We had a well organised private tour and generally very nice hotels. However this one was really something I would have preferred to avoid. Not sure if there are no other hotels around or all the same basic standard. Camping would have been better.....
Dinner was ok, but again the one with the lowest standard on our whole tour.

Where to start with this place?

I usually take hotel/trip reviews with a grain of salt. Someone could have different standards, different ideas of what constitutes "luxury," etc. However, every terrible review of this hotel is spot-on.

First, the rooms. Yes, many hotels (even "four star" hotels) in Egypt are basic. This place takes basic to a whole new low. The rooms were decrepit, and looked like they hadn't been refurbished since the hotel was built. Our sliding screen door was incredibly flimsy and jammed, which was the only time it actually felt like it could keep anyone (or anything) out. The water level was so-so. Of our group, we could flush our toilet and got more than a trickle out of the shower, so we were the lucky ones. As mentioned by other posters, the only amenity provided was bar soap.

The beds - yes, I can put up with a lot, but I am pretty rigorous about the cleanliness of my bed. The bed linens were very well worn, but seemed clean - I didn't look too closely, to be honest. (I didn't want to, based on the rest of the room.) I slept in my clothes. Problem solved.

The rooms were pretty much in sync with the rest of the facility. The dining room looks like a funeral home from the 1950's and the pool (which also looked pretty clean, to be fair) was also extremely basic. There is a little market inside the "compound" itself, with the usual stuff you find in areas geared towards tourists. There was what looked like a hookah tent in the market. I would like to have checked it out, except the 1 am wake up for the trek up Sinai call put the kibosh on late-night adventures.

Finally - the food. Bleh. It looked and smelled like food, albeit lukewarm, tasteless food. Let me be frank - you will not be eating this because it is the most incredible food ever served. You will be eating it because you are hungry, and it does the trick. I think I would have much rather eaten a package of the delicious, chili-flavored chips that are pretty ubiquitous in the area.

There are one or two highlights to this dump. First, they are very geared towards the incredibly early wake up calls for the Sinai hike. Our group met in the lobby area prior to starting off, where there was hot fresh coffee waiting. Second, they are incredibly well-situated to St. Catherine's monastery and Sinai. Short of staying outside the monastery itself (which I heard, but didn't confirm - was pricey), it doesn't get any closer.

In short - stay here because it's a place to stow your bags and get coffee at 1 am. Don't stay for the rooms, amenities, pool, food or service.

This hotel is in a great position to go up mount Moses/Sinai and in reality we went up during the night so only slept for a few hours anyway but being honest its not a great hotel. When we arrived we checked in and sat down at the pool which is past its best days. We tried to get a drink but all they seemed to have was cartons of juice which we had to wait a long time for. The food was fine and the location is good but the rooms are very tired and old. It does have a nice little market in the courtyard which stays open late which was handy (especially replacing a broken suitcase!)

That said we were only using it as base and the trip up the mountain by camel was fabulous! We loved our journey to see the sunrise so much we're putting our experiences into a website (not yet finished but you can read what we've done so far at www.our-egypt-holiday-experience.com.

Would recommend simply on the basis of location

The only thing good about this hotel is that it is close to the St. Catherine monestary and Mt. Siani. After reading the other reviews of this hotel on trip advisor prior to our trip, I was forwarned but I hoped that the reviews were exagerated. They weren't. This is the only hotel in town, otherwise no group would ever book their people here. The hotel is in terrible disrepair. The list of issues would be very long but I will include just a few. The service is generally non-existent with a few exceptions. We did not recieve housekeeping so I had to go to the front desk to notify them and ask for clean towels. The front desk manager did not apologize, in fact made an irrated sound and rung for a housekeeper. I felt like I was putting him out. The phones did not work in the majority of rooms. The rooms were extremely dirty with the exception that the sheets looked clean. No amenities except soap. No hair drier. Electrical plugs, lamps and lights did not all work. The slider door did not lock. There are no room safes and a limited number safes at the front desk so get yours early. The food was average, but nothing to rave about. Instant coffee. Lots of stray cats, which is usual in Egypt, but some of these were in pretty bad shape. One person in our group reported that she found bed bugs but no other people found any. On the positive side, the room was cool, queit and the mattress comfortable. I wouldn't reccomend this hotel but since it is the only hotel, you have no choice.