Sunrise Holidays Resort

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My friend and I stayed for two weeks at the Sunrise Holidays Resort and, apart from a few issues, found our stay there to be pretty good.
Sunrise Holidays is a former Holiday Inn hotel and as such has and is undergoing some refurbishment works although our experience was that this did not interfere with our holiday at all.
The hotel is quite large and, at the moment, about 16 different nationalities stay there as Hurghada is only just becoming popular with the Brits. When my friend and I checked in we were two of a group of six checking in for a fortnight so that goes some way to show how outnumbered you are.
The hotel is all inclusive. There are three places in which to have your breakfast and lunch (they all serve the same thing though) and then two places are open for dinner plus the al a Carte restaurant (which we didn’t try for reasons below). There is also a beach bar serving snacks during the daytime as well as a poolside bar. There is a different theme of food every night and, on the whole the food was good although I am a vegetarian and found the selection in the evening to be pretty awful most of the time and lived mainly on rice and salad. Unfortunately they try too hard to cater for all different nationalities (Mexican night, Chinese night, Mediterranean night etc etc) and have a habit of putting chopped meat in every dish they cook - for quite a few nights there was not one hot dish that didn’t contain some kind of meat or fish. Anyway breakfast and lunch was good. Breakfast is a choice of cereals, fruit, cakes and pastries, breads, cheese, meats and omelette (although you can get them to fry you eggs as well) and boiled eggs. We always had our lunch in the pizzeria which is under the swimming pool as this served pasta and pizza daily, which I was able to fill up on!
There is a lobby bar in the entrance to the hotel which is quite nice to sit and have a drink in plus, between 5.00pm and 6.30pm you are able to get cake there as well if you fancy a spot of afternoon tea. There is also a 24hr internet café located above the lobby bar and this cost 25LE to use for an hour (you get a log in code so if you don’t use your hour you can re-log in). There are several shops including a hairdressers and jewellers and there is also a health centre although we didn’t go in there but they offered various types of massage at what seemed reasonable prices.
There is a disco (the Jungle) on the ground floor which is ok but the type of music played may not be to everyone’s taste - go down to Papa’s bar instead (about 10mins away on foot) if you fancy a bit more of a lively night out.
The hotel has its own private beach which is cut off from the sea via a man made island. You can swim out underneath the bridge to get into the open sea but, the lagoon as it is called is very safe to swim in and there is even some snorkelling to be had although the best can be found over on Giftun Island which is about 45 mins away by boat (trips go over every day).
There is a swimming pool but, a lot of games (water polo, aqua fit etc) take place in it so we only went there once (on the last day). The people who arrange this are called “Animation” and walk round the beach and pool every day (except Thursdays as that was their day off) asking if you want to play volleyball, do aqua fit etc. It can get a bit annoying but, after a few days of saying NO they knew not to bother asking us. They also provide the evening entertainment which normally starts at 9.30pm but, in my opinion, it is how shall I put it politely, not my cup of tea!
Sun beds are easy to get although we did used to put our towels down in the morning before breakfast just to make sure! You are given a towel card when you check in which you can exchange for a towel on a daily basis.
Most of the staff are very friendly although, lunch and dinner can sometimes be a bit chaotic and the staff not always as attentive as they could be (it can be difficult to order a drink).
The rooms are as you would expect although I found the bed very hard (as did the other guests I talked to). They are cleaned daily and, it is great fun to come back and see what animal or shape they have made from your clean towels! You are also given bottles of water on a daily basis although, of course, this is easy to get from the lobby bar and the rooms have a fridge which is great.
Thomas Cook (who we travelled with) rate it as 3.5 star which I would say is just about right really although depending on how far they go with the refurbishing and if they change the food it may get a higher rating.
Further to my previous post I would point out that the photograph of the hotel as shown on this site is not at all what the hotel looks like now and does not do it justice.
The hotel has been extended upwards and is painted a rather nice lemon yellow and white. Whilst I was on holiday the Thomas Cook rep said that the pictures for the brochures were being updated and that Thomas Cook TV were going to be filming it.