Ok, heres the lowdown on the dive trip we took to avoid all the xmas crap that happens here in the uk. All the things we got right, and some of the things I wish I'd thought of!
Booking - Just a case of deciding a place to visit, then finding a suitable hotel with good diving locally. We choose Marsa over Sharm to avoid the crowds, I hate dive with millions of others! and also cos we can fly Manchester to Marsa direct.
Googling for flights to get us away over the xmas period lead us to Thomas cook, booked through future travel. Simple.
Getting to airport - with a taxi to Manchester airport from Clitheroe (where we live) costing £70!!! The web really came up with the goods here.
Parking near the airport with Purple parking was smooth and easy.
https://www.purpleparking.com/
and with a code from hotukdeals here
http://www.hotukdeals.com/?m=535
Our parking cost us on £17.40 for 8 days!!!!!! BARGAIN!
Flights - the flights and hotel with half board cost us a mere £350 each. So as you'd expect, the flight was pretty crumby.
Bugger-all leg room and millions of chavvy shell-suited punters who've found out that Egypt is even cheaper than Benidorm or Terrormolinos.
For any foreign readers who dont know what a "chav" is....click this photo to be enlightened.
Unfortunately every country has an equivalent, you just dont want to be stuck on the same flight as them. Hopefully none of them will ever take up SCUBA diving
My tip to try and take the edge off the tedious (6 hour) flight -
You can buy those small wine bottles that'll cost you £3 a pop on the plane, 3 for a fiver at the airport (works out pretty much half the stewardesses price). The stewardess, with the obligatory orange make-up, didnt like us drinking them....but we still did.
She gave some crap excuse like "we have to keep tabs on what passengers are drinking" but anyone could have been drinking in the airport bar for hours, so it seems they must be paid on a commission basis.
Extra tip - While your at it....dont forget to get your limit of wine on the way out cos the Gypo wine is expensive and crap.
We took twist cap rather than cork just in case the hotel took offence to our BYO idea.
What I forgot - To buy a big black toblerone at the duty free!
I love dark chocolate and had to go without for a week!
Arrival at Marsa Alam isnt pretty. Youll be told that you can buy a visa on arrival, but it would be prudent to get it before you go. There are lots of reps trying to sell visas and rip you off and it just caused a big bottle-neck at customs. It would be nicer just to walk straight through.
No heres a big one! - Airport transfers.
Thomas cook wanted £15 (GBP) each for the transfer from airport to hotel. It was impossible to find out the distance from airport to hotel. So here it is for you.
Its only 4 miles!!!
There was a Thomas cook rep at the airport door. This complete twat smugly tells me that, I should of booked the transfer with TC cos a local taxi should, with his plethora of local knowledge cost 20-30 pounds each!!! Egyptian pounds? I said. "No British pounds", says the fat useless git!
I understand that taxi drivers prey on tourists the world over, but it is not the TC reps job to help the driver in this rip-off scam.
We haggled a driver to £10 gbp (total, not each) which is still a rip-off for 4 miles but we had no choice.
Phoning the hotel directly would of worked though, cos at the end of our stay we got transfered on the hotel minibus for 5 euros each.
I really should have nutted that smug rep!
The Hotel - The coral beach diving hotel. I had very few compliants about the hotel. Quiet, nice decor, good food etc etc
Heres Jill outside our room
Very clean and fresh
....and here she is in our room
Very Egyptiany decor, comfy enough beds and a good powerful shower in the clean, new bathroom.
So far so good..... but I did hate the fact that whilst I had come away to avoid xmas in the uk....the hotel had a xmas music cd on repeat most of the time in the pub and restaurant. AAAAAAAaaaaaaarrrrggghhhh!
Egyptian beer (stella or Saquarra)
is about £2 a bottle, so even more reason to BYO wine for post-dive drinks. The hotels idea of entertainment differs somewhat from mine, heres a random pantomime horse annoying punters in the bar!
Dont ask!!
And so on to the diving - We dived with EMPEROR. I dont like to book before I go, in case I dont like the look of the joint, or there is a much better/cheaper dive shop next door.
However, Emperor at the coral beach diving hotel have a monopoly,
so you may as well take advantage of any online advance booking offer.
Day 1
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Dive site - Marsa Mubarak
Dive 1 - 19.6m for 46 mins
With guide (they made us, for the first dive only). Nice to be back in the Red sea. Medium sized green turtle in the first 5 mins. Round the north corner of the reef and then looped back round over the sea grass to look for Dugongs. No luck.
Dive 2 - 16.3m for 55 mins
No guide and no group for us from now on. We copied the same dive but with a bigger loop and planned more time on the sea grass. Jill alerted me to a Dugong swimming above us at the north corner. We expected to find them in the sea grass not swimming over reef! It was surprisingly fast for its size.
The first thing that struck me about "mubarak" was that I could still see the hotel!!!!! Its only 1.4 miles down the coast. Jill and I had rested for the first day but some of the other divers had keenly gone out diving on day 1.
"Where did you dive yesterday?" I asked them.
"Oh, here"
"What.... on a different buoy?"
"No, exactly here"
HHHhhhmmmm
So 4 dives in 2 days from the exact same location. We had asked at the dive centre, if they cover a good variety of dive sites. But this was looking like they went to the same place, that was easiest and cheapest for Emperor.
Look at the map, you could drive it in a jeep and shore dive!
This brings me to the next point. We are told to meet on the boat at 8am. Nice start, easy cos we walk straight out from breakfast and on to the boat. Wow! easy!
However, we wondered how, if they leave at 8am and come back at 4pm then how come only 2 dives. 8 hours is a long time to complete 2 dives especially when the dive site is only a mile and a half down the coast!!!
The staff mess about chatting and smoking, while the divers wait until we leave at 9am. I've dived-with and worked-for some of the slickest dive operations in the world, so I dont like my holiday time being wasted like this.
The DM was ok, decent briefings, but nothing at all on safety. The surface intervals were too long 2-3 hour plus!!! While the staff slept and smoked!
Seriously, you could have a 2 dive day and be back at the hotel for midday!
Another shocker for a dive operation claiming to be "voted best in red sea" is that lunch,tea,coffee or water are NOT included!!!! First time I've seen this in my 2500+ dives.
Its not the money issue, but I dont need any more rip-offs in a country full of pit-falls.
I generally don't eat on a diving day but I do like a nice coffee and some water to keep hydrated. Pretty basic expectations when the diving costs 50 euros a day and I could have walked to the dive site!!!!
Day 2
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Dive site - Ras el Torfu
Dive 1 - 26.9m for 53 mins
Dive 2 - 21.3m for 60 mins
We were promised a 3 dive day - maybe the DM had seen that his customers were keen. 20 euros extra for the 3rd dive. I took their lunch and drinks package begrudgingly and then we were told that there wasnt time for a 3rd dive as it was a bit choppy!!!
Day 3
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Dive site - Marsa Shoni Kebir
Dive 1 - 24.7m for 54 mins
Dive 2 - 17.1m for 61 mins
Dive 3 - 22.1m for 54 mins
Didnt take out the lunch and drink package, only to find that a 3rd dive was possible on this day!
Day 4
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Dive site - Marsa Shoni Soreya
Dive 1 - 19.5m for 52 mins
Dive 2 - 17.8m for 62 mins
Day 5 (Xmas day)
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Dive site - Back @ Mubarak again!
Dive 1 - 25.4m for 49 mins
Dive 2 - 16.6m for 60 mins
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