Ahh…Sharm El Sheikh. We woke up at 4 a.m. and the hotel allows you to visit the breakfast buffet, or what they have set up of it, whenever you need to. I definitely give them points for that as the buffet was basically ready for us. Our trip to the airport was pretty funny visually, I have a feeling. The taxi that picked us up was a tiny little sedan and the driver tied the majority of our luggage to the roof rack. I felt like we were in one of those Chevy Chase vacation movies with the bottom of the car scraping the road! When we arrived at the airport, it quickly became apparent that our driver had never been there before! First, we went around the round-about in the wrong direction and had to back up around the entire thing. Then he took us to a toll-booth looking station where he was informed that the flights to Sharm El Sheikh leave from their own terminal which is about 10 minutes away. Since we were on a 1-way entrance road, our driver then had to turn around and drive against traffic until we were back on the main road. Our confidence in him was increasing! But eventually we did get to the Sharm El Sheikh departure terminal and our wait and flight were uneventful. By 8:30 that morning we had arrived in sunny Sharm.
The Hyatt Regency has an airport shuttle, although you have to run around the parking lot and find it mixed in with all the other shuttles. All that was forgiven when we arrived in Paradise. From my first glimpse of the Red Sea from the lobby I was in love. http://sharmelsheikh.regency.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp It looks exactly like it looks in the pictures on their website. Just heaven. Our rooms were pretty far apart, but since the kids were located right by the ping pong / squash courts, they didn't seem to care. We had a beautiful ocean front room and ahh… just lovely.
While we were there we -
- Ate
- Snorkeled
- Ate
- Read
- Ate
- Napped
- Ate
- Played ping pong
- Ate
- Played lots and lots of Hearts & Euchre!
The snorkeling was truly incredible and felt unreal. The fish were so bright and colorful and we saw new fish every time we swam. The coral lived up to its name "The Gardens." The only drawback was that it was fairly chilly out of the water so getting in required some courage as you knew you were going to have to eventually get out and shiver down the pier. If it had been summertime, I could have snorkeled there for hours.
As could be expected, everything at the Hyatt was expensive, but just to give you an idea - a small bottle of sunscreen cost us $18. Note to self: Bring own sunscreen on trips!
Ate & Ate
No one alive has the willpower to be on a diet at this hotel. The food was absolutely delicious - everywhere. The breakfast buffets were big and beautiful and elegantly presented. The various breads and rolls were delicious and I think each of us ate a minimum of 4 at every single breakfast. There was a fruit bar, an omelette station, a made to order pancake station, all kinds of meats, and various other items that I didn't recognize. The only disappointment was the bacon which was made from beef, not pork - obviously.
Lunchtimes could have been more resistable if - believe it or not - they hadn't served some of the most delicious French fries I've ever had in my life. It's been a long time since I've even really liked French fries but these were perfect - hot, crunch on the outside, soft on the inside. Tandoori chicken and fries at Cascades Restaurant was my favorite treat.
We had a few options at dinner time and we almost explored them all. The Souk Restaurant is like an open market place. There is a stage where performances appear one after the other - dancers of various types, including belly. Then the tables are surrounded by various food "stalls." You're given a bag of coins that you can use to purchase food at the various international options and you're only charged for the coins that you use. It was fun and the food was pretty good.
Christmas Dinner was expensive (hah! Little did I know!) at $60 per person. The buffet was pretty elaborate, but I still preferred the breakfast buffet. Shelby was brave enough to try a Guinea Fowl, although I think Carl's the one who actually finished it. Another night we went to the Thai restaurant - the most expensive of the restaurants - and everyone seemed to enjoy their food very much.
Euchre & Hearts
I can't begin to count how many games we played of Euchre & Hearts. The only thing I know for sure is that I was the overall UNDISPUTED GAMES CHAMPION. We'll leave it at that.
Squash
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