My in laws booked back in February to go in November. They are off to hurghada .
Any one been recently? We would prefer them not to go but they are stubborn buggers…”I went all the way through Suez without a scratch” etc.

My neigbours are off tomorrow for diving holiday. Friends of theirs have just come back and said hotels were at less than 5% occupancy.

To be honest, if my mother in law wanted to go off to a dangerous country I would pay for the ticket and make sure she got on the plane!

I went to Hurghada (Makadi Bay resort) about a month ago.

It was completely fine. Quite funny watching the World Service and how it’s reports conflicted with the experience of the locals and our own.

BBC – disturbances in Hurghada.

Local workers – we had a festival last night in Hurghada.

Absolutely lovely holiday all in all.

I was in Sharm in June this year, you wouldn’t know there were any political issues at all. They work really hard in making sure the holiday destinations are insulated from what is happening in the rest of the country as they rely so heavily on tourism.

I was also in Taba a few years back when there were issues, also felt perfectly safe.

My mate lives in Hurghada , has done for the last 8 years, spoke to him recently he said it’s fine no riots or disturbances, although very quiet out of the hotels and in the town. Most people don’t venture out of their all inclusive resorts anyway so don’t see the real Hurghada.

If you like to be hassled to buy fake watches and dodgy fags then the street vendors are a bit more aggressive than they were due to the lack of tourists and rude Russians. On the other hand you will have no problem getting a good seat in a local bar or a space on the local beach.. 🙂

Our friends recently came back from Marsa Alam (mainland), said it was a perfect 2 week holiday … as a gay couple.
How bad can it be?

If the relatives of the infidel zippykona come to our holy lands, we force you to buy tat you don’t want or need!!!! 😉

I suppose its like asking if it was safe to go for a walking holiday in the Lakes while the riots were going on in London

To be honest, if my mother in law wanted to go off to a dangerous country I would pay for the ticket and make sure she got on the plane!

Kryton57 will be along shortly accusing you of being a motherinlawist.

LOL @ Binners

Have a friend in the Foreign Office who used to work in that area. Essentially the UK is one of the few countries to offer advice on regions of countries to say if it is safe to go or not. Check their website for best advice. ( generally if they say don’t go then your insurance will most likely be invalid too )

When trouble 1st flared they advised against travel to Cairo etc but still reckoned Sharm etc were safe. Friend went and said the resort was empty bar Brits and Russians as everyone else advised against the whole country.

Most of the holiday resorts are some distance away from the trouble across a desert and nearly everyone there is dependent on the tourists for their livelihood and he Egyptian government needs the income too so will do a lot to protect it.

So if you would have gone before I can see no reason to not go now, especially as value must be pretty good.

TBH you are probably more in danger of getting in a brawl with a rude Russian than anything else in the tourist areas as they are quite the rudest people I have ever met on holiday.

And before anyone accuses me of being Russianist I went to Taba a couple of years ago and witnessed behaviour from the majority of Russian guests there that would make most hotels welcome even the most drunk obnoxious Brit with open arms to bring a bit of decorum to the place.

One bloke was cool though. After demolishing me at chess we went to queue to book a table for the a la carte restaurant. We knew we had to get there in good time as the tables booked up quick and we ended up at the front of the queue. The chess player was just behind us and kept going for ice creams for us.

What we didn’t realise was that we were merely queuing to get in to the room where chaos would then ensue as another queue would be formed after much negotiating among the various Russian parties (we were the only English people there me and Mrs Danny).

Anyway things were going down hill and though my Russian is somewhat rusty I got the gist that so and so was going to be first, such and such could go behind them etc.

Only once the negotiations had died down and an orderly queue was starting to form did the chess player pipe up and say what I can only assume was along the lines of ‘I don’t care what you lot have just sorted out – these people are first (me and Mrs Danny), I am second and the rest of you can bollocks’.

The queue parted like the Red Sea and we were nervously ushered to the front of the line.

I have no idea who the bloke was or how he held such sway over the others but they weren’t going to argue with him…