Sharm: Dolphins and Saturn!
Most of the hotels out there call themselves 5* but probably aren’t! In the end after much perusing, I chose the Sentido Reef Oasis and booked us into the better Senses part of the resort. It is comprised of a 4* part near the beach and a 5* part which sits behind reception just off the main road. It is actually a really good layout. Between the reception area and the road is the hotel’s water park – the sound of the water masks any road noise – very good planning!
From reception down to the beach is a gentle 10 minute stroll but in fact you can hop on the shuttle bus which is very frequent and there are a number of shops and restaurants along the route.
Our room was lovely - very well appointed and with a beautiful view over the pool. The pool areas in the Senses area are stunning with plenty of space. The pool guy was amazing and for a small tip, he reserved your sun beds and put out fresh towels for you every morning.
As Senses guests, we were entitle to eat in any of the restaurants, but we favoured the Senses one which was pretty good. There wasn’t a huge variety of choice but the food was all well prepared and tasty. We also sampled the Italian which was also very good.
We did a mixture of beach and pool. The beach is soft golden sand and there is coral in the shallows so you do need jellies. BUT there is also a jetty so you can walk over the coral and swim in deeper water. Again the benefit of being in the Senses part was a cordoned off private beach area which had better sunbeds, more space and was a little more serene.
Holidays aren’t all about the beach! We decided to venture a little further afield, and one of the things I had always promised Lily was to take her swimming with the dolphins. There is a dolphin swim encounter in Sharm so we booked, took a taxi there and had an amazing time! You can do either a 15 or 30 minute encounter – we did 30 but in fact had had enough after 15 so I got out. It was very clean, the animals were very well looked after but I appreciate it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Lily however loved it!
Our second venture out of the hotel was a stargazing adventure out to the desert. It was quite an ordeal all told, as it started off with a coach pick up at 2pm. The coach then proceeded to pick up at various hotels along the way and we eventually got to the event after 2 hours. I will add that the bus was not air conditioned and the temperature was about 50 degrees.
We arrived at the first stop to mount camels for an hour’s ride into the desert – hot and sticky – so do not do what we did which was to ask if we could share one camel – it was not pleasant! An hour later, and all was forgotten as we arrived into the Bedouin camp for cold refreshments and some shade! There were various displays to look at but this took a back seat when my daughter fainted from the heat. This sent several Egyptian guides rushing around in a panic but I poured some cold water on her and she recovered quite quickly.
Dinner followed, cooked al fresco and as the sun set, the guides started up some dancing which was lovely with the light from the fire. As darkness fell, they set up some very powerful telescopes and we queued up to see what they had focussed on. To be honest, the name of the first star we looked at has eluded me and in fact, didn’t look that much different through the telescope that it did with the naked eye. However the second viewing was Saturn – oh my goodness – we could see everything so clearly – all the rings – it was amazing! I turned to Lily and we both agreed – the journey to get there including the heat was all worth it for that 5 seconds!
It was an amazing trip – we loved every moment and will definitely head back at some point!