Red Sea - Sharm/Hurghada/Jordan - Diving Holiday with Kids - Help!

[Duncan Gray]

Next year we are planning to go with our two kids aged 7 and 5 to either Sharm, Hurghada or Jordan for 2 weeks. We will obviously have to share the childcare and diving and a liveaboard isn't feasible, so it's either shore diving or day boats.

Has anyone taken their kids at this age(ish) to any of those places - if so any recommendations/tips/advice - not about the diving, we know about that- it's more which are the children friendly resorts, things to avoid type of advice I'm after.

All comments welcome

[alison boler]

Hi Duncan

We have travelled to Egypt lots of times as a family when our kids were the same age as yours - they're 12 and 13 now. It's really no problem - the Egyptian people are very friendly and welcoming to children. Both Sharm and Hurghada are pretty kid friendly resorts - Sharm possibly more than Hurghada because the beach is better and its more centralised. When our girls were at the childcare/kids club stage we would stay at the larger hotels because they tend to cater well for them. Also they have rooms that will sleep 4 people which not so many others do. In Sharm, we have stayed at the Movenpick which had a fantastic kids club, and at the Marriott and at the Hilton Waterfalls(I think all the newer Hiltons are suitable). All of these were really good and the girls had a great time. The Movenpick was especially good with this age group and because of its location, right in the centre of town and the beach, it was convenient in many ways. In fact on several days the girls came out on the day boats with us because they liked to go swimming off the back of the boat and see all the fish too. Some - not all - but its worth asking -- of the boats will even watch them for you so you can dive together, but you can't count on that and it very much depends on the dive master and what you feel about it. You will need to see how it goes.
Foodwise - Sharm and Hurghada both have a good range of restaurants of all sorts. We didn't have any probs with that, but our children are not very fussy about food - theyll eat anything - probably a reflection on my cooking!!! But, there are the usual burger bars and KFC in place anyway. The other thing is that a lot of the hotels run buffets and there's always something there for them.

Our kids loved downtown Sharm at night with all the tables outside and the shisha pipes and everything - it seemed very exciting and exotic to them. Like Aladdin. And they liked the little souk too.
The things you have to be wary of are to make sure that they drink enough bottled water. It gets really hot down there outside of the few winter months and the air is very dry, you can dehydrate very quickly if you're not careful. Kids don't like water too much, so it might be worthwhile taking some squash or Ribena and using that to flavour the water to make it more palatable.
People worry a lot about tummy problems in Egypt but we have usually been lucky and the children have never had any illnesses. You need to make sure that they understand about the tap water. The other thing to do is to make sure that before eating anything they wash their hands - this one step will make all the difference. The easiest way to do this is to pick up a bottle of antibacterial handwash for kids from Tescos or Boots - its readily available. You just squirt it into their hands and they rub them together, job done.
And obviously, protecting them from the sun by using a strong factor. I have used some stuff called P20 on the children for some years now. You put it on once a day when you get up and that's it, they can swim, sweat etc and it doesn't need re-applying. Its also clear. Gets rid of all that hassle over trying to keep creaming them up with some thick gunk time after time.
We also had a good time in Hurghada staying at the Marriott. On that occasion we took a side trip to Luxor and went to see the Valley of the Kings. They were just a bit older than yours then but they really enjoyed it because they do the Egyptians at school and they'd seen films about the Mummy etc. They took in far more than we expected they would. We also did family holiday things like going to the Bedouin night which they enjoyed too.
Another way of organising the diving is to take it in turns and instead of going on the full day boat dive to take the 1/2 day. Typically that goes out early and returns well before lunch or after lunch returning late afternoon. We always found the early start worked best becaue you could get up quietly, leave the troops asleep with your spouse and be back not long after they've got up and had breakfast.


In short, don't be afraid to take your children with you. They'll have a great time and so will you. Our's got so keen on snorkelling etc because of the times they'd been with us that they pestered and pestered to learn to dive which they did at 10 and 12 in Sharm el Sheikh. So, now we all go on diving holidays together and the probs of childcare while we dive have disappeared! Now we have the problem of having to go diving to sites where they CAN dive ie not deep!!! In fact we're off to Tenerife later this week. Have a look at my article on the Trip Reports page about a holiday we took to Grand Cayman.

Hopoe this helps and you have a great time.

Allie

PS Other places we have taken the girls when they were younger and had very successful combined family/diving holidays are Phuket in Thailand (probably the girls favourite because of an exceptional kids program- Phuket Beach Club), Cayman - ditto in various hotels. I have also heard really good things about Bandos in the Maldives and the kids program there. BTW don't worry about the flights. They will survive it better than you because they will either be entranced by the entertainment on offer long haul or fall asleep.

[Duncan Gray]

Alison,

Thankyou very much for such a comprehensive reply. Our kids are very much into snorkelling already, and in fact both of them have been diving with me (using octopus) in the 1M shallow end of our pool - which they both loved!!

The other place we are looking at is Aqaba Jordan - probably because (for the kids at least) it's more adventurous - Petra etc. Have you been there or heard any reports about it re suitability for kids? All of the websites do promote it as fine for kids but I can't help but get the feeling there's not so much to do in the evening as compared to Sharm/Hurghada.

[alison boler]

Duncan,

Glad that the kids are enjoying snorkelling and have had a try in the pool. Its a whole other subject, but we have got quite involved in the whys/wherefores and hows of teaching kids to dive. None as young as yours - the youngest we have taught is 10. However, there are some very good pool based kids clubs - bit like brownies - for the under 11s around in some areas of the country where they can really polish up the pool techniques whilst having fun and gaining water confidence. It makes the transition to open water whenever that takes place a lot easier. Having said that, neither of my two did that route because there wasn't a club nearby and they had no problem. Let me know if you ever want more info on this - don't want to start a thread up here on the travel forum - it's probably better offline.

Haven't been to Aquaba so can't really comment on that and the only people I know who have, have been adults. I would have the same feeling as you re evening activities, but that could be quite wrong. I've been to Eilat and that would be very suitable although the diving's not as good as further south and the security situation might give you pause. The other place you might consider is Taba Heights. Its a new resort area which is in Egypt but just over the border from Israel - opposite the Coral Island and near the Fjord. There are a whole raft of new hotel complexes gone up there, Marriott, Hyatt, Hilton - all very full service and family oriented and the diving is very nice by all accounts and close at hand. Not the high drama of the Southern Red Sea, but nice. There's an airport there and quite a few British operators go into it. And you can cross easily into Israel for certain activities ie the dolphin experience where you swim with them etc, plus there's boat trips on the Red Sea, St Catherine's Monastery and all the usual desert trips. For you, you could also supplement your diving by taking a day safari down as far as Nuweiba and Dahab and doing some of the spectacular sites down there. Its easy to arrange a bedouin taxi or a trip from the local dive shop.
You mention adventure for the kids and really, you can't beat the mainland side of Egypt for that I suppose, because you can have trips to the Valley of the Kings etc, and at a stretch Abu Simbel and Cairo. They would really like that. We actually stayed a few days in Luxor - at the Movenpick, which was on its own little island in the Nile. Great hotel for kids - loads of activities and good meals and quad rooms. They even have a little petting zoo there. We went in April and it worked well because - this sounds awful but trust me - we got up at 6 and went off and did the sights and were back in the hotel by 1030 (too hot after that) pegged out around the pool for the rest of the day while the kids did activities. In the evening we went to the Sound and Light show at Luxor temple and that was a cause for big round eyes too.

Anyway, hope you find something.

All the best

Allie