| Page Views: 301 Last Visit to Hurghada: February, 2008 | A Place to Escape from Winter by lotharlerch - last update: Sep 3, 2009 |
Nice Hotels along the Beach - ugly right behind it Hurghada is quite an ideal place for escapes from the rough European Winter - despite all the discussions about Global Warming. If you are living in Europe in February and learn from the web that even in Greece temperatures are one digit only (but mostly plus) you look for an other escape a not too long flight away. So the best choice with respect to travel time, reasonable temperatures and reasonable prices is undoubtedly the Red Sea in Egypt. From the heart of Europe the flights are around 4 hours and if you shop around in the web you find nice offers well worth the money.
Most of the hotels you find in the packages offered on the web look very nice and according to the description they must be really good for that what the trip - flight included - costs. And the big surprise: they are really like that what the descriptions promise. So in principle such a deal is really a good buy right from the beginning.
But you have to be extremely strict and careful to keep your stay the good value for money as it undoubtedly is according to the catalogues.
It starts at the arrival at the airport wit the VISA SCAM. It is known and announced that the price for the Egyptian visa is actually 15 USD. There is no real visa, your identity etc. is not checked, you just get a sticker into your passport printed Enty Visa on it. The visa is just a sorts of entrance fee into Egypt (I think most Egyptians would be ready to pay thousands of USD if they could buy the entry to the European Union or other more or less civilized regions of the planet this simple and straightforward way). But when you are going to the counter where on a big blue board the price of the visa is printed in golden characters as well and where people are queueing up you will be asked with which tour opeartor you are coming and independently what you answer you are asked to pay 25 EUR (i.e. 37,50 USD at the moment) and get this visa glued into your passport. Of course no receipt or anything similar that you were paying 25 EUR....
Only very few succeed to escape from that scam. You have nothing else to do than just to go to the bank which very close there and to give them the exact amount of 15 USD over the counter to get the visa. It is exactly the same sticker. You just have to glue it yourself into your passport.
IT IS RATHER DIFFICULT TO AVOID THIS SCAM BECAUSE HUNDREDS OF TOUTS WITH A4 SIZED PAPERS SHOWING THE NAMES OF THE VARIOUS TOUR OPERATORS ARE PUSHING YOU TOWARDS THE VISA COUNTERS IN THE ARRIVAL HALL BEFORE YOU REACH THE BANK.
After you are through the passport control where they do not do anything else than to search for the visa sticker in your passport and stamp it you proceed to the luggage claim. And on the walk to that you are asked once again to show your passport page with the visa.
The bus of your tour operator brings the passengers to the various hotels and on the way we had a glance of all the other hotels because the bus reached ours as the last one - and all were nice looking from outside.
Ours was as nice as all the others but on the way between the hotels we saw that everywhere outside the hotel areas it looks rather ugly. Mostly chaotic unfinished buildings - but seldom any construction work visible - and all construction work obviously done worse than semi-professionally What a decay under 6000 years of history!. |
The real beauties are under water Our hotel complex - consisting of two hotels - consists mostly of low buildings (maximum 3 floors), every room with a spacious balcony, all in a well kept garden with palms etc. The rooms in good standard and spotlessly clean. Our hotel was Half board (beakfast and dinner, both from a generous buffet. - the other hotel is full board, lunch included, but in my opinion that does not make much sense because you are often out at lunchtime for other activities like divng or snorkelling or on an excursion where mostly a lunch is included).
In the garden are some pools and the hotel's private beach is nice.
So that is all OK for a lazy beach holiday. But it would be a pity if you would not enjoy that what makes your stay at the Red Sea so unique. The real attractions and beauties here are all under water. There are great coral reefs in the Red Sea and you should explore these wonders at least snorkelling. Boat tours to the reefs are offered everywhere. |
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 Comments for lotharlerch about Hurghada | | | | |
alancollins Mon Jun 15, 2009 13:38 UTC
My daughter will be going to Hurghada in a few days and had heard about visa costs. | globetrott Sat Jul 26, 2008 08:36 UTC
Lots of different paradises here: paradise island, underwater-paradise and a paradise for the egyptians ripping off the tourists ;~) |
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