The Savoy Hotel

Travelled for a week with my family booked two room and double and a twin. Told when arrived they were on opposite sides of the hotel so had other change our king room to a twin to be near the other. Spotlessly Booked S class all inclusive which is fine the food is good and the dining options are great. The local alchohol is like petrol.. all the white spirits taste the same so you pre-dinner Margarita could have anything in it. Premium spirits like Gordons Gin (Really?) is expensive $300 bottle in the nightclub which is open to the public not just hotel guests and only once a week on monday and bus loads of kids from all over sharm decend on it. Drinks are not included in your package and if you want to sit at a table it will cost you £75 for the privilege. Everything that you would perhaps want to eat as part of the marketed ultra all inclusive with the exception of the steaks is at a premium addition. Tai restaurant is terrible. Sweet and sour shrimp sauce was smokey barbecue???? The worst part is that lots of groups men congregate at he Rocky pool bar and sit and drink from 10am until 6pm and are allowed to bring their own duty free alcohol such as Johnny Walker and drinking shots of Roberto Cavali vodka along with beer which is condoned by the bar staff who give them mixers. The result is violence towards one another perpetrated by one little darling which necessitated security to remove the guys. Later that evening the same little cherub stuck a glass in someones face in the Safari bar which then resulted in about 20 men including police and security to resolve as they were both picking up glassed form over he bar and throwing them indiscriminately at each other with no care for the other people that were in there. You would think after that these guys would be kicked out of the However said little ray of sunshine was back at the pool bar the next day probabaly courtesy of who his father appeared to be. One of the guys I was sitting next to at he bar on a few days stay as part of his 8 month round the world trip was going to check out early and move on to Dubai. But he was persuaded by the hotel manager that it was all OK as the guy was arrested in prison and the other guy when discharged form hospital would be the subjected to the same fate. However it was obviously not true in an attempt to keep the family there and to try and cover up what is daily occurrence of drinking and rowdiness by these groups of guys who are allowed to do whatever they want. My wife daughters and friends would not visit the Rocky Pool bar because of this it would seem some people can do what they want and their alcohol consumption and behaviour is not policed by the staff. Certainly will never go back

I had never been to Sharm el Sheikh before, and didn’t really know what to expect. This hotel exceeded our expectations and we now understand why it has so many excellent reviews. Unfortunately its first impressions are not its best. When you first arrive, it is explained to you that you can dine at the hotel buffet…or one of the hotel’s speciality restaurants…or at any one of a number of speciality restaurants in the adjacent Soho Square. The reality is that all speciality restaurants need to be booked in advance. When we arrived everything was fully booked. A call to Reception eventually confirmed that our choice that night was limited to the hotel buffet…or the hotel buffet! Virtually everything else was fully booked for the following day too. We managed to find a slot still available at the Thai in Soho Square. We grabbed it before anyone else did! It was excellent. Thereafter we never had a problem. New bookings are released at midnight. If like me you normally have to get up in the middle of the night to visit the bathroom, just pick up your mobile and use the hotel app to book wherever you want, whenever you want. Once you know how to work the system, you will discover that the speciality restaurants are amazing.

The same is true for the pools and the beach. We could always find a sunbed no matter when we arrived. If you want to be in the front row of the pool, or the beach, you need to be there early…beach by 8.00am and pools by 9.15am. Yes the beach gets busy, but if you are in the front row, with only the Red Sea in front of you, who cares?! If you want a quieter day by the pool, pick your spot beside the lower pool, Mahmoud, the Lifeguard, will make you feel welcome and Mohamad, the pool waiter, will ensure you receive all the drinks you want, delivered with a friendly greeting and a smile.

With respect to the bars, the Safari Bar is fine, but beware you cannot get imported spirits after 10pm. Whilst the Egyptian wine and beer is excellent, I cannot say the same about their spirits! If you like a dry white, we would recommend the Omar Khayyam. Their red was good too. With respect to the beer, the bottled Sakara Gold was excellent and I preferred it to the draught Heineken.

The restaurants vary tremendously. You visit the Rocky Pool bar at your own risk. The tonic water I got served out of a large bottle, into a warm glass, was as flat as your hat and undrinkable The Croque Monsieur my wife ordered was inedible. Yes the Main Buffet is very average and bland. However, the speciality restaurants are excellent, and at the other extreme, Seafood Island is idyllic. Our memories of lunch there, overlooking the bay, with the delicious juicy prawns and the seafood penne, and the faultless, impeccable service we received from Sameh, will keep us smiling long into the UK winter months. Our favourite restaurant in Soho Square was the L’Entrecote Steak House. Fabulous food, ambience and service. We enjoyed the Mai Thai (Thai) and the Xen (Chinese) too.

If you are promised “All inclusive”, beware… there are 3 types of all inclusive – S class, E class hard and E class soft. The difference between hard and soft is alcohol or not. The difference between S class and E class is more difficult to explain. S class includes virtually everything you can possibly want. E class doesn’t. With E class you can’t go to Seafood Island for lunch, you can’t go to L’Entrecote (and many others) for dinner, the menu you can choose at the restaurants you can go to is restricted, and you miss out on all the other benefits the S class brings. If you’re spending that much on a holiday, treat yourself to S class too!

When your holiday is coming to an end, don’t bother going to Guest Relations to learn anything about checking out, the possibility of late check out or trying to book a return visit. All they did was to say we needed to speak to someone else! Speak to Mafdi at Reception. He could not have been more helpful sorting it all out for us and arranging for us to come back next January. So much better to book with the hotel directly. He gave us an excellent price and we know we will be able to have the same room when we return in January.

Many thanks to the Savoy for such a lovely holiday, We are looking forward to coming back.