jaak:
Thanks. Why is it that the south is more expensive than Sharm and Hurghada? I checked Emperordivers but wasn't quite pleased with their prices. 38 euro for 2 dives seems to be waay tooo much. Or am i just paranoid???
Dear jaak
It is more expensive due to the fact that there is less competition in the south and because it is more much complicated/expensive to run a divecenter in the south than in Sharm or Hurghada. They have recently invested in buldings and infrastructure wich they now, naturally, want to pay off as soon as possible.
To get a good reccomendation you will need to tell us more about what you expect out of your trip and what is important to you, like is it important to be able to shop, eat in different restaurants and have other tourist facilities at hand? Can you compromise with the quality of the diving, or do you want only the best and are prepared to sacrifice som comfort to get it? Are you satisfied with two dives each day etc.?
The general advice for the serious (fanatic) diver that I give for this area is to go on a liveaboard. It will be cheaper per dive because dives are all included and normally you do 3-4 dives each day and the keen diver usually ends up with 20+ dives in one week. The only way to get that number of dives into a week when living on shore, is to stay in one of the places having their own house reef and spend all day long diving it (which of course can be very nice, but unsatisfactory for most). So I think it is more a question of what you want than price.
I haven't personally booked any trips through agents in many years, but you should be able to get one week on a descent all inclusive liveaboard in the south of Egypt and flights (from europe) for 1000 euro, probably cheaper.
Also do not forget - you get what you pay. This is more true in the diving industry than in many others. Cheap prices usually mean that people are underpaid, equipment and boats are old and not properly maintained etc. It is not cheap to run a quality dive operation.
good luck
christian
