Hi,

We've just got back from Le Pacha hotel last week and whilst we got a very good deal;

£400 for 1 week: we booked flights through skyscanner.net (Viking) and the hotel on travelreplublic.co.uk with free transfers (still get a rep at the hotel also).

there are a few things you need to know....

Positives

- Rooms are a fair size, nice high ceilings and we had a good view.
- The resort is the most clean hotel I have ever stayed at - they cleaned our room EVERY day.
- Location is good, Hurghada is a huge resort so for us, it was great to stay in the centre.
- Always plenty of sunbeds.
- The staff are mostly very friendly and can't do enough for you, they work incredibly hard. We found the Egyptian people very friendly (even when they are not trying to sell you something!) and they seem to love English people.
- Food, although very 'samey' it was tasty and lots of different meat options.

Negatives

- The all inclusive drinks finish at 10pm!! You have to pay after that...
- Water - they don't provide bottled water - we had a bottle that we wanted to fill up at the cooler, they told us we could only fill it up 'half way'. Not handy, especially if you are going on a trip.
- Entertainment was rubbish. The one day it was good, we sat down and was told we had to buy a drink to watch it (naturally it starts after 10pm!) - we weren't very happy considering we had paid to stay at the hotel.
- Russians - Mostly Russian people at the hotel, who (not all) can be very rude. I was told they are subsidised to go to Egypt as the Russians built the Aswan Dam - haven't verified if this is true.
- Twin beds: couldn't put the beds together as there was a wire going into the bedside table for the lights fixed inbetween the beds (maybe they were trying to tell us something?!)

We wouldn't go back to the hotel, although we had a good holiday.

A couple of tips that we were told whilst we were there that you may find useful: change your money whilst there, exchange rate was 8.5 EGP to the £ (we got 7.95 in UK).
Always negotiate taxis, from the Little Buddha restuarant (very good BTW) to the Marina should be max 15 EGP. Have the change, we always carried 5's and 10's as you can be told that they 'don't have any change'.

Lastly, we went on some great trips: Luxor (Valley of Kings and accross the Nile etc), Snorkelling round Giftun island (best - didn't see any jellifish), snorkelling round Magawish island with 'submarine' trip (ok if you don't mind getting stung by little jellifish, doesn't hurt that much!!!) and my favourite: the 5 hour quad biking across the desert - loved it!

That's all from me, if you do decide to go - have a great holiday!

V & M

Le Pacha is an older resort but great in every way.
Staff are friendly, fun and helpful. Rooms are a bit dated but clean and has all you need.

Food and drink was great with a different theme every night.

The kids loved it. Ice-cream every day at 4pm and as much drinks and food as they could eat/drink. The pool bar was their favourite. Kids club (mini disco) every evening was great too and catered for the diverse tourists (mainly Eastern European) but also English, American, French.

One of the highlights was that there were no mosquitos there - they sprayed (well bombed) the resort every night so didn't get bitten once - unlike most of the tourists I saw at the airport going home.

There were a lot of local excursions to do that the hotel could organise (rather than use the tour operator) at discounted rates - snorkelling, diving, safari, water park etc.

Would recommend.

Swimming pool and beach were clean and there were always enough sun loungers and towels.

We travelled here on a charter trip by "Solresor". The hotel is in the old part of Hurghada called Sakkala. This location is quite good since you have shopping just outside the hotel and the New Marina in just 10 minutes away and is well worth a visit. If you want to buy the typical Egyptian souvenirs or go to a coffee house to smoke the water pipe, it's possible just around the corner.

The hotel is facing away from the street towards the Red Sea and it is quiet and calm on the inside. There are two pools at the hotel, one small for kids and a bigger one. During our visit, the big pool was actually colder (20 degrees C) than the sea (23 degrees C). At the beach you have some small coral reefs and can actually find clown fishes at a depth of 2 m. There is also a scuba diving centre at the beach and there are daily tours from here. We also did a dive at their house reef which is well spent time if this is your first time in the Red Sea or if you haven't been diving for some time. It is an easy dive and you still get to see some typical Red Sea species. The dive centre can be found at www.tauchenunterfreunden.de.

The restaurants at the hotel are quite good. Even if the food is similar all days, it is a good deal to have the all-inclusive package. For lunch, we preferred the beach restaurant. For dinner, the pizza and barbeque was very popular and some western food is nice as a change.

When reading reviews of other hotels in Hurghada, many complain on lots of Russians at the hotels. At Le Pacha, we did not find this to be a problem at all. We guess that the hotel's guests mostly are from Scandinavia, Germany, and Russia in this order.

The restaurants just outside the hotel (one Chinese and one Italian) are quite pricy and it is in our opinion it is better to walk down to the New Marina.

I would recommend this hotel to a friend :) Good service, good food and very kind all staff :))