I just completed a week of diving at the Marsa Shagra property of Red Sea Diving Safari (RSDS). Many thanks to those that provided input to my trip, especially @JustSurfaceInterval. It was my first time in Egypt, and my wife doesn't dive, so a friend of mine accompanied me on the trip. It was his first time in Egypt also. Thanks also to my wife for graciously letting me chase my dream.
First, getting to this part of the world from the western US is not easy and involves a number of flights. I was very envious of the divers from western Europe that can reach Marsa Alam in a single 4 or 5 hour flight. Our itinerary took us from Phoenix to San Francisco to Doha to Cairo, on Qatar Airlines. We overnighted in Cairo, then took a late morning flight to Marsa Alam (RMF). A rep from RSDS met us at RMF and drove us the 45 minutes to RSDS. We had paid for this service in advance. Note: Getting through the Cairo airport was a non-event with none of the customs and immigration hassles I have read about. We obtained our visas and exchanged USD for EGP while we waited for our bags; there was a line at Vodafone for SIM cards so we purchased them the next day at RMF.
In his post here everything that @JustSurfaceInterval reported was completely accurate and right on the mark as far as the accomodations, food, and the diving operations. So I won't repeat it here, but to summarize it was wonderful. As far as the diving, it was very good from the house reef, but we tended to take the zodiacs out rather than shore dive. This was because the resort was quite full at the time and there seemed to be a lot of sand and particles kicked up which reduced visibility closer to shore. The zodiacs take you farther away which reduces this issue.
We did two excursions which are not included in the base package: A one-tank dive to Elphinstone and a two-tank dive to Dolphin House. These were both worth the extra time and money. Elphinstone is an amazing reef with lots of healthy hard and soft coral. Our dive plan was to descend and dive the reef for about 30 minutes at about 25/30 meters, then ascend to 10 meters and hang in the blue and wait for Oceanic Whitetip sharks. After seeing one briefly at about 20 meters earlier, we saw 2 or 3 hanging above us for most of the second part of the dive. Fantastic! The other excursion was to Dolphin House, which is accessed from zodiac at their sister property Marsa Nakari . This was a two tank dive and a potential to snorkel with dolphins, but the dolphins did not appear. Both of the dives however, were magnificient. This first ended with a long tunnel swimthrough, and the second was full of vibrant coral.
My only complaint for the week was that we did not see many "critters" such as octopus, lobsters, turtles and eels. The coral was amazing as was the diversity of small fish, also blue spotted stingrays, but we would have liked to see some of the other species as well.
Hope this helps anyone considering this option.
First, getting to this part of the world from the western US is not easy and involves a number of flights. I was very envious of the divers from western Europe that can reach Marsa Alam in a single 4 or 5 hour flight. Our itinerary took us from Phoenix to San Francisco to Doha to Cairo, on Qatar Airlines. We overnighted in Cairo, then took a late morning flight to Marsa Alam (RMF). A rep from RSDS met us at RMF and drove us the 45 minutes to RSDS. We had paid for this service in advance. Note: Getting through the Cairo airport was a non-event with none of the customs and immigration hassles I have read about. We obtained our visas and exchanged USD for EGP while we waited for our bags; there was a line at Vodafone for SIM cards so we purchased them the next day at RMF.
In his post here everything that @JustSurfaceInterval reported was completely accurate and right on the mark as far as the accomodations, food, and the diving operations. So I won't repeat it here, but to summarize it was wonderful. As far as the diving, it was very good from the house reef, but we tended to take the zodiacs out rather than shore dive. This was because the resort was quite full at the time and there seemed to be a lot of sand and particles kicked up which reduced visibility closer to shore. The zodiacs take you farther away which reduces this issue.
We did two excursions which are not included in the base package: A one-tank dive to Elphinstone and a two-tank dive to Dolphin House. These were both worth the extra time and money. Elphinstone is an amazing reef with lots of healthy hard and soft coral. Our dive plan was to descend and dive the reef for about 30 minutes at about 25/30 meters, then ascend to 10 meters and hang in the blue and wait for Oceanic Whitetip sharks. After seeing one briefly at about 20 meters earlier, we saw 2 or 3 hanging above us for most of the second part of the dive. Fantastic! The other excursion was to Dolphin House, which is accessed from zodiac at their sister property Marsa Nakari . This was a two tank dive and a potential to snorkel with dolphins, but the dolphins did not appear. Both of the dives however, were magnificient. This first ended with a long tunnel swimthrough, and the second was full of vibrant coral.
My only complaint for the week was that we did not see many "critters" such as octopus, lobsters, turtles and eels. The coral was amazing as was the diversity of small fish, also blue spotted stingrays, but we would have liked to see some of the other species as well.
Hope this helps anyone considering this option.
