SOULOTEL EMERALD Resort & Spa

The rooms were fine and the staff friendly, but the food was extremely poor quality. It’s a good place to stick to the diet you’ve kept up all year, though luckily there were hard-boiled eggs in the morning. The dining room’s white window frames have almost turned black from people touching them.

The gardens and rooms are beautiful, cleaning was consistently good, and the staff were nice. That’s about where the positives end, though, and we left disappointed. We didn’t know the hotel was Italian because the travel agency hadn’t mentioned it. All the entertainment was in Italian. Unless we asked, the animators didn’t talk to us or tell us what was happening, and they never invited us to join. They weren’t especially friendly, and compared with our other visits to Egypt the activities were weak and there wasn’t much going on. The beach stage was especially annoying, with loud, constantly changing music and the animators’ commentary. The beach itself was small, but there was always space. The sand was fine. Swimming was less good: getting across the coral bed wasn’t too difficult even without water shoes, but reaching waist-deep water meant a long walk. The pier was long and only useful for walking, with no way to go straight into deep water, which was a shame. There wasn’t much marine life or coral, and there were few fish, though we did see at least one turtle. The glass dining room has a beautiful view, but the meals disappointed us. There were few vegetables, most fruit was overripe and some was fermented, and the selection was small and often tasteless. The menu was almost the same every day. I really missed local food; we could have gone to Italy for pasta. Some dishes were good, like grilled shrimp, tuna, roast beef and a few warm vegetables. The oriental evening was delicious, with local spices and food, and everything was great. We were sorry there was only one such evening in our 10 days. There were two bars, but no coffee or mixed drinks at the beach bar, so everything meant a trip to the pool bar. That wasn’t a huge issue, but I really disliked the tiny plastic cups used for everything. It creates so much unnecessary waste, and we’ve had good experiences with returnable cups even in larger hotels. We enjoyed our vacation and got used to the place, but we won’t return.

I bought three massages at the spa and wish I’d booked more. I thought people in my country gave good massages, but I was wrong. They really know how to massage in that room. I felt alive again.