Know a good dive resort/liveaboard in Egypt?

[L!$@]

Hello everyone!
I'm extremely interested in planning a dive trip for this upcoming May near the Red Sea. I was wondering if anyone could inform me of some great/inexpensive liveaboards or resorts in Egypt? Will be landing in Cairo and was thinking of maybe going to Hurghada from there. Just want to find a good location first!
Thank you so much for your help!
P.S. If you have any interesting marine life/shark sightings from the Red Sea, I'd love to hear! I'm in marine biology and fascinated by the life

 

[TSandM]

Well, I'm shortly going to be doing my second trip on the MV Tala out of Hurghada. We spent a week on the boat in 2009, and I'm not sure it's possible to have more fun on a liveaboard. It's not the fanciest boat, and the food is okay (but plentiful) but they know how to dive, and how to facilitate guests diving. (And you feel like a guest in someone's house, not a paying client.) Whatever you want to do -- rec diving, tech diving, scootering, guided or unguided, wrecks or reefs . . . they'll make sure you get to do it.

I saw my first hammerheads off that boat, swam with a HUGE pod of dolphins, saw a thresher shark, Napoleon wrasses, and tons of stunning soft and hard coral formations. The Thistlegorm is also the best wreck dive I have ever done. I can't wait to be back!

I don't know what their standard prices are now, but we paid about $1500 for a week, everything included except Nitrox, helium, and scooter rental.

 

[ElChe]

I had a few liveaboard trips in Egypt, all of them were better than any resort based trips. The boats are quite similar, there are some typical routes... In my opinion the most important is how you like the other divers on the boat, and certainly if you're lucky with special encounters you'll enjoy your trip more. Recently we organized trips with Cassiopeia/Andromeda boats, we were satisfied.

 

[Fionab]

I would recommend the Shark awareness trip with Blue O Two, it is run with a marine biologist on board and as well as the diving she will do lectures if you want to watch and participate.

Alternatively I have used boats from the Tornado fleet and Sea Serpent Fleet, Sea Serpent fleet offer free nitrox on several if not all their boats, both of which have a good reputation.

 

[Crowley]

For resorts - you can't really go wrong with the big names and as always, that's not just because I work for one of them! For resort-based diving, Sharm is the best of the Northern Red Sea, but the resort itself, being an all-inclusive beach town these days, is not to everybody's taste. Samaka works for Blue O2 in Hurghada so I'm sure he won't mind if you drop him a line but you may also want to check out the Tornado Fleet that run safaris both north and south.

The best Red Sea diving is in the south on Safari, a trip I have sadly not yet had the opportunity to take, but it comes at a premium, so shop around and ask questions. TSandM gives a price which is not unreasonable and the MV Tala is a nice boat but I run in to her from time to time on Thistlegorm trips and she strikes me as having more of a leaning towards tech diving, and if you're AOW with 30 dives you may feel a little out of place. That's quite important if you're going to be on the same boat with the same people for a whole week!

Are you traveling solo or bringing a group and what do you want to do? I work here and don't like to advertise on SB but feel free to PM if you want to. As for the wildlife - read the red sea wildlife report in the forum!

Cheers

C.

 

[ElChe]

I've already been to northern, southern, deep southern safari routes. The wrecks in the north worth visiting but the marine life a bit more depleted especially in the Hurghada area. Surprisingly as we went to the Marsa Alam area the water temperature was higher at least 2 degrees so in the winter I'd prefer the south. Near Marsa Alam there is the wonderful Elphinstone reef with the chance of shark encounters and many shallow but nice spots. In the St John's area we saw some sharks and really nice coral gardens but there were more challenging dive sites.
About the prices... I confess for a week long liveaboard dive trip (with all meals and dives) I wouldn't like to pay more than 700 euros (certainly without airfares).

 

[Red Sea Shadow]

Hello everyone!
I'm extremely interested in planning a dive trip for this upcoming May near the Red Sea. I was wondering if anyone could inform me of some great/inexpensive liveaboards or resorts in Egypt? Will be landing in Cairo and was thinking of maybe going to Hurghada from there. Just want to find a good location first!
Thank you so much for your help!
P.S. If you have any interesting marine life/shark sightings from the Red Sea, I'd love to hear! I'm in marine biology and fascinated by the life

Great inexpensive resort, try Dahab. Great inexpensive liveaboard, you'll have to go for one of the smaller boats. Those usually do the Sinai trip out of Sharm El Sheikh.

Feel free to PM me is you need specific info.

 

[large_diver]

Depends on what kind of holiday you are looking for.

For liveaboards, it is really hard to beat Blue O Two - well-run, spotless boats that have a great reputation, particularly among UK divers. I was on a deep south trip last year and loved it. Their charters depart from either Hurghada or Port Ghalib (3-4 hours south of H.). Although I know you are in Canada, for reference you can find week-long trips for as low as 1,000 gbp/US$1,600, flights included (from the UK)....if you wait for discounted spots closer to the sail date.

Red Sea Liveaboard Scuba Diving Holidays | Egypt | Sudan | blue o two

For land based - do you want remote and quiet or with night life (Sharm)?

For quiet - Dahab or possibly a quiet lodge in the south:

I stayed at Red Sea Diving Safari with my family for a week a few years ago. They have a few locations in the Marsa Alam area - Shagra is the largest and busiest. We stayed at Nakari - much more remote, with really nothing around but desert and the sea. Lodging is very simple in tents or lodges. The itinerary is diving and snorkeling all day, quiet reading time in the late afternoon and early evening - very peaceful and relaxing. Meals were cafeteria style, with lots of simple but tasty food options - and the staff was really helpful in accommodating my daughter's vegeterian and wife's non-dairy eating preferences. Great dive staff who went out of their way to make sure our kids had fun (not really a kid destination unless your kids love being in the water all day). No TVs, no video games, no glitzy resort. High quality diving - shore, zodiac/RIB, off-shore on their larger boats, daily night dives. Snorkeling with dolphins at Samadai. Love the vibe there - kind of like being on a desert island in the desert . It is not a place for everyone given the simplicity and remoteness, but you can rival a liveaboard in terms of the number of dives you can get in during a week's stay. You can stay there very cheaply. The major disadvantage if you are flying to Cairo is that it is a LONG drive (4 hours south of Hurghada).

RED SEA DIVING SAFARI - The Eco-diving Adventure - Home

Dahab is a little more developed than RSDS, but also a quiet, smaller town. We stayed there for a week in 2009. Very good diving infrastructure with many, many dive ops and a wide range of hotels from very basic to luxury. Shore diving and boat diving options. The scenery around Dahab on the Sinai peninsula is beautiful and dramatic, with large mountains springing up right out of the sea around the town. Climbing Mt. Sinai, quad biking in the desert, side trips to southern Israel or Jordan (we did a LONG day trip to Petra) are all options.

Hope this helps.

Chris

 

[Longimanus1975]

Grand Sea Serpent - Daedalus, Rock and St Johns

Been on this twice and really enjoyed the trip, crew really good, they even remembered me the second time around and the banta was excellent, the cook even got thrown in on one of the last dives (he had the bar bill in his pocket as well) all in good humour

I am trying to book up again for next year, cant wait to meet the oceanics again!

 

[TSandM]

TSandM gives a price which is not unreasonable and the MV Tala is a nice boat but I run in to her from time to time on Thistlegorm trips and she strikes me as having more of a leaning towards tech diving, and if you're AOW with 30 dives you may feel a little out of place.

On our first trips, we had two people on the boat who had never in their lives done an unguided dive (anywhere!). We had four more who were your normal recreational divers, with no interest in tech. And we had five people on the boat who were trained technical divers, and wanted to do some of those dives. And six people who were getting certified on the boat! What the Tala crew did was make sure that, no matter WHAT kind of dive each guest wanted to do, he got to do it. People who wanted guides got them, and people who wanted helium got that, too.