Our second trip was just as predictable a choice as the first. We chose Egypt! We were recommended the CONCORDE EL SALAM hotel. This article is about that hotel.
We stayed there in March 2017. At check-in we weren’t even given the chance to state our preferences. When we asked whether guests’ wishes were taken into account, they replied: “Yes, we take wishes into account — here is your nice room.” But that’s only the first impression, so let’s carry on.
Food at the hotel. The food is quite varied: different meat dishes, different fish dishes, salads, pastries, sweets, and a range of fruit and vegetables. Once or twice there were crayfish and prawns, which were snapped up within minutes, but they kept bringing new batches. All in all, the choice of food is large. But none of the food is tasty: everything is overdried, overfried, overcooked, and sprinkled with spices as if there were no tomorrow.
In the canteen (I can’t call it a restaurant, let alone the hotel’s main restaurant). All the dishes are dirty, and it’s very hard to find a table with clean cutlery. Finding a teaspoon is utterly impossible — it feels as though there are only 10 in the whole hotel, not to mention how clean those spoons are. There weren’t enough seats in the canteen, even though the hotel was only about 60% full. There weren’t enough waiters either, and sometimes drinks arrived after you’d finished eating, while some people never got their drinks at all and left.
Service. The waiters often forget your order and very often bring something other than what you ordered. The only waiter who hardly ever messed up got a tip from us, and he really did try. All the other waiters played dumb and pretended they hadn’t heard or had forgotten, and then said they’d go and bring our order — after the 3rd request. The rooms were cleaned reasonably well. Towels and bed linen were not changed at all, even on request. Reception is a nightmare. We ordered packed lunches for our departure and were sent to the concierge service (before that, we’d twice ordered packed lunches at reception itself). The concierge service was surprised and sent us back. Then we went to another person at reception, who did finally take the order. But when we got the packed lunches for our departure, we discovered that the huge sandwich contained 2 pieces of sausage that were just thin rectangles poking out of the sandwich, and that was it — the rest was just bread.
Entertainment, until the last day of our stay, consisted of an evening show from 21:00 to 21:30, with just 4–5 acts aimed mostly at Egyptians. On the last day there was Russian-speaking entertainment. They kept people entertained a little on the beach in the morning, but the evening show still lasted 30 minutes and was a copy of the show from 2 days earlier.
The beach. There are enough places on the beach for everyone. There’s a pontoon for getting into the sea, a shower and a foot wash. There are lots of flies on the beach, but you hardly notice them because of the wonderful underwater world and corals, which keep you in the water almost all the time. There’s a bar on the beach where you can refresh yourself with a drink or ice cream.
The grounds. The hotel grounds are divided into 2 hotels: Front, where we stayed, and Sport, which was across the road, on the second line from the beach. Anyone staying at Front could freely enter the Sport grounds, but we didn’t go there. Rumour has it there’s a football pitch, a tennis court and an ice rink. They also say the choice of food there is worse than at Front. Sport guests couldn’t enter Front, except for the beach area they were brought to. Front has wonderful grounds, with very beautiful night lighting of the pool and fountains. The grounds are large and well kept. Lovely terraces by the rooms with green lawns. Beautiful views from the bar near reception over the whole grounds and the beach. Lots of birds wander around the grounds — I don’t know whether they’re wild or belong to the hotel, but it’s very beautiful and pleasant.
The room. The hotel rooms are ordinary and spacious, with a couple of tables, a minibar, a TV and a big bed. The bathroom had mini toiletries (shower gel, shampoo, soap), 2 towels per person plus a bath mat plus a towel for your backside. The rooms are in 2-storey buildings — clean, calm, quiet and pretty. There’s no Wi-Fi in the rooms or on the grounds; Wi-Fi only works at reception.
Location. The hotel is in the Shark Bay area. Between the Front and Sport parts runs a promenade with numerous little shops that open in the afternoon (in the morning it’s evidently too hot for them). If you walk left along the promenade, you’ll come out onto Soho Square, with numerous restaurants, cafés, shops, children’s entertainment in the form of swings and carousels, and beautiful statues — all in all, plenty of places to stroll. The Old Town with its bazaar is 18 km away; you can get there by taxi.
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