The Chedi El Gouna, Red Sea, Egypt

Perfect

After a flawless and memorable stay at their sister property in Switzerland, I was very excited to try The Chedi El Gouna. While there are several positive aspects to this resort, overall the experience was a big disappointment. Allow me to elaborate: Starting with my arrival, the driver the hotel sent to the airport did not come to the correct terminal to pick me up, I had to wait outside over 30 minutes until we finally found each other. We packed up and left and at the exit of the airport, he started an argument with the toll booth operator, which got so heated he pulled the car over on the side of the road, got out, and started yelling at the guy, leaving me sitting in the backseat helpless with no idea what was going on. When we finally got to the hotel, I paid the fare and he asked 4 times for a tip... in no way is a tip justified after that experience. Next let's discuss the rooms. I was granted an upgrade to a beachfront room which was appreciated, however despite the view, these rooms don't function well. Upon entering, you get a smell of sewage that never went away. They use the plug in scent diffusers to try and mask it, but with my allergies the chemicals made it worse and I unplugged it opting to go with sewer gas over cancer-causing chemicals. The aircon in my room did not function, over 3 hours the room did not cool below 25, had to have two different people come and look at it, the first said to just "open the door"... yeah right, open the door when its 35 degrees out and let all the bugs in, brilliant response. An engineer finally came, took apart the unit in the ceiling, and got it to work, the room was finally cooled to 20 (I would have preferred 18) around 10pm. The rooms are really small, only fitting a bed and a tiny desk that so loaded with boxes and snacks that you can't use it, there is no comfortable chair or really any place to sit inside, you have to sit outside, which leaves you to be eaten alive by mosquitos and harassed by flies, and if you get unlucky like me and have smokers next door, you have the added benefit of inhaling second hand smoke. There is one outlet on the patio but of course mine was broken. An engineer came to try and fix it, he was ultimately unsuccessful and just said "push hard" when trying to plug in my charger... I opted not to do this for fear of electrocution or starting a fire. The showers have double rain heads which is a real luxury, however the design here is flawed, as having two shower heads with one valve cuts the water pressure in half, the flow is so weak you have to turn them off and use the wand to properly rinse, totally defeating the purpose of this shower design. Another disappointment. Next let's discuss the facilities. The biggest annoyance for the duration of the trip was the unstable, low bandwidth wifi connection. The signal constantly drops (every 10-15 minutes like clockwork) which makes doing any semblance of work impossible, and there are several dead zones ac

We loved everything, the food and staff were excellent! It is very nice and quiet so we had a chance to rest and relax..We would for sure reccomend it to anybody and would be happy to come back! The pool and the beach are lovely and everybody was very friendly and helpful!