La Perla Hotel Sharm

We came home just two days ago and you have no idea how we miss this hotel. Everything was great, very nice workers, they don't ask for money like in 5* hotels. The owner and administration are very friendly, ready to help if something is wrong. The rooms are cleaned every two days, but you can ask every day. Food is okay, like everywhere. The only problem is that almost no one speaks Russian and even English, only several people, but it's okay. If you want a vacation without bad memories, choose this hotel. Next time we'll choose this hotel for sure :) With love to Wael, Karim and Shady from Masha and Sasha ❤

Well, where do I start?? This was the worst and best holiday I've ever had!! When we arrived, we were created my extremely sleezy staff, drinks were made with fake alcohol and the all inclusive finished at 10pm!! Some of us also got bitten to death (you literally couldn't count the bites🙈) There was a large group of us so we took all this in our stride!! A couple of days in, the electricity went off because they had not paid the bill apparently?! After 24 hours of candlelight, we eventually got moved to another hotel...although out party was split between 3 different hotels!! The following day we all got moved to the same hotel, but La Perla remained shut!! Despite all this, it was one of my favourite holidays and I would stay there again!! Life is what you make it!!😂😂😂😂

New la Perla In this life, you get what you pay for and sometimes you are pleasantly surprised. This is the case with the New la Perla hotel in Sharm El Sheikh. Although definitely at the bottom of the price range for all inclusive hotels, it does offer excellent value for money. I paid £499 for two weeks all inclusive, including single supplement and was pleasantly surprised. If you take out the cost of the airfare, I consider that the hotel has about £12 per day to accommodate you, give you 3 meals a days and supply a free bar and whilst being here, I discovered that some people paid even less. My room is spacious, clean and everything works. Yes, it is a bit tired and dated in places , but that is fine with me. I would imagine that if you looked at the houses of the people who complain that there is a cracked tile in the bathroom, you might find a broken fridge or two in their front garden. There is lots of hot water in the shower and the bed is very comfortable. The flatscreen TV has more channels than you can ever watch and although most of them are Arabic, there are some English channels such as BBC World, Sky news and many of the stations show English films with Arabic subtitles. The Internet access is best described as patchy and intermittent. When I first arrived, I could get it in my room sometimes and sometimes it was fast and sometimes it is slow. At the end of the first week it was only available in the reception area and was basically non existent unless you tried first thing in the morning before 8am and preferable before 7am.. The one thing that is certain is that you will not be downloading any large files. It really is only good enough for emails, when it works. The food is pleasant and tasty, although because of the buffet style service, some of the dishes are a bit tepid. The selection can be bit limited but if you went to the same pub every night, the choice would always be the same. The strange taste to the vegetables is called flavour and caused because they are grown locally and not the tasteless rubbish one gets at Tescos or Morrisons. The dishes are mainly local but with an attempt to be international. They are catering for mixed audience after all. Towards the end of my stay, there was a tremendous storm and parts of the hotel were flooded and all the power went out. Despite this, the restaurant managed to produce an incredible meal, cooked and eaten by candle light. I honestly expected that there would be no meal that night or that it would just be salad and bread rolls. Instead there was a normal service at the normal time. There was a full range of choices and to be honest, the beef was fabulous, the fish moist, the potatoes incredible, the pasta superb, and everything else was delicious. I thought it was one of the best meals of my entire stay. The all inclusive bar was moved to the reception area and everyone drank by candle light. The animation team even arranged for us to go to a bar elsewhere for karaoke if we wanted. The restaurant is a little bit barren though, a bit more like a dining room or canteen than a restaurant but occasionally in the evenings they do dress it up with table clothes and linen napkins etc. There is nothing wrong with it, it is just not the place you would bring your loved one to propose. Unless it was to propose a divorce. In the evening and at lunch time there is always a choice of really nice soups, a great selection of salads such as Waldorf, Caesar, potato etc, a pasta dish, vegetables, rice and choice of meat or fish dishes. The rice pudding and the jelly are fantastic. Is it fine dinning? No. Is it 5 star dining? No. Is it Michelin dining? No. Is it bloody good value? Yes. If I had paid ten pounds for any of the meals in Britain, I would have been more than happy. Breakfast can be a bit strange but then we are in an Arabic country. There is a chap doing pancakes, omelettes and fried eggs, but the addition of mashed potatoes and Spam to the plate is a bit different. There is a toast machine in the bread section but it is very slow because it is also used as a bread warmer for all the other rolls etc. Therefore, you do have to put the bread through about seven times. The range of bread that is available is phenomenal. Every sort of bread you can think of sweet bread, chocolate bread, tarts everything. It would be a good idea to have all the bread that is not wanted at breakfast time used as elevenses or for afternoon tea by the pool. At all meals and especially at breakfast, there seems to be a shortage of cups and some of the cups are chipped and I did find one that was badly cracked and really needed to be thrown away. However, by the end of the first week, most of the chipped cups had disappeared but there was still a desperate shortage of them. It would be a good idea as well to bring your own mug as well, as the cups are rather small and it is pain to have to keep going back for a refill. It might also be an idea to bring a travel kettle with you. Personally, I like to have a cup of tea in the morning in bed and there is a fridge in each room to store milk so it would be a good idea. You can get the tea and sugar from the restaurant etc or bring your own coffee. There is a very pleasant bar next to the swimming pool and the staff are exceptionally friendly and helpful. Just remember to say thank you. You catch far more flies with honey than vinegar and if they like you, they are more likely to help you and give you a bigger drink, than if they think you are pain in the butt and always complaining. It would be nice though to have ice in the drinks. The poolside bar area has silly plastic garden seats that really are not strong enough. I have seen two of them collapse under customers. Sooner or, later someone is going to be injured. The all inclusive drinks are only available from 10am till 10pm so the evening can end a bit early. This really needs to change and the bar should really be open until 11 or 12 in the evening. It would also be nice if they played some background music in the evenings. There is not much to do in the evenings and this is a pity. There is a very nice space by the small pool that would make a great place to have some music in the evenings and perhaps an a. The animation team here is very small just basically two girls trying to keep everyone happy. They do the occasional stretching class beside the pool and the odd game of darts and try to arrange something in the evenings but it is difficult for them with the limited resources they have, especially as there are only 2 of them. At other hotels I have been to in Sharm, the animation team has been much bigger and so capable of providing a much better service. The young girl from the animation team just seems to drift around in a world of her own. She seems to be in charge of turning on the music at the poolside bar and she seems to think that the only way to enjoy music is LOUDLY. There are plenty of bars in the vicinity though if you do want to go out and do something a bit different. And of course there are the ubiquitous evening trips to the Beduin camp and the trip to see the stars etc. The Old Market is within walking distance and well worth going to. I definitely prefer the Old Market though to Namma Bay which I find a bit like Marbella but with camels. The main pool is very pleasant, spotlessly clean and two metres deep. They could pay a bit more attention to cleaning around the pool in the flower beds etc but the pool is spotless. There is a kiddies pool next to it. You have to hand over your towel card to receive a poolside towel for the sun loungers. The chap that keeps the pool spotless is the same chap that hands out the towels. There is also a diving school attached to the hotel so sometimes you do have to dodge the scuba divers having a lesson or orientation dive at the bottom of the pool. There is a sort of a book exchange in the reception area where people can leave a book on the shelf and take another. There are not many books on it though and most people, don't know that it is there. Conclusion This is good value package holiday. The hotel lets itself down slightly by its lack of attention to detail. This is probably a problem of the management not spending enough time checking on details rather than trying to make sure the staff are not stealing the toilet rolls and trying to save money and cut corners. It is basically a good hotel that offers excellent value for money. It is the little things that let it down. Don't just wipe a table, clean it properly. Get a green pad and clean in the corners of the toilets. Don't just mop the floor, use some bleach or disinfectant. Take the cigarette ends out of the flower beds, make sure that there are enough cups and that they are not chipped. When you put up clean curtains in reception, clean the windows behind them. And FIX THE BLOODY WiFi. My grateful thanks go to all of the staff especially Ayman the barman, Mohammed (they are all called Mohamed) Mustaffa and Maria and all the rest that helped make my stay a very pleasant one. I wanted two weeks sitting by a pool reading a book or twenty, sunbathing and just relaxing. I had this and would return and recommend it to anyone wanting a great value holiday. Post script The only thing that spoils this holiday was the fact that my last memory of Egypt is the departure lounge at the airport, where they rip you off something rotten. The actual duty free is not too bad, in fact if you smoke, the prices are very reasonable and cheaper than buying in the shops. However, if you want a coffee or a Pepsi, prepare to take out a mortgage. They actually make airplane prices seem reasonable. £3:30 for a very small bottle of Pepsi. £5:50 for a small beer, £5:70 for a slice of pizza. What a shame that a great holiday can be spoilt at the last moment by the Government pricing policy, that actually should be encouraging you to come back to the country but instead, alienates you and makes you feel unwelcome. I flew both ways with Thompson and the outbound flight was in a wide bodied jet and had TV screens with the usual selection of movies etc. The return flight was on a smaller jet with no TV and a limited selection of everything. They didn't even have any ice for the drinks. They had also run out of most of the hot food.