Hi

I stayed here in October 2011 and really enjoyed myself, the view of the port and canal is amazing. Seeing all the ships linign up to come in, and waking up in the morning to see a huge passanger cruise ship mored outside my window was facinating.

The staff are friendly and helpful, and the food in the hotel is great. I would recommend their lemon Drink, its wonderful.

During the Day the pool is nice and relaxing and by night its the perfect place to relax with a good quality, great tasting Shisha.

Value for money and we will definatly be going back.

Kind Regards

Staff were either disinterested or 'old hands' soley intent on gaining a tip through everything but customer service. That said, the place was clean and reasonably well equipped - the TV remote may have lacked a case for the batteries but it did function.
The two real concerns were:
1. Very dodgy wiring. Several appliances in my room were unplugged and due to exposed wires and/ or loose fittings did not look suitable to go near let alone switch on. This was a common theme among rooms occupied by colleagues.
2. Security - not just the interconnecting door that not only did not lock but swung open when not held shut by a hastily moved table and chair, but in general the security staff may as well have not been there for the interest shown in passing people through the hotel doors.
The thing really working in this hotel's favour is the location (views over the Suez canal). That said, if you can find somewhere else nearby, give it a try.

The Sonesta has now become the Resta Hotel and I must say I was expecting something special for the price - however as explained to me by one of the reception staff - the lack of competition in Port Said lets the management charge what they like! The same principle must also apply to the use of the internet at this hotel where one hour costs LE 44.00 approx. (€6.00). The only other hotel of similar standard seems to be the Helnan and it is even more expensive - I traveled on to Ismailia from Port Said and stayed in a 4 star rated hotel right on the Suez Canal for half the price.

The Sonesta is in a very good location. On the Canal, from your window you can look at the tankers go past, and you can just walk out and walk along the canal on the walkway that gets quite busy (in a good way) at night.

For me that goes a long way to be a reasonable place to stay --and I was fine with being there -- but my family in the end convinced me that the negatives outweighed the advantages. The beds were not too comfortable, the rooms (at least those that we were in) reasonably basic and tired, and in one, the window did not shut properly letting a few mosquitoes in. They ran out of towels one day, forgot to put them in when they did get them whever they did come, and it took some time to get them the next morning as (polite) requests were taken but somehow lost. We had a couple of requests in our stay that were understood by the (excellent) operator but had got jumbled by the time they got to the relevant staff.

The front desk were pleasant and attentive and tried to assist eg when it took ages for the right hire car and driver, ordered from the car desk in the hotel, to turn up. (That mightn't be the hotel's issue.) Breakfast was on the basic side. I can't say whether noise would be a problem at a busy time as it was pretty short of guests when we were there I think.

So none of these were earth shattering issues and they didn't particularly upset us. But the family overall thought this was the least good of quite a few hotels we stayed at in our Egypt trip, so in the end I think it is fair to suggest that if you do go here, you keep your expectations on the medium side.