Coffee and croissants for breakfast. There was plenty of time to get ready as the plane only left at 14:35. We took the train to Schiphol and I bought a bottle of Glenlivet Whiskey at the tax free shop. The flight was boring. I had not found a single magazine or book at the shop so was forced to listen to some music and watch the in flight movie “2 weeks notice” which we had already seen in the Cinema and is not expected to win any Oscars this year….

We flew Transavia's “a la carte service”. Only to find it was an Easyjet copy. All drinks and food (sandwiches) had to be paid for. The carte was also very limited, soft drinks or wine, but no gin or whiskey at all.

We landed on time and after the custom formalities (US$ 17 tourist tax) we got our suitcases and went outside. After a short while we went by bus directly to the hotel: Le Méridien Makadi Bay. Makadi Bay is a bay about 25 km south of Hurghada Airport. We had booked the all-inclusive arrangement (we booked through Neckermann, they have an excellent website with a good search function) so we had to wear one of those bracelets.

Immediately it was clear that the hotel was almost empty. The hotel has 813 rooms and I think maybe 15% of those were occupied. Great! This means no German Towel Contests (the German men have this weird habit of going to the beach at 4 am to place a towel on “their” sun bed, very annoying).

We had our suitcases brought to the room (a bit away from the main building) and went back for a late snack. The food was OK, but not as good as we expected from our previous experiences at the Riu All Inclusive resorts. There was only one restaurant where we were allowed to eat and 3 bars (one of which is on the beach) where they served the free drinks.

After a drink at the Dockers bar outside we went to bed.