Beautiful experience, beautiful place, beautiful people.

We have just returned from a week at Sayadeen, and this holiday will forever hold a special place our hearts. Having stayed in a 4/5* all inclusive hotels in Sharm El Sheik, the two experiences cannot be compared. Sayadeen is everything that Sharm lacks... Peace, Beauty, Soul, Character, and friendly people who never hassle you to buy things/tip everywhere you go.

Although Sayadeen looks stunning on their website, it still exceeded all our expectations. The building style is so pretty and in keeping with nature (no ugly modern high-rise buildings). These are more like rustic beachfront bungalows. The rooms are basic, but very comfortable, with excellent air conditioning, and our front door opened right onto the beach. The view from the room was incredible, and we were steps from the red sea and the beautiful natural beach. The Bedouin style seating areas on the beach (cushions and low tables on the floor) have to be THE most relaxing place I have ever sat, and an incredible place to seek shade from the midday sun. We ate dinner here every night too, looking out at the beautiful red sea (which the staff illuminate with a flood light at night time, so you can watch the lion fish and calamari from the shore).

We took nearly 1000 pictures at the hotel! Everywhere you look you cannot help thinking “that would make a stunning picture”.

Despite the fact that this area is hundreds of miles from the recent political unrest in Egypt, the troubles seem to have had a knock-on effect to tourism, and this meant that we seemed to be literally the only guests for the majority of the week. We had all the staff and facilities at our disposal, and what felt like our own stunning beach, just for the two of us. Ultimate tranquility, rest and relaxation.

The housekeeping staff Aziz and Mostafa put incredible effort into surprising us with towel art every day …They spent hours creating all kinds of very creative surprises for us, which far surpassed anything we have ever seen elsewhere, and it was a lot of fun popping to the room every day to see what they had done. They even left an acoustic guitar as part of the decoration one day, and let me keep hold of it for the day/night (which was lovely as I am a professional guitarist!)

The rest of the staff are just as exceptional, and a very special mention/thank you goes to ‘Bob’ at the beach bar. A kind and genuine man, who really looked after me when I was unwell (NOT food poisoning). He also took us out to town with him one night after work and treated us to tea and shisha. After a week at Sayadeen he felt like part of the family, and really made a difference to our trip.

The food was great and always cooked fresh for us. We stuck mainly to fresh grilled fish and rice, which was always served with pitta and dips, and fresh salad. The meal times were whenever we wanted to eat, wherever we wanted to eat …and not once did we have any complaints about the food. It’s safe, fresh, healthy, and tasty.

The hotel has a beautiful Horse which we rode up and down the beach, and various water craft you can use at a cost (we found this to be a little too expensive, but after telling them this, we were given the pedalo free of charge for a while ...anything to please).

The only minor down-side to the location is that the hotel beach itself does not have much coral for snorkelling. There is however, a lot of life to be seen at the couple of small patches of reef there, and the lack of coral on the rest of the beach actually just means it is excellent and safe for swimming. ‘Pete’s reef’ as described by others on this site, is a tiny patch of coral to the left of the main beach (towards the port). Just look for the dark patch on the surface, you can see it from the hotel. A two minute walk, and home to the biggest lion fish I have ever seen. In addition to this, I found my own slightly better reef even closer to the main hotel buildings, and straight off the private beach. I hereby name this ‘Ross’s Reef!’ When facing the sea, the reef can be found straight out from the furthest wooden seating platform to the right (almost where the private beach ends and the bedouin village begins). Swim straight out from this platform 100m or so (further out than Pete’s, but a lot more variety of fish to be seen, and only a couple of minutes swimming). There are also some excellent reefs a very short taxi ride away in either direction. We tried the one just on the headland, at the foot of the mountain. The local Bedouin driver employed by the hotel drove us out there for about £5 a head, and waited whilst we snorkelled for as long as we liked, before driving us back via a stop off for Bedouin tea (cooked over an open fire) under the mountain with a lovely old Bedouin man (free of charge, and a very authentic and beautiful experience). There’s also plenty of coral around the corner in the other direction (past the port). The reef runs for a few kilometres past all the more modern hotels there.

We thoroughly recommend visits to Tarabin (10 minutes up the road by hotel driver ...Atef took us). A beautiful beachside strip of small shops, restaurants and camps, with incredible coral reefs (we were also taken out in a rowing boat by some local guys fishing for calamari, without charge). Stunning.

I had my birthday at Sayadeen, and the kitchen staff made me a huge cake. The staff all gathered on the beach to sing to me, and we were given complimentary whiskey from the bar. The housekeeping staff also left a lovely card in our room, in which they had even written a very sweet poem for me.

I could go on forever praising this special little place, but I will leave some room for others… Go there, you WILL love it like we did (unless you have no soul and no taste of course). It’s a very special experience, and everything about Sayadeen (the place and the staff) far exceeds anything I had come to expect of holidays in Egypt.

To all at Sayadeen, thank you so much for everything. We really hope to see you again some day soon…

With love, Ross & Katie
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