Island Garden Resort

We stayed here in 2011. The daytime activities were very good, and so was the evening entertainment. The food was acceptable. On a snorkeling trip we saw barracuda and turtles. Our taxi driver forgot about us, so we got stuck in Sharm El Sheik. That wasn’t really the hotel’s fault, but make sure you have a working mobile phone in case something like that happens. We ended up spending two hours in a shop, but the owner let us try on clothes, so it wasn’t such a bad wait.

Soho Square is right next door, a nice place to wander in the evening with plenty of restaurants if you want a break from the all inclusive buffet. The resort is huge, maybe 1000 guests, with 4 pools, one heated. The buffet can feel like a stampede. In winter there are mostly Russians, and in summer mostly Egyptians. The private beach is nice, and this is the view from the top of it. The rooms could use a refurb, but staff clean them every day and always leave bottles of water. Egyptian people are warm and friendly. I’d recommend snorkeling and desert quad biking.

The reception’s awful work unfortunately ruins what could otherwise be an excellent hotel. The complex is made up of two hotels in the SoHo area. This one is far from the sea, unlike its fancier sister, Garden View, which is on the first line. Even so, the hotel left a favorable impression overall.

This hotel was really horrible, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. The staff weren’t very helpful, and the front desk didn’t respect guests. The A/C, fridge, and TV didn’t work. The food wasn’t great either, it was crowded and nasty. The pool had bugs and wasn’t clean.