speaking as one of the 'very demanding British travellers' (see molWiesbaden review)my wife and I with two older teenagers spent the christmas period at the makadi palace and we loved it and would come again. We booked with Red sea holidays who incidentally didnt seem bothered whether i book with them, didnt know what tips were normal out there, and were overall underwhelmed by my miserly £4000 holiday booking - next time girls, know your hotels, and pretend that you are vaguely excited by your job!!
we were met by plenty of RSH reps who got us efficiently onto the coach (make sure you have cash for visas when you arrive - took us by surprise as we not warned by RSH(about £13 ea or 130 LE - ).
These are the following impressions good and bad of our stay:-
The approach to the hotel and first impressions of the hotel are amazing - the lighting at night is second to none and when you get into grounds/poolside the asthetics will take your breath away. they didnt stint on the design quality. The hotel is exactly as the RSH web site suggests only better - domes and minarets and and a huge pool that snakes past buildings under bridges over waterfalls and all with mature trees, flowering bushes and tropical greenery. The lighting guy at makadi palace is a genius - it really was beautiful
Porters will take your case up so make sure you have small notes available - I didnt so my porter walked away with a big smile and a 200LE note GRRRR! The rooms are beautifully designed and yes there are some faults but hey if you want perfection then stay in the Ritz. Dont spend all your time trying to find faults because you will find them and it will spoil your holiday and you end up as the loser. The faults do NOT spoil your holiday in anyway. When we arrived our curtains had not been hung back up after cleaning and our hairdryer didnt work - one brief POLITE call and these were fixed before we were back from our evening meal. The bathrooms are a bit tired and yes you can see where fixings were once on the wall and just a few small holes left - our towel holder kept coming off .......so i put put back on and it took me all of 10 seconds and didnt stress me at all. if you had a genuine complaint the staff were only too happy to help and yes the lad doing your room will bend over backwards to help because he is eager to earn a good tip at the end of the week. watch for doors at the end of corridors banging in the wind a night - i kept thinking it was a noisy guest so if you hear it - go close the door leading into reception lobby gallery(upstairs)!! I didnt notice the quality of the sheets - it couldnt have been that startling or i would have noticed but I was too busy with what was between my sheets rather than looking AT the sheets. so no complaints there either. Beach Towels: ours were changed once but I never thought to ask for more. i was happy to dry them on our balcony - fab view onto pool area- and they seemed OK - one was thin with a small tear but we only used them to lie on and towel off after snorkelling so who cares? bathroom towels were changed everyday. pool; yes-freezing freezing freezing. honestly they could heat it up a bit. the pool is the most stunning i have seen but too cold to use so we went next door and used Grand makadi pool - very warm. The warmest water was the sea of course but use beach/water shoes as it only has patches of sand - it quickly goes into coral and the most incredible snorkeling that can be had. loved it. Restaurants: book these quickly when you arrive esp the Thai as it is v popular and very nice - probably the best one. the french restaurant is limited and small meals and we were a bit dissapointed, the indian was excellent as was the Egyptian. the Dome looks stunning but lacks atmosphere and food wasnt always piping hot. it was OK for the first meal - some tasty things there. the Discovery was quite nice and the Malange was nice as well but a quick tip - queue up for your raw meat FIRST to get it cooked by the chef otherwise he sends you back after queueing for ages lol.The sunset bar was excellent for lunches - loved it. poolside: we didnt have a problem with getting loungers but a poolside waiter did admit it is hard to get one in the summer. make sure you have enough 5, 10 & 20 LE notes for tipping poolside waiters once you have finished at your spot. they really will keep running around for you getting drinks for you etc if they know you will tip. If you dont tip expect them not to notice you too much and serves you right!! some staff were surly as i read but hey some staff are surly in every hotel in every country. Thats nothing new - just avoid them or smile at them - its called an ice breaker!!
We loved the holiday - quality of the food, the asthetics, the scenery, the coral and snorkelling. It was a little bit of magic. One other thing DONT BOOK THE GRAND MAKADI!! its a bit rubbish after you have seen the Palace. Go enjoy!!

We stayed at Makadi Palace Hotel 16-23 Dec and travelled with our 16 year old son. Our tour operator was Red Sea Holidays.

After reading so many negative reviews about the hotel and the adjacent Grand Makadi, we wondered whether we had made a mistake in booking. How wrong we were! What a brilliant way to spend the week before Christmas, away from the hustle & bustle and dreary UK weather. All the negative reviews we read, in our opinion, were completely unfounded. We could not find fault with any part of our holiday and feel that we should reassure any future travellers that they should also enjoy a wonderful holiday.

Firstly, we stayed in a full suite (as opposed to the lead-in Junior suite category) and this was perfect for our party size. We had a large living room which doubled up into my son's bedroom. Our bathroom was a decent size with a seperate tub and walk-in shower, the vanity unit was a great size too with good lighting and a 'better than I expected' hairdryer. Don't rely on the freebie toiletries though, take your own. Our balcony was huge with table & chairs and sun loungers.

There were plenty of sun loungers around the pool area, with the pool boys helping with mattresses and your towels. They also come round regularly offering drinks. Likewise the boys on the beach serve you well, just an odd tip here & there goes a long way. They never pestered us and the guys offering massage were also polite and didn't pester once we had said 'no.'

The restaurants all offer a great choice with good quality food and great service. We had a good bit of fun with the waiters and again, they appreciate a small tip. We were quite worried as we had read that the staff practically stand there with their hand open - this is NOT the case and we NEVER encountered one instance of this. We tipped well but that was our choice. Some people tip and some don't but that didn't mean that any guests were treated any differently. We tried all the restaurants in both hotels and our favourite was Botanical Gardens. We never went short of a drink (!) and the house wine was of a decent standard. The cocktails are good fun (Tango was my favourite) if a little too strong sometimes!

The pools are kept immaculately claens but we didn't venture in as the water was so cold but the pool at Grand Makadi was heated and we did try that. The gardens are being tended to all the time and the gardeners do a great job.

There's not much happening outside the hotel but we didn't go there for anything other than a rest so it didn't worry us.

Red Sea Holidays were a great company to travel with and their rep, Ismail deserves special mention. He is one entertaining, funny guy but also a great help when you need him. My husband and son wanted to book a quad biking trip for Sunday morning and Ismail pulled out all the stops on Saturday evening to get it all arranged. Top guy and an asset to the company.

All in all, a great week and we are glad we were able to ignore the whingeing critics. Perhaps if they don't think they got a 5* hotel they should try places like Four Seasons or Baron Palms - and pay through the nose. We had a brilliant week and hope you do too.

Seems the majority of reviews is being made by very demanding british travellers. Well, myself being a middle-class German holiday maker, I was extremely pleased with my stay in Makadi Palace. Ok, the bath tub in the room was old and needs renovation - I don´t care about this, as I only use it for showers, and for this it was perfect, hot water all the time and inside a really charming bathroom. Just like the rooms, they are rather spacious, big bed and full of pretty-designed lamps in northern african style.
The garden inside the hotel is very well kept, the plants look healthy and content. Indeed, the beautiful pool wasn´t being used by many people during our stay. We were there in mid-november, and probably it was rather cool. We didn´t mind, as the sea was warm and clear and full of colourful fish ... And the whole hotel site is designed in a fantasy-oriental-style that I found rather appealing - no rectangular angles, just soft lines, warm colours and various facade styles that surely are by no means historically accurate, but very appealing (to me).
Okay, the buffet food was often not hot, only warm. But the grilled fish was really fine, the vegetables tasty, the deserts various, and a lot of things in between which I didn´t try, but they looked also good and fresh. It is interesting to see what some people expect from a hotel that has to feed more than a thousand guests at a time and offersn a very good price combined with really decent quality ...
The staff, especially at the reception, is very professional, the restaurant service is ok, often excellent. The beach front is very spacious, everyboy seems to find a place. A pleasure (for me) was the peaceful atmosphere in the whole area, only shortly interrupted by the desperate guy who wanted us to join the pool aerobic. All in all, a very recommendable place.

Over our two weeks holiday we stayed in both the Makadi Grand and the Makadi Palace. The Palace was certainly the better of the two adjacent hotels, and I think it is well worth the additional cost to stay in this hotel rather than its older neighbour. The rooms are far better decorated, there are more modern furnishings and the various restaurants are more spacious and less frenzied. It is well worth being organized and booking your evening meals at the very start of your stay. The Egyptian restaurant in the adjoining mall is well worth a visit, and we also recommend the Lebanese restaurant in the Makadi Grand.
We saved a considerable sum by taking $15 per person and buying our visas from the Bank of Egypt desk in the immigration hall rather than giving sterling to the Red Sea Holiday rep. He was most unhappy that we weren't giving him money.
There were plenty of sunbeds when we visited and we had no problem getting beds around the pool. If you wish to get a "front line" plot on the beach you will have to get up early. These are the prime spots and we watched people heading down well before 7.00 a.m. to secure a place. Reqests to reserve beds are totally ignored. You should receive a beach bag in your room. Let reception know if you don't have one as they say they will charge you if there isn't one in your room on departure.
I was disappointed with the toiletries on offer in the room - not even any shower gel in ours. The beach towels were shabby and too short for the loungers. The bathrooms in the Makadi Palace were a lot smaller than those in the Grand, but they were more modern and well lit. There is a hairdryer but it's quite feeble if you have a lot of hair to dry! I always thought that Egypt was famous for the quality of its sheets and bedding, but some of ours was rather tired and bobbly, and could have done with being consigned to the bin.
On the beach there are tents offering massage/ beauty treatments. I thought these were ridiculously expensive and didn't bother. One of the touts suggested that he would negotiate a price but I really couldn't be bothered to argue as the starting prices were way above what I would pay at home!
We found the staff friendly and efficient. In our experience there was no expectation of tips and the service was always good. Our tour on the Nile was good value for money, and we saw some wonderful things. If you are taking the Nile option the lack of tourists seems to mean that the ones that do venture there are on the receiving end of some ferocious and aggressive sales techniques. We found the Valley of the Kings a particularly unpleasant experience and you need to be quite hard to deal with some of their persistent approaches.
If you're not heading for the Nile and spending all your time in the Palace, take plenty of books and be prepared to have a great time.