meals every day to support Aaron’s dietary needs, Aaron rated the food highly. Ahmed is an exceptional chef he’s going to waste at this hotel. Thank you Ahmed and to the bread chef for being so good with Aaron. We will always remember you.

Throughout our stay at Gharzala Gardens we felt like outcasts. The hotel was full of Russians, no english to our knowledge. The pools were dirty, or emptied. So limited.

This is just brief review. So much more happened. I will be taking it further and raising a complaint further up.

Do, I recommend Egypt. Probably not. If you want to see the pyramids do a week and make sure you find the highest star hotel and make sure they have your dietary needs.

This honeymoon will be one that sticks for the rest of our...

Had a fab holiday here. Ok, not everything is perfect with the hotel but we had a great time and would return. Weather - perfect (mid-Feb). Low to mid 20's C, only half day with any cloud. Gentle breeze. Borderline needing long sleeves in the evening, but still pleasant. Common areas/pools - very well presented. Common areas kept clean, and always staff near to help. There are 2 pools, the one at the back heated to 27-28c and was very nice. The other pool was cool, but it will warm up later in the year. Some people offer massages, etc. normally in the morning, but they don't pester. Plenty of sunbeds (nice large wooden ones) or shaded gazebos. Rooms - OK, clean but need a refurb. Junior suite was a decent size with a nice balcony. Beds were fine but they could do with some new pillows - either hard or soft & lumpy. Not so that you couldn't sleep, but decent pillows would have been nice. The room had an old CRT-style TV. We didn't use it, but the staff demo’d it. Picture quality was v. poor, and the only thing we saw in english was BBC news. Aircon was noisy, and partly effective, but it was fairly mild in the evenings it wasn't a problem. The fridge we unplugged because it was LOUD. The room was made up every day, with the mandatory egyptian towel art on the bed.

Restaurants/food - main buffet restaurants are nice, but variety of food is not vast. Essentially the same dishes most days. For breakfast, the made-to-order omelettes are good, also local cheese. Decent selection of pastries /croissants too, but less fruit. Lunch/dinner menus were similar, so we broke things up at the a la carte restaurants. The Italian is very good. You can walk-up and order between 12:30-4:00pm for a selection of hand made pizzas and pasta. Portions are smaller than in the evening. We didn't use the Brazilian, and only used the Mexican at lunchtime (when it serves burgers etc.). This was also good. When booking the a la carte restaurants you have to do this 10:00am-12:00pm the day before at a desk in the lobby. A better system would be to allow guests to book direct with each restaurant at any time, but also let guests without bookings walk up and dine if there is space. One thing we’d change was the loud music that was played, esp. around the Italian restaurant. It was mostly older couples/families with small kids visiting, and they are hardly the audience for trance music.

Drinks – alcohol was a bit hit and miss. Beer mostly cold and refreshing; however a couple of times it was flat and warm. It's served in small glasses, so order 2 at time if you are thirsty. We only tried a couple of spirits - G&T (they use Schweppes tonic) had a slight rum after-taste, so we switched to rum and coke, which was fine. The red wine was ’different’, but not sour and ok'ish if you suspend your inner wine connoisseur. The rose was quite sweet but drinkable. Soft drinks were as you'd expect. Service - the staff were very good. Willing to help, and even bring drinks to your lounger. One of the waiters at the buffet restaurant remembered what we drank from previous visits and would bring the same drinks the next time without even being asked! Also, our son has some food allergies, and we met with the head chef to discuss meals and put our minds at ease. We didn't have any problems in this regard. Sister Hotel – over the road is Ghazalla Beach Resort, but in our opinion Ghazalla Gardens is a much nicer environment. The sister hotel looks quite dated in comparison (and the one beer i had there was undrinkable!). If you are contemplating between the two, i would definitely recommend Ghazalla Gardens. We did have a great holiday. The small things the hotel could fix such as local alcoholic drinks being a bit miss and miss (tip: find a drink that tastes ok to you and stick to it), buffet food variety, a refurb of the rooms, remove or replace the old TVs, better pillows, etc. didn’t spoil our enjoyment and are understandable bearing in mind the tourism situation over...

TERRIBLE EXPEREINCE||||I booked this hotel for my family (2 x Adults & 4 x Children) as it had beautiful lagoon pools and separate children's swimming area. Everything online looked absolutely perfect. The resort was stunning, central location and exactly what we were looking for.||On arrival late evening we were advised that the 2 rooms I had booked were not next to each other as requested (which was very frustrating but not the end of the world). After checking in we were then taken to our rooms (we had booked the swim up). On walking to the rooms you could see that the lagoon water looked a little murky and sun cream was floating across the top, but didn't give much further thought to it as most hotels during the night and early mornings revamp the resort ready for the next day.||||On waking up on Thursday morning this is when the 'Holiday Horrors' started. On pulling back the curtains to brilliant sunshine the pools had a green hue?!! I then walked round to the children's pool to find this had been completely drained and was empty...... yet hadn't been advertised anywhere that it was closed. I went to reception, where they were very frosty and basically said that the water was normal that it was a lagoon pool. I asked why all their online photos and instagram posts/stories showed crystal clear water and received no help or resolutions. I then asked for my passports to be returned from the previous evening. I was handed only 3.....I then proceeded to ask for the other 3 to be told that I already had them....after 30 minutes of arguing and them telling me to go away I finally spoke with a manager who located them screwed up in the bottom of a desk draw!||Fast forward to Sunday..........(3 days later) the pools tiles are coming off in handfuls, guests have cuts on their feet and the water is now illuminous green, you are unable to see the bottom due to the algae and everyone has bad stomachs (I will speak more about the food later). I demanded to speak with a manager, 3 hours later they have finally admitted that things have got really bad, they are unable to maintain the pools etc whilst they have guests and that in 8wks time at the end of the season they have plans to refurb, drain the pools etc. This is all well and good for future guests but we were in a resort that we had paid thousands to be in and the facilities were unusable. The only resolution he had was to shock them with so much chlorine and hoover the algae up, I advised at this point they needed to remove the few people that was using the pools for safety reasons (which he ignored).||||Tuesday morning my 22mth old son was taken seriously ill, he had high temperatures, was violently sick and had a seizure. We were rushed to the local hospital and he was placed on drips. On showing the hospital the pictures of the water and after taking samples it was confirmed that he had got gastroenteritis from a bacteria in the contaminated water. ||||On returning back to the resort other guests were advised by management that he had eaten watermelon purchased off site, that was what had made him poorly....he hadn't eaten any watermelon!||||Whilst at the hotel (bare in mind we were only there for 7 days) we experienced a power cut, 18hrs of no water, a shower that 'trickled' out to the extent it was unusable, and restaurants with food that was inedible. ||||We all still have bad stomachs on our return and my 22mth old is still receiving medical care whilst in the UK.||||Summary - resort on paper is absolutely beautiful, however due to finances or personnel skill the resort needs a lot of care and attention. The swimming pools are a major part to guests holidays and should be kept to a high standard...