BootsnAll Travel Community

Hello,
I have an opportunity to visit Zahabia Resort in Egypt for two weeks and wonder if anyone has been there or current information about it? What about sightseeing nearby? Is two weeks too long to visit the area? And with the military operations in the mideast, would it be a problem for an American woman traveling alone?
TIA,

Egypt is really not a good place to go to a beach resort.

Hurghada is a nasty little town filled with crumbling buildings. Much of the shoreline is strewn with rubble from never-completed hotels. The hotel beaches are tiny strips of sand covered with nearly nude sunburned middle-aged Eastern Europeans. The public beaches have lots of sharp rocks (I sliced my foot open at the Hurghada public beach and couldn't walk for a week after).

Now if you're planning to go diving....maybe Egypt is cool. But for a relaxing beach vacation, it's the wrong place!

Dahab is a cool, relaxing place by the Red Sea. But like the others said, the beaches aren't so good (virtually non-existent in Dahab). The diving was good though. I was there about 3 days which was fine.

Are you going to Zahabia for free? Because it might behoove you to spend some time in Cairo or Luxor, or somewhere else. I am an American woman and I travel around Egypt alone all the time, but I am brown and speak Arabic. Even so, in one village some kids organized an impromptu anti-American demonstration because of their feelings about the US occupation of Iraq. You take your chances, I guess.

Thanks, everyone. Especially for the description of the town.
Yes, the two weeks lodging is free. I thought I might spend most of the time sightseeing or possibly fly into Kenya for a few days safari, then return.
I will definitely do some research. I appreciate all your input.

I'm here at Zahabia now. The town is as described especially by js. A problem I'm having is I didn't pack both weeks vouchers from RCI and the resort so far is refusing to book my second week. So I may be leaving early. I've tried calling RCI to have them fax a copy of week 2's voucher but no success yet.

Any suggestions from BNA community? Also for how to move my return flight up, since I purchased it through BNA?

Thx, I'll be checking the board often

T909

If you are not happy with Zahabia/Hurgahada, take the bus to Luxor. The cost of a hotel isn't that great and you may enjoy the things to do at Luxor more:

Karnak
Luxor Temple
Valley Kings
Valley Queens
Nile cruise

just to name a few......

There will also be better food and better food variety.


If you choose to fly into Kenya for a sightseeing tour....it's a bit of drive, but Lake Nakura has a very dense animal population and you may enjoy that. Nairobi isn't very exciting.

Thx Slip. I may do that since Luxor was going to be one of my excursions. Cairo was very interesting because I happened to fly in from Amsterdam next to an Egyptian studying for his American citizenship.

I haven't seen any other Americans in Hurghada yet but it's the off season. If you squint at night it looks like a tiny Las Vegas



Sent from my iPhone

I took the bus from Luxor to Hurgada as a solo female. It was not a great trip, but tolerable. The guy next to me kept pressing against me trying to take up more than his share of the seat (MY share of MY seat, actually). I think they are used to pushing to see how much women wi.l back down. I kept my arm where it was until it "slipped" and he had be pressing against it so hard that when it slipped, it went right into his rib cage. Such a shame! Also, get a seat toward the back of the bus because they play LOUD LOUD LOUD arabaic movies up front and you can't get away from the sound.

I enjoyed Dahab a great deal, and recommend that if you want more beachtime, otherwise then I second what everyone else says and go to Luxor.

DEFINITELY not worth trying to get to Kenya for a few says safari. I think you'd pretty much have to fly back to Cairo to do that anyway, so you might as well do your sightseeing in Egypt and save Kenya for another trip. Not that a safari isn't great, it was one of the highlights of my trip, but since you're in Egypt anyway, the infrastructure is easier for you to see what else Egypt has to offer rather than trying to go to Kenya for only a few days.

linds had a lot of good info for me about the Red Sea, here is a link to my thread where she has provided me with some extra valuable info on Egypt/Red Sea area:
http://boards.bootsnall.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/209091657/m/84300945416

Hope this helps!! Enjoy your travels.
~kk