We stayed as a family of 4 with two teenagers for 11 days over Christmas at the Mirabel Club Hotel. When booking it is a little confusing as the site is divided into three sections, The Mirabel Club ( Furthest away from the beach, 10 minutes walk, and probably the quietest ), The Mirabel Park ( With the water slides, medium size) and The Mirabel Beach ( largest and closest to the beach). All 3 areas are available to all guests, however, if on an all inclusive deal you can only eat and drink in your own area, except for the beach bar and cafe which is available to everybody. I do not believe this makes any difference to the quality or selection of food which was fairly good and varied, although you must remember every meal is a buffet. There are 3 A la carte restaurants on site at which you can pay, a Chinese/Japanese, an Itailian and a Lebanese. We ate in the Chinese and with a bottle of wine it cost £95UK for four.
The grounds are superb with well developed and clean gardens and a selection of something like 7 or 8 free form swimming pools, although only some are heated in the winter months.
The beach is OK with lots of sun beds, shades, and large towels are supplied around the pools and on the beach. Immediately in front of the hotel the sea is only around waist high when the tide is in and up to your knees when the tide is out and you can easily walk right out to the reef about 200 yards out. If you turn left at the beach and walk for around 15 to 20 minutes you come to a currently undeveloped beach where the reef curves in and you can swim or snorkel along the edge of the reef just 20 yards off the beach with the most incredible selection of fish following you ............ my wife, who can only just swim, thought this was fantastic!
You have to be very careful walking along the path at the back of the row of hotels adjoining the beach as there are lots of electric scooters for hire that are almost silent and, unfortunately, they are hired to young children, and not so young idiots, that can't control them and seem to need to travel at top speed ....... this is an accident waiting to happen and somebody WILL be seriously injured or worse. They don't even supply crash helmets, or, if they do, we never saw anybody wearing one. No doubt when a young child ends up knocking over a pedestrian and injuring themselves the parents that hired them the scooter will blame the pedestrian! The fact that The Mirabel is the only hotel to have put down speed bumps along their section of path to try and slow down these scooters probably gives some insight into their style of management and attention to detail.
I guess the one criticism is that the hotel is a little isolated, you cannot just walk down the road to another bar or restaurant for a change of scene, however, the area is being developed fairly rapidly and I guess this will change over the next couple of years. It is also fairly close to the airport and you have the planes flying overhead but they are not that frequent, do not really intrude and we never noticed any flying at night. Also you have to accept the 'entertainment' for what it is, fairly amateurish but good wholesome fun that breaks the evening up ........... this is not a hotel for a group of teenagers or 20 somethings out for the high life and expecting to dance the night away.
Nama Bay itself is a £50Egyptian taxi ride away after furious negotiation and we went once but decided we really didn't want to go again as it was highly commercialised and every twenty yards it was hassle, hassle, hassle. But, if you like that sort of thing there were plenty of restarants there of every type and shape.
Would we go back again to The Mirabel Club? Yes we would, it is a well designed hotel, rooms are clean and very good, ours had a double bed and two singles in a separate room, ideal for two parents with young children, although we booked two rooms anyway as we enjoy a bit of peace and quiet. Hot water is readily available, there is a safe in the room plus a hair dryer and the satellite TV worked well. The food is fine, not quite gourmet , but perfectly adequate, and the staff are well trained and try very hard to make you stay enjoyable. I took along with me a pocket full of USA one dollar bills and this certainly helped to make a difference to the speed of service and the attention we were given. For example, when we went in to dinner and selected our table our wine was always there by the time we had selected our first course and returned to the table ............. a little consideration goes a long way! ( Talking to one waiter he suggested they only earn around £30UK a week so the odd US dollar bill helps grease the wheels.)
We returned home feeling we had enjoyed our holiday, very relaxed and felt we had received value for money, what more can one say?








