Today is our first day back from the Ibertel Grand Sharm, and yes it was sometimes good but also sometimes...... very bad!!!!

My partner and I went all inclusive to this resort and for the drinks it was worth it but for the food and for the service of a 5 star hotel then best to book else where. Ill start with the service!!! Shocking!!!! some nights ordering drinks and even asking for the table to be laid took 20 minitues and 1 night it was quicker for me to get the drinks rather than the waiter!!! Food was ok but catered for the more european pallet, chicken rice and liver was a comon theme. The Bond you get with some staff is very good but the majority need a good shake up in customer service. Basildon is a good waiter to know. (hint)

The rooms where very good and cleaned twice a day. The pool area was good but does need a little touching up in places.

Quick Tip Guide!!!

Get up early ie 7am to place your towels on the beds, especailly around the small pool as beds are limited.
Order your drinks at dinner as soon as you sit down or you will eat it before you have a drink!
Tip your cleaner and waiter they remember your face and it pays for the holiday.

Overall the hotel is ok, a good 3 / average 4 star but all they need to do is to improve the customer serivce and a little touch up here and there and it wil better.
Would we go back?????? no, as there are alot better hotels in Sharm with a hell of lot better customer service.

The Iberotel Grand Sharm is considered one of the best hotels in Sharm El Sheikh for many reasons....

The hotel is immaculately presented and the hygiene is maintained to the highest standards throughout, whilst the hotel is located on the beautiful coastline, which looks out onto the Red Sea, and Tiran Island. The hotel has been built in such a way that it offers nearly every room a fantastic view of either a swimming pool or the Red Sea. Furthermore, we found that the hotel had an extremely relaxed and prestigious atmosphere, which is perfect for an unwinding stay.

The staff are extremely friendly and caring and are willing to help in any way possible, even if this is just to stand and chat about your time in Egypt. During our stay we were amazed by the time, care and attention that the staff paid to every guest, and on many occasions they will know you by name which left us feeling extremely welcome. We personally would like to commend both Mohammed Shaker and Sameh Teamah. Mohammed works on reception and is both knowledgeable and extremely welcoming. He offered us much help during our stay and was always smiling. Sameh, both a waiter and resident sales man was fanatastic to chat to, he was the first person to welcome us and was the last to say goodbye. Sameh seems to work every hour god sends with enthusiasm and again a big smile. It is definately worth trying to find them on your stay.

It is a well known fact amoungst frequent Red Sea divers and the locals, that The Iberotel Grand Sharm offers possibily the best snorkelling and diving in Sharm. There is a floating jetty that reaches about 200 yards out to sea, which is where people snorkel and dive from....it soon becomes clear why this jetty is used by excursion groups, and also the scuba divers, as the water is about 30 meters deep, but the coral is home to the most amazing species.

The gym was fair, and is equiped with free weights, running machines, rowing machines but sadly no bench press. However, the gym is air conditioned and offers spas and massage at competitive prices.

The low point of our holiday was the evening buffet. We were all inclusive and while breakfast was to all tastes and offered a wide variety of options, lunch and dinner however were a disappointment. Personally we found that the food targetted German and Russian guests and while the salad bar was refreshing the main course was limited and not particular appealing. However not to let this dampen our spirits we would strongly recommend a visit to the Dananeer (Namaa Bay) which offers some fanatstic cuisine at extremely cheap prices. Another suggestion is the Columbus bar, if your looking for a more "Chicago Rock Cafe" style meal. This is opposite fanatasia, within walking distance to the hotel.

To conclude our stay, we would certainly return to the Iberotel Grand Sharm, however, we wouldnt choose an all inclusive package, but maybe the bed and breakfast choice.

We have just returned from this hotel and it is fantastic! We felt pampered from the minute we arrived to the time we left. We previously went to Egypt in July last year and found it a too hot - uncomfortable - the weather was perfect this time of year (Mid September)!

We booked a deluxe see view room and it was amazing - overlooking the pool and with a sea view - we were B&B but all inclusive was available if we wanted. The food was of very high quality and excellent variety.

The staff really make this hotel - it is the little things that add up - when sitting around the pool or beach the staff ask to clean your glasses - offer you melon and chocolate covered strawberries.
Every day you have a different pattern of towel on your bed ranging from ships to snakes and hearts and swans - thanks to Ahmed our cleaner. The gardeners give you bouquets of flowers from the wonderful gardens that are constantly being maintained. Another credit to the hotel is Mohammed Shaker - in reception any request we had was handled with professionalism and nothing was too much trouble.

Last year we stayed at the Renaissance Golden view hotel which is very close to this one - a very nice hotel but we preferred the Grand Sharm (mainly due to the staff)- it is very easy to get from one side of the hotel to the other with ease due to the lift - we found the Renaissance difficult to get around since there are a lot of steps and it is a big hotel.

The only bugbear I have is that you are not permitted to bring any food or drinks into the hotel - not even water. The price of a litre of water in the hotel is LE11 (around 1 Pound) - however if you go for a walk 5 mins up the road to the shop exactly the same water is LE2.5 (around 20p). Since you are advised to drink around 3 litres of water a day per person it can soon add up! This is my only criticism since I grudge paying premium prices for something as essential as water (Since you can't even brush your teeth with the tap water).

All in all we had a fantastic time and would not hesitate to recommend this hotel to anyone - and will definately return.

Have just returned from sharm,had a great time and found it good value for money as we booked last min,but had i paid full i think i would have been disapointed as this is more a 4* than 5*.
Cannot fault the staff,lovely,especaily Samie,rooms good size,clean.lovely pool,food,i might be picky but i found there wasn't much choice but we went to Namma's bay to eat a couple of nights so not too bad.
My husband got a bad stomach while there,mine wasn't as bad as his but did put a dampner on things.
Snorkelling very good,abit choppy most days so pack some flippers.
Lovely taxi outside hotel,blue and white car,can't remeber his name but short and sweet(only about 5 foot)he does'nt drive like a madman either.
Hope this has helped,if you need anymore info please do email,have a great holiday

We have just returned from 5 days, The hotel, food and staff were amazing.

Breakfast - Good range and plenty of it.

Lunch - we did not really take lunch (filled up on breakfast)

Dinner - We had a romatic dinner on the beach (soundy cheesey) but out of this world. The food was amazing and the service and staff great. The whole experiance was out of this world and did not cost the earth.

Wine - did not find a good wine in egypt, all had Chemical after taste, but beer and spirts good.

Diving from the Resort was fantastic and the Camel dive centre onsite where very helpful and great.

Snorkelling from the Hotel - Out of this world. The Red Sea is so warm and clear.

The Resort was very clean and friendly would love to return with next year.

We stayed at the Grand Sharm from 28 May until 5 June this year. We had arrived from Luxor, where we had been treated at the Sonesta St George to absolutely 5 star service - so this hotel had a lot to live up to. Sadly, the Grand Sharm doesn't quite cut it in the 5-star stakes: the service is reasonable but certainly not as we had experienced elsewhere in Egypt and the room we had booked (deluxe, sea view) was moderate. The bathrooms do not have baths, tiles are cracked and in general the place just needs a little work. Sea views were excellent however, and you really cannot fault the beautiful location, right on one of the best reefs in the area. One word of warning when booking a room: although the rooms on the top floor (floor 5) undoubtedly have the best views, they are VERY noisy, being right next to the bar and entertainment - this is disappointing when you pay a premium for the view. Plus sides are Camel Dive centre being on site at the hotel (fantastic), the pool is lovely and the loungers overlooking the sea are great. Food is actually okay, with plenty of choice each night and different themes each night. In summary, we woul return to this hotel but only if it was on special offer: I do not think it is worth paying full price.

We stayed at this hotel in early May. Our trip was very short so we didn't get to explore any other hotels in Sharm, so unfortunately cannot draw any comparisons.

Firstly, there are beautiful corals just off the hotel jetty, so if you're there for the underwater sightseeing, it's very convenient as you are able to go underwater as soon as you check in, aided by the Camel Dive club which has a branch on the hotel premises from where you can hire diving and snorkelling gear.

The hotel pool is shallow, spacious and child-friendly. The sand on the sunning area on the rocks is a little coarse, and beware - there is no "beach" at this hotel - this is because there are corals all around, and so any swimming that is done is via the jetty. If you prefer a natural beach and no corals, stay at a hotel in Na'ama Bay.

Our room was a disappointment - although the size and room amenities were reasonable and wardrobe spacious, the decor was drab and our view (from level 3) was obscured by a tree. The TV reception in our room was fuzzy. The bathroom design was strange and the decor non-existent (beige tiles everywhere), and the bathroom amenities lacked class. However, housekeeping was good, the balcony was of a good size and, to be honest, we weren't in Sharm to spend all our time in the room, although the use of pleasant colours would have put us in a more positive mood.

The main restaurant was sprawling inside and outside (as was the rest of the resort), but you wouldn't get a nice table if you caught the tail end of meals. We discovered that being early meant getting a good table AND getting the nice desserts/pastries before they were scooped up by the other guests. The service was, by and large, poor. The waiters were constantly rushing and pushing past guests and service appeared very haphazard and inattentive.. The food at dinner was usually of a high standard and there was a variety to suit different palates. Breakfast was mediocre, and the size of their juice glasses was ridiculously small which was a great inconvenience as you had to repeatedly get up for a refill every two sips.

Overall, I would say that this hotel lacks class, but is well suited to those on a short trip who want to be out in the water from the minute they arrive to the morning the leave - the snorkelling is addictive, the reef is gorgeous.

We stayed here from Apr13th to 27th 2006. Extended family and friends, some kids, the rest of us in our 30's and 60's. Chose the hotel on the basis of many of the reviews here, and were not disappointed, the hotel is wonderful. Beautiful grounds, lovely pools, excellent 'beach' area.

The rooms were spacious, immaculately clean. Powerful aircon. Constant hot water, and powerful showers. Computer operated personal safes, which hold a good amount of stuff, and the ever present towel animals each day on returning to the room.

We stayed B+B, and the breakfasts are out of this world. Excellent, better than some of the London 5star hotels I've stayed in.

The staff really make this hotel, they are wonderful, enormously friendly, smiley, courteous and simply can't do enough for you. This was our first trip to Egypt, and it won't be our last. The Egyptians are just delightful. They work bloody hard: 4 weeks of 18 hr days back to back, then one week off to visit their family, usually in cairo. We saw them finish work just before midnight each night, and were back before 0700am, bright-eyed, bushy tailed, beaming with welcome, and looking like they wanted nothing more than to wait on variably behaved tourists for the next 17 hours. We were stunned to find that almost all of the staff, including apparently junior waiting staff, have finished 4 year degrees at university. Most of them speak pretty good English despite never having been out of the country, and most of these can also be seen to banter each day with the Russians, Germans and Italians, in their own languages.

There is 24hr internet access, 2 quid for 30mins, £3.50 for an hour. The internet was not always up and running, but there are plenty of cafe's out and about if its urgent.

The pool is lovely, large, clean and warm. The pool temp at the end of April was 27*, the sea temp was 25*. Plenty warm enough to snorkel about without getting cold. There are plenty of sun loungers: the ones around the pool tend to be 'towelled' by about 0700am. Its no hardship to be up early when the weather is this good, and its already 32* by 0730. If you want to be by the pool, pop down and hang your towels on the loungers before going to breakfast. Its not the Brit thing to be doing this, but its a case of can't beat them-join them. On the 'beach', there are plenty of loungers available for the late risers. The beach is man made, and none the worse for it. It is arranged into many little terraces on several levels; the flowers are outstanding; there are lovely palm frond sun shades, and the loungers are sufficiently spaced to put you a comfortable distance from the next set. The man made sand, which is a little gritty, is great, it doean't stick to anything - no finding burnt bits you'd missed because of sand, no painful rubbing of sand onto tender skin with your towel.

During the day, staff come around doing courtesy sunglass polishing, spraying of cool rose water onto hot sunbathers, and dish out chocolate covered strawberries- you didn't realise how much you'd been needing one till it was offered.

there were daily bellydancing lessons (taught by a guy with great rythm, it sounds really naff, but all partakers were having a ball, as were the onlookers), daily aqua areobics, and regular volleyball/petanque. One of the great things about this place, is the music and encouragement is relatively quiet, and short-lived. There is no raucous Butlins style entertainment noise here. Most of your day, even poolside, is deliciously peaceful.

We took the courtesy shuttle into naama one evening, it arrives about 1815, and leaves at 2000, giving only enough time to eat really. We took a hotel car in another night ( reception will organise for you, £ 6 return.) We were half frightened to death. The driving was crazy. I complained to one of the delightful reception guys a couple of days later, and the car which subsequently took us to the airport on the last day, thus avoiding the tedium of the coach stopping everywhere, couldn't have been better. The driver drove sedately all the way, and took great pains to reassure us we were safe with him, which we were. Make it very clear at reception that the drivers must go slowly, and they will pass the message on. They do take your feedback seriously, and the drivers know it (red hotel cars, rather than blue and white taxi's, which break the sound barrier).
Naama is grim anyway. Happy circumstance that this hotel is some distance outside.

The weather needs no comment really. Expect wall to wall sunshine, whenever you are here. Sinai only gets 60mm of precipitation a year, ( your average wet London 24hrs), all of which falls on the close to 3000m mountains in winter as snow. The coast is a desert. It was gloriously hot each day, in the mid to high 30's throughout. The low humidity and sea breezes mean the temperature was almost always comfortable. That said, I don't know how anyone comes here in high summer.

Like all but a couple of the hotels in Sharm, the sea is reached via a floating walkway and pontoon. It may look solid in the pictures, but it is like walking on an exceptionally boistrous bouncy castle while totally pissed. Please don't walk along the shore edge. What looks like rubble to you is coral in the early stages of regeneration. There are signs everywhere asking for your co-operation in this, and yet there are still a group of muppets every day, causing anxious whistle-blowing from the lifeguard who has one eye on the swimmers and another on his precious coral. The snorkelling is good. Camel dive, onsite, rent out equipment, and are a very professional and safety conscious dive outfit. Lovely staff.

Theres a guy who comes around most days with a photoalbum, encouraging you to sign up for special dinners, one a romantic dinner on the beach, another a bedouin night, etc. One of our party thought he was a little bit like a used car saleman to start with, he was subsequently more than happy to eat his words; Abdul is just lovely. My mother grew very fond of him. The evenings he describes are excellent, terrific food and ambience and great value for money. we would have kicked ourselves for missing them, just because of that british reserve which automatically doesn't want to do what some one is trying to sell you. Don't let yourself make the mistake of declining his invitation. He's not on commission or anything.

We had a truly excellent holiday, several generations of us. One of the best, we are all agreed. We will return to Sharm, and when we do, it will be back to the Iberotel Grand Sharm.

The Dahab bombing took place during our trip. These events should be of no consequence to you when you are thinking of booking a trip here: security at all hotels is good. No cars can approach the main reception, they are halted over 150m away by concrete blocks and a security checkpoint, and can go no further. There is security on the main entrance, and an airport style metal detector to walk through. No one but a paying guest can progress beyond reception. There are security men throughout the grounds of this and neighbouring hotels, and they can and do stop sightsee-ers. Far from making us twitchy, these kind of sights made us feel reassured, and rapidly become background noise. The Egyptians them- selves were angry and upset that such a thing could happen along their coast again, and threaten their beloved tourists and their livelihoods. it is no more a part of their culture than the bombing of the underground was part of ours, and I hope you will not stay away from this wonderful part of the world because of it.

Just back from Sharm el Sheikh, this hotel is excellent and well-recommended. The staff are very friendly in general and the rooms are lovely. I emailed before leaving the UK to ask for a top floor room, which is what we got, with a lovely view of the sea. Furnishings and size were more than adequate.

The weather was amazing for the whole week we were there, sun every day and not a cloud in sight (unlike The Canaries at this time of year in our experience). Absolutely baking hot! Snorkelling was also fantastic and the position of the hotel excellent for daytime lounging.

My only gripe about this hotel was the lack of courtesy bus in the evenings. This meant that to go into Na'ama Bay you had to take your life in your hands and get a taxi. It didn't matter whether you got one through the hotel or from outside the hotel (cheaper), the ride was harrowing to say the least and seatbelts didn't exist. We found that a bit of alcohol made the journey slightly more bearable. Be careful that you don't get ripped off, on our last night we were 'got' by the taxi driver who quickly substituted a note as we were getting out of the car.

Restaurants in Na'ama Bay were good, China House, Mexican, Lebanese etc... Cheaper to eat out than at the hotel and avoids the tediousness of buffets which, let's face it, are the same wherever you go. The shops are mad, shopkeepers trying to entice/force you in, even shouting at you if you gave them a wide berth. Best to stay calm and just say 'No thanks', does get a bit much though.

All in all, if you are looking for Winter Sun and a great hotel, this is the place to go, stick to the bed and breakfast if you're willing to take your chances with the taxis. We would definitely go back!

Have just returned from two weeks at Grand Sharm. The hotel complex is fabulous - the only downfall is the food - it is very repetitive but the staff are very obliging and just cannot do enough for you. The rooms are clean not over spacious but enough to be comfortable. The beach is fantastic as are the pools. I can highly recommend this resort but be aware that you cannot access the sea from the beach. This has to be approached via a jetty and if the wind is blowing it can be somewhat off putting trying to get to the end of it but once you have made run the gauntlet the rewards are fantastic - the fish are amazing - I would say better than the Barrier Reef. The coral is great but not as spectactular as the Barrier Reef - all in all a fab time bar the food. We will return but eat out !!