Dive In at the Renaissance Golden View, Sharm el Sheikh

by Alison Boler

Where should we go for the end of May Half Term Holidays? We wanted to dive in good visibility. We wanted hot sun. We didn't want a long haul flight - not for a week. The Red Sea was the perfect solution - a big tick in all the boxes. We own vacation time with Marriott which we can switch for hotel points, so it made sense to look for a Marriott property. There are two in Sharm el Sheikh - the Marriott in Naama Bay and the Renaissance Golden View in Ras Umm Sid, just outside Naama. In the end there was no decision because the Renaissance could offer us a family room and the Marriott couldn't. We booked flights with RedSea Flights who use Astraeus out of Gatwick - pretty good flight schedule - and we were on our way.

Bit of a nightmare trip down from Yorkshire on Bank Holiday Saturday despite leaving in plenty of time, but we made it only a little bit late. We'd booked a car parking arrangment with the Meridien hotel at Gatwick because whilst our outbound flight was daytime, the return flight didn't land until 2 a.m. It cost £145 for 8 days parking plus a family suite. It worked out brilliantly and I would recommend the hotel to anybody leaving from Gatwick because the hotel is actually joined to the North Terminal by a covered walkway. More about the hotel later. Anyway, its proximity to the airport meant that we literally drove up, parked in the hotel carpark and walked 200 metres into the terminal.

The flight was about an hour late getting away but very smooth after that and with excellent service - they came around with the trolleys lots of times and the meal was better than most. Pretty good legroom and a good selection of movies.

It had been three years since we'd been to Sharm and the airport had grown hugely since the last time we were there - a very modern facility now. It was really crowded. Three flights from Moscow had just come in at the same time as us. There were lots of Russians in Sharm - nearly as many Russians as Italians this time. Anyway, it didn't take very long to get through the formalities, we got a taxi outside and in another 30 minutes were at the Renaissance. The Renaissance is between the Hilton Waterfalls hotel and the lighthouse at Ras Umm Sid. It's a quieter area populated by fairly plush resorts along the edge of the bluffs and holiday villas inland. The whole area really reminds me far more of parts of coastal Spain than any other part of Egypt.

The Renaissance is a very impressive hotel - beautiful multi level foyer, marble everywhere, lovely lounges. The check in staff were most helpful and friendly. We'd been told to ask for an upgrade to a family suite which we did and what a great tip that was. For 25 USD per night we got a two room suite at beach level with two patios that opened out onto one of the pool areas. The lounge of the suite was very large with a full kitchen containing cooker, fridge freezer, washing machine etc, plus a dining area and a large sofa bed and TV. The seperate bedroom also had a tv and a huge king sized bed. The bathroom was also vast with a full sized bath and a large shower, twin sinks etc. The decor was very tasteful and the sheets and furnishings very very lush. A good start.

We liked the Renaissance very much. There are four swimming pools, tennis, shops, a full dive centre, a spa, 4 restaurants, bars - plenty to do. We had breakfast only included in the rate and it was very good. A huge buffet every morning with both hot and cold items and an omelette/egg chef. We ate dinner in there twice: once on the last night when we were waiting to go to the airport and once when we'd had a particularly long day diving and couldn't raise the stamina to go out. The evening meals were standard international fare - a good range of choice but hardly inspiring. I was glad we were not on half board.

We also tried the Mexican restaurant down at the beach one afternoon for some snacks. The snacks were good but only in Egypt would you find a Mexican restaurant where you can have any cocktail you like except one that contains Tequila!!!! The barman looked me straight in the eye and told me that because their executive chef was a Mexican the restaurant was very authentic and Mexicans didn't like Tequila. I must have got the wrong end of the stick entirely last year in Baja then!!!

I'd been in touch with the dive centre before we left to book a dive package. We wanted to do a couple of shore dives on the first day and then five days boat diving and this was easy for them to put together for us. Dive In is an Italian owned company that has several centres in Egypt. The dive centre at the Renaissance is large and very well equipped. The hire equipment looked good. The dive guides were all Italians and very pleasant, spoke good English. All dives are guided - no discussion. You might not like this. We prefer more freedom to be frank but hey, when in Rome.... Actually, it worked out fine. We got 10% off for booking over the internet. In the end the 12 dives cost us 270 euros each and we got a t shirt and a log book each as an extra! Pretty good value.

The shore dives were a great way to ease in to the water, get the weight right and get sorted before getting on a boat. The currents were very strong all week so I'm glad we did. The reef around the Renaissance is called Paradise. Hmmmm. I suppose it might have been once, but all the building work has taken its toll on the coral. Still, it is a nice enough house reef and very easy to get in and out. The dive centre is just behind the beach. You literally stroll across about 20 yards of sand to their floating pontoon that leads you across the top of the reef table to the drop off. There is a platform at the end of the pontoon with ladders down into the water.

The other advantage of diving with Dive In was that their pickup took us straight to the boat without visiting any other hotel along the way, which can be a tiresome feature if you pick a dive centre down in Naama. There was a boat dive every day with pick up at 0830 and return about 4 or 5. Most were two tank trips but often there was a third dive on offer. To be frank, I don't think the third dive was worth doing because it took place at the final anchorage of the day - a place picked to give non divers on the boat the chance to swim. The anchorage sites by their very nature are not brilliant dive sites anymore.

Sharm el Sheikh harbour is a sort of semi organised chaos. I thought it was marginally better this time than I remembered from 2002. The system now is that your bus will drop you off at the gates and you walk through into a walkway area where there is some shade, keeping with your party. You then wait there until your party is complete and it is confirmed that your dive boat is at the dock which is further inside the harbour. You then progress through the security check (!) and into the dock itself, following the guide who will lead you to the boat. It is pretty much merry chaos on the pontoons with hundreds of divers trying to find their boat, trolleys of cylinders and equipment being loaded and of course a lot of shouting and yelling going on - all good natured.
Look at the background to the picture on the right and you will get an idea.

The first day on the boat there were only our group of four and two other divers and we visited reasonably local sites: Eel Gardens and Ras Umm Sid. Both very pleasant dives, plenty of coral but not the brilliant quality of Ras Mohammed or Tiran. Still, no complaints, it was extremely relaxing and a good beginning. Dive In's boat is called Rosetta II and it's a large craft with plenty of sunbathing deck, shaded areas, a large saloon, two excellent heads, a large dive deck, water level platform and two edgeless dive ladders - no need to remove fins. The crew were first class - very helpful - and they put on a superb lunch for a couple of quid. Soft drinks, water, tea and coffee, biscuits were all included in the price.

All entries and retrievals were made to the Rosetta. The briefings were very good, dive marshalling seemed thorough. Nitrox and air were available. There was plenty of room for kitting up on the dive deck. They operated a very slick system. When you check in at the Dive Centre on the first day, you are allocated a numbered dive box. This box is put on the boat for you every day you are diving and taken off at the end of the day and stored if you are not diving the next day. If you are, it stays on the boat. There are plenty of hangers for wetsuits so that they can dry between dives. The dive guides are very competent in the water and it was pleasant to dive with them as they clearly know the reefs well. The other thing I liked about the Dive In staff was that they did not swim too fast underwater. One of my pet peeves about guided diving is that too often the dive guide turns into a sort of human torpedo racing across the coral. This was all very Italian: laid back and relaxed!!!

Generally, the dive guide carried a delayed smb which they would inflate at the end of the dive (when the first person reached 50 Bar). Everyone would then ascend to 5m for a safety stop, surface and the boat would come in to pick us up. This was called a drift dive or a semi-drift dive signifying that the boat would not be anchored. I think the difference between a drift and a semi drift was that the boat didn't anchor at all for a drift dive but was anchored at the beginning for the semi drift. Not entirely sure.... but neither signified the presence of current particularly as they would in the UK.

After the first day on the boat, more divers arrived - there were generally about 12 on board plus snorkellers. With 12 divers, we tended to be split into two parties based on experience and air consumption. The girls were extremely pleased to be in the "experienced" party!! We spent two days at Ras Mohammed and two days out on the Tiran reefs.

I mentioned that the currents were strong on this trip. I should have said "roaring". We didn't manage to get around the wall at Shark Reef once the entire trip - it just blew us past and onto Yolande Reef every time. We tried fighting our way around against it but it was just too strong, which was extremely disappointing. Some of the less experienced divers found the dives quite challenging. There were also very strong currents out at Tiran. It mattered less out there because the reef walls are linear so as long as you start at the right end, you just drift along with the current. It did mean that you had to be fairly focussed at the start and end of the dive to avoid being swept away - no faffing about - and again the less experienced struggled a bit sometimes.

The coral at these sites is in surprisingly good shape given the number of divers in the water and the number of boats. These numbers must be approaching breaking point now. On one dive in Jackfish Alley I counted over 40 divers around me - far too many. On another dive at Jackson reef there were thirty dive boats moored up in a double row leading off the reef - again not pleasant. I began to wonder if we had made a mistake coming back to Sharm.

However, the diving is still good. It is possible to get away from the crowds if you make your feelings known to the skipper and the dive masters. Maybe some people don't mind crowds. And maybe I just remember it when it was empty and hark back to that too much. Certainly, the girls both said that their dives on Shark Reef were the best they'd ever done anywhere, so what do I know? It certainly is still a huge thrill to find that big ball of barracude there hanging in the blue and descend through them to see the reef sharks below you. There is something special about that particular dive. I got a huge buzz from one of our party - a Russian diver, very solid diver, bit dour usually - who surfaced with a huge cheesey smile, raving about Shark Reef being the most exciting.. the best... the most wonderful dive he had ever experienced

The fish life is not as prolific as it was, but it is still eons better than the Mediterranean or most of the Caribbean. The Napoleon Wrasse are beginning to show themselves again, the turtles were there, reef sharks, morays, white morays, lion fish, tuna, barracuda, angel fish, blue spotted wrays - all the usual Red Sea suspects. There was even a whale shark just off Ras Umm Sid! I didn't see it unfortunately but plenty of other people did.

What else is there to do? Well, more or less whatever you like. Sharm is a big international resort now - it could be Spain. We ate out every night - there are so many different restaurants to choose from, all very reasonable. Some recommendations would be the Indian Restaurant at the Camel Hotel, the Lebanese restaurant outside the Sanafir Hotel and best of all, the Sinai Star, which is in old Sharm el Sheikh.

Old Sharm el Sheikh is the original town and it's just before the harbour where all the dive boats leave from. The Renaissance is roughly 1/2 way between Naama Bay and old Sharm. It's about the same taxi fare whichever way you go. I would encourage you to try a few nights down there for a change. They have really redeveloped the old market area into a superb place with streets of restaurants and shops and cafe gardens. The Sinai Star has been a Sharm staple for years. I can remember going there twenty years ago when it was in what looked like a garage! It's still not plush. There is no printed menu and you can't buy alcohol (although you can bring it without any problem, there's an off license practically next door). What they offer is superb fresh seafood at unbelievable prices. For £23 we had a feast for 4 people: a selection of starters, salad and hot bread, water, and then the most enormous seafood platter containing 2 grilled lobsters, calamari, white fish fillets, king prawns. We couldn't finish it. Really nice people too. Do try it - honestly, it's just so much better than the more touristy restaurants in Naama.

We also tried the Marriott Bedouin Feast one night!!! Now this is the sort of outing that generally makes me run for the hills but the girls really wanted to do it, and I quite liked the sound of going into the desert and being able to see the stars, so.... we booked. It cost £20 per head. The coach picked up about 40 of us (only from the Renaissance and Marriott) and took us about 45 minutes into the desert to a private canyon owned by Marriott. It was quite exotic, with very atmospheric lighting up the hills and cliffs and a nice little camp with a fire pit and cushioned tents etc. You helped yourself to a buffet (very nice) and watched a variety of Berber and Bedouin dancing. They certainly worked hard. At the end we lay back on the cushions, had a shisha pipe and enjoyed the stars leaving the girls to watch the end of the dancing. Which was fortunate because that was when they got picked on to be ritually humiliated by joining the belly dancer on stage!!!! A really nice evening - I would do it again.

The only out of kilter thing was that we had 4 fully armed (machine pistols) security men on the bus and in the camp with us at all times and the coach was top and tailed by more security men in cars. Not sure if this si a standard level of security or whether it was just because of the bombings in Cairo earlier in the year. There were very obvious barriers in front of the hotels and police cars at every major junction though.

Of course no visit to Sharm would be complete without a couple of visits to the Camel Bar and we went twice. We like the roof there and in May/June it is more than hot enough at night to make this viable. The roof has undergone great development since our last visit. It used to be very dimly lit with lanterns and just have lots of cushions for lounging and enjoying a drink and a shisha. Part of the roof is still like that but most of it has gone considerably upmarket with a proper bar, tables and booths etc. Whatever, it still gives a fantastic view down on the main drag and you can watch the world and his wife go by.

Our week came to an end all too soon. We were pleased to find that the Renaissance runs a free shuttle bus to the airport - just ask whenever you want picking up. So, instead of having to endure a 3 hour wait as per the usual package transfers, we timed our arrival to be 1 hour before take off - which was perfect.

Arriving back at Gatwick, it felt pretty chilly, although it wasn't! It was an absolute delight to walk straight out of the arrivals terminal into the lobby of the Meridien. Our family room was absolutely superb. Two bedrooms, both very large, around a corner location. The largest room had two twin beds, tv and sitting area. The other bedroom had a kingsize bed and a tv. In the morning when we pulled back the curtains - there were glass walls to three sides - the panoramic view over Gatwick and the surroundings was spectacular. The beds were really comfortable, soundproofing excellent - couldn't fault it at all. Highly recommended.

Sharm has changed so much now and is truly an international holiday resort where many of the holidaymakers don't even dive. Despite its commercialism, I quite like it. I think the Egyptians have done a great job in developing it in comparison to Hurghada for instance.
It's just... it's just... if you do remember what it was like 20 or even 15 years ago, from a diving perspective the comparison to now is quite sad and I do hope that the number of diving tourists does not increase much more and I certainly hope that the Egyptians never allow any development within the Ras Mohammed park. That really would be the end.

My observation is that most of the problems with the reefs do not stem from diver activity actually. It would appear to me that the majority of the damage has been done by building work pushing sand and dust down onto the coral. This would be recoverable over time I would guess. More worrying though is now the proliferation of snorkellers in the water. Snorkelling is big business in Sharm - boat loads of them going out every day, plus snorkellers from the hotel beaches. Largely, these snorkellers are untrained - the operators are just taking their money for equipment hire and boat charter and then they let them loose. I saw plenty of people walking on the reef, sitting on the edge of the drop offs and kicking the coral beneath them. It is also gives problems when snorkellers are put onto the dive boats which is very common practice.

This is because it results in snorkellers being taken to sites that are frankly unsuitable for their experience. There were fierce currents at Ras Mohammed and Tiran when we were there and Tiran in particular offers isolated reefs surrounded by blue water. The snorkellers were put in the water in the same way as the divers and on several occasions were in difficulties and had to be rescued. Often they were forced to take refuge on the reef when they were carried to the end of it and couldn't return against the current. Next stop Saudi Arabia!! On one occasion children had to be pulled back to the boat by rope, crying and cut by coral. On another occasion a woman got her hand trapped in the coral when she was sitting on the reef top waiting to be rescued. I think the whole concept of snorkelling trips needs to be rethought with a lot more common sense and a lot less greed.

So, on the positive side, if you are looking for a resort based holiday with diving, or a resort based diving holiday, Sharm is excellent value and a very good choice. If you are travelling with family or non divers, it's a great choice because there is so much to do, and the hotels are great for lounging in the sun. If you're a hard core diver I think it's time to move on - at least take to the liveaboards. That way, you can get to Ras Mohammed or Tiran before the day boats and enjoy them as they should be enjoyed. Of course you can also go much farther afield too.
Dive In, Sharm el Sheikh

Meridien Gatwick

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