Tropicana Grand Oasis Hotel – Sharm El Sheikh – Egypt

This is one of two Tropicana hotels in Sharm, the other being close to Naama Bay & not on the seafront. The Tropicana Grand Oasis hotel is located on Sharks Bay nr Sharm El Sheikh.

The staff at Tropicana Grand Oasis every effort to keep it clean however the building is geting old & requires some refurbishment. Things look OK on the surface, but poor air conditioning, dodgy electrical sockets & low standard of decoration/maintenance soon become obvious.

We found that the air conditioning took from 10pm to about 3am to achieve a comfortable temperature, which meant difficulty in sleeping. You are required to place your key fob in a slot to activate the air con, so a good suggestion is to remove the key from the fob & leave the air conditioning on all day – which will provide you with a comfortable sleeping temperature when you go to bed, rather than halfway through the night!

Our room was more suitable for 2 rather than the 3 of us. The 3rd bed was an uncomfortable camp bed, which was not suitable for my children, who at 16 & 17 require a standard bed. The camp bed was very uncomfortable, so be warned if there are more than two of you in a room.

The management are making a real effort to please the British guests, implementing some changes to the food even while we were there. There is a ‘main’ restaurant, which we generally just used for breakfast and an occasional lunch. This restaurant is not recommended, as the food quality was pretty low & it was extremely busy resulting in shortages of glasses and dirty plates etc. Fortunately, there are three ‘bookable’ restaurants available, which had generally better quality food & service. Additionally, they started to lay out tables around the pool to server dinner from 8pm onwards. A lot of this food was freshly cooked outside, which proved to be a pleasant environment & was again to a good standard.

The pool could be cleaner – though I think they had an issue with the filters while we were there. I do wonder if the swimming pools are the cause of many people’s illnesses while in Egypt (this hotel was no worse for people being ill than any other).

In my opinion, the location makes the hotel. Sharks Bay is great for snorkeling, we saw more fish here than on a day’s boat trip to Ras Mohamed National Park. You are able to snorkel the entire bay (there are some private jetties along the way where you can rest). At the far end of the bay is a public beach where you can grab a drink before you swim back. While only 5 minitues from the airport, you do not get much noise & this is quite a nice place to be when you have your airport transfer (first to arrive & last pickup!).

Staff are often insistent that they serve you, rather than allowing you to get your own drinks at the bar. This is often frustrating as there aren’t enough staff to provide a good level of service, so you end up waiting for drinks. The staff were pretty mixed in their attitude/friendliness, overall less pleasant than our previous stay in Egypt.

Entertainment was pretty poor, & mostly in Italian or Russian (who make up the majority of residents) & was also aimed at young children. However, I think this is on a par with many other hotels in Egypt.

I would return for the location, but I would not be happy about cramming three in a room again.