Desert Safari
There are many tour operators in Hurghada offering desert safaris, which one you choose depends on your preferred mode of transport. A popular choice is by quad bike as it adds to the fun of the journey and is an exhilarating way to travel. After an instruction session and a practice run, you will travel with your guide through the sand dunes to a Bedouin village where you will meet the locals, have a traditional Egyptian meal, ride a camel and then enjoy some local music and culture before returning back to town.
If you prefer a more leisurely way to explore the desert, why not join a horse-back tour? Your group and a guide will head off into the desert for an amazing trek across the sands. The tour lasts approximately three hours.
Another alternative is to take jeep tour – be driven through dry, parched plains for an hour and then continue on foot up a small hill to meet your Bedouin hosts and be introduced to their way of life. In the evening, you will watch the spectacular sunset as you eat a traditional barbeque dinner before returning back to Hurghada.
Dolphin World
The one-hour show at Dolphin World in Makadi Bay is definitely something that you shouldn’t miss during your holiday to Hurghada. On arrival, you will be able to spend some time looking around the Dolphinarium and learning about these wonderfully intelligent and charming mammals.
The show itself is wonderful, as the dolphins soar from the water into the air splashing everyone around them. Watch Lila the Walrus clapping her hands, Dimas the Sea Lion balancing a ball on his nose and Kuzia and Asya – the dancing sea cats. So, don’t forget to bring your camera. There is a handy cafe selling hot and cold drinks, as well as snacks and a children’s playground (called Little Dolphins), where the kids can let off steam and have some fun before the show starts, or once it’s finished.
At the end of the show, for a fee, you will have the opportunity to swim and play with the dolphins and perhaps experience a dolphin kiss or handshake. Families can even be pulled around the pool by holding onto one of the dolphin’s fins.
Escape Room Hurghada
If you love the TV programme Crystal Maze, then the Escape Room – Hurghada, will be right up your street. A team of two-seven players are locked inside a room and then have only one hour to work together to find clues, break codes, solve puzzles and complete a variety of tasks in order to escape.
Each of the four rooms has a different theme, story and location and varying in levels of difficulty. The Time Machine is perhaps the most challenging, where a ‘scientist’ has disappeared from his lab and your group needs to solve the puzzles to find out the year you have to travel to, activate his time machine and transport yourselves back in time to solve the mystery. The special effects behind it all are truly spectacular and this attraction in general really is great fun for all the family.
In the Secret Agent room, you have to follow the clues to find a document that lists all the secret agents. Once you have found it, you then have to discover who was going to sell this list to an enemy state. Who is the double agent? The other two rooms – the Haunted Gallery and the Chamber of Imhotep, are also great fun but a little easier.
Golf
Golfing is becoming increasingly popular in Hurghada thanks to the great choice of golf facilities in the area, including El Gouna Golf Course. This 18-hole championship course boasts year-round golfing in a beautiful setting. Here, players can feast their eyes on stunning views of mountains and endless water as the course challenges their resourcefulness and skill.
The Makadi Bay Golf Course is another popular choice, having one of the longest courses in the region, as well as spectacular scenery, lagoons and three saltwater lakes. Five of the 18 holes enjoy sea views and three overlook the surrounding lakes. All of these fantastic features mean this excellent course is suited to both novices and professionals.
The Steigenberger Al Dau hotel compound in Hurghada is home to another beautiful golf course. The challenging, nine-hole Par 3, Steigenberger Al Dau course, has well-maintained fairways, bunkers, green hills and various ponds to navigate.
Wherever you choose to play golf in Hurghada, you can be sure of a good game on a superb course, with the added benefit of beautiful views across the Red Sea.
Hurghada Grand Aquarium
Hurghada Grand Aquarium opened in January 2015 and is the city’s first marine theme park. Upon arrival at the park, you will enter a lush rainforest to visit the freshwater and marine aquariums encountering up to 1,200 species in a series of 24 galleries that describe the world’s natural ecosystems. See beautiful marine life, including nurse sharks, green sea turtles, shovel nose guitar sharks, eagle rays and many more. Feeding time is at 11.00 am and 3.00 pm every day, and there is also a touch tank where you can interact with some of the fish.
The aquarium park prides itself on promoting conservation and animal management and actively encourages its visitors to learn more about sustaining the environment. There is also a mini zoo within the park, where you can get up close to the animals – (the children will love it). Next to the aquarium is a cafe serving hot and cold drinks and snacks which you can enjoy on the peaceful terrace, overlooking the sea.
Jungle Aqua Park
Jungle Aqua Park is part of the Aqua Park Hotel complex but is open to visitors as well as hotel guests. This huge water park has 35 water slides, all of varying height as well as a number of outdoor swimming pools (some of which are heated).
The larger slides such as the Tube Free Fall, the Group Slide, the Twister and the Tsunami are great for adults and larger children looking for thrills and an adrenalin rush. The Turbo Lance, the Wave Slide, the Space Hall, the Family Slide, to name just a few, are great fun for all the family, as is the Wave Pool and the Rafting River.
There is also a kid’s area with two pools and various slides to suit both toddlers and older children, as well as climbing frames, fountains and tunnels. The lifeguards are very friendly and approachable and do a brilliant job of ensuring the safety of visitors to the park. This wondrous, clean and well-kept Aqua Park, is a marvellous place to spend a fun-filled, water-based day in the warm Egyptian sun.
Makadi Bay Water World
If you are holidaying in Hurghada, get your family together, pack your sunscreen, bathing costumes and towels and head for Makadi Water World – Egypt’s largest water park with its 50 family-friendly water slides, tunnels and rapids. For the thrill-seekers, there is a 19-metre free-fall slide, the Turbo Tunnel, the Twister, the Corkscrew ride, the Space Boat and Space Hole. Other slides include the multi-racers, the lazy river, the Kamikaze and many more.
For the younger children, there is a fantastic pirate ship with elephant mini slides and rainbow water fountains, (which are superb for splashing about in). Plus, the little ones will definitely have fun trying to dodge the giant tipping water bucket on the galleon.
After all the fun in the water, you will need some sustenance, so why not have a burger, hotdog or pizza from the on-site restaurant? The entrance fee includes the price of the food, so no need to worry about carrying any money with you. There is also a lovely shaded lagoon with palm trees and sunbeds for those that prefer to just relax in the sun, before heading home with the rest of the family.
Makadi Mall
The Makadi Mall is located within the Red Sea Hotels complex on Makai Bay. Within the open-air, Moorish-style mall are several boutiques, the Spiegelburg Toy Store – with its wonderful array of toys and books and the Flower Tower, offering a fantastic selection of fresh cut flowers. There are also other small shops located here selling souvenirs, pure perfume oils, high-quality cotton clothing and exquisite jewellery, plus a pharmacy for all your medicinal needs.
When you need a break from shopping, why not visit one of the charming café bars, rest your feet and have a coffee and perhaps a delicious cake? The mall has an impressive selection of a la carte restaurants including Egyptian, Indian, Chinese, Italian, French and specialist seafood eateries. There truly is something to suit everyone. After you have eaten, sit back, have a drink and enjoy the entertainment programme that takes place every evening in the mall. Listen to the music, watch a show and soak up the atmosphere.
Mini Egypt
The Mini Egypt Park is located in Makadi Bay and is a very popular tourist attraction, especially with families. If your children are too young to visit Cairo and Luxor but you want to show them that there is more to Egypt than the seaside resorts, then a visit to Mini Egypt Park is an excellent and fun way to do so.
See beautiful miniature models of Egypt’s most famous monuments and sights as your guide accompanies you through the park, explaining the history of each exhibit. Travellers will even get to visit the two gigantic rock temples at Abu Simbel, the Aswan High Dam, the Temple of Edfu, the Karnak Temple in Luxor, the Giza Pyramids and the Sphinx statue.
Moving on around the park, you will arrive at the Cairo area – with its famous Tahrir Square (also known as Martyr Square), the Cairo Tower, a Roman amphitheatre, the magnificent El Montaza Palace and the Egyptian Museum (which houses a collection of 55 tiny works of art donated by various artists over the years). Each of the fibreglass models here is accompanied by a brief description, available to read in several different languages.
Scuba diving
Once just a small fishing village, Hurghada is now a popular holiday destination and a particular favourite with those that love to scuba dive. Many hotels have their own dive centres but there are also local operators who arrange daily scuba diving tours, suitable for both beginners and the more experienced.
For those new to scuba diving, you will be taught the basics and then be accompanied by your instructor to a diving spot, where you will be able to explore the wonderful underwater world of the Red Sea with its colourful fish and coral reefs.
If you already have scuba diving experience, there are more advanced sites for you to explore, such as the Red Sea’s famous shipwrecks, the Thistlegorm and the Giannis D. As well as the remains of the wrecked ships, these deeper diving sites are choc-a-block with turtles, barracudas, mackerel, tuna, trumpetfish, rays and whitetip and grey reef sharks, to name but a few.
Sliders Cable Park
Sliders Cable Park was opened in 2014, and is one of the largest cable parks in the world. With 100s of metres of cable, the park has rides for beginners and experienced sliders and is also suitable for children. Before starting, you will be given a short instruction, a health and safety talk, a helmet and an impact vest as well as a plan of the park.
For beginners, there are two easy rides from towers 50-metres and 80-metres high. Once hooked up to the cable system, you will zoom around the pre-set course – all you need to do is hang on!
For more experienced riders, there are much higher towers and these courses incorporate several obstacles for you to navigate. The external walls of the park are made of glass, giving the building an open, airy, spacious feel and the tiered terraces house an indoor restaurant as well as an outdoor bar/café, sun terraces with loungers and beanbags, a heated swimming pool and a children’s playground. The gentle sound of the background music adds to the relaxing atmosphere of the terraces, as you enjoy a bite to eat while watching the action below.
Swimming with wild dolphins
Many people enjoy the experience of interacting with dolphins within a controlled environment such as an aquarium, but swimming with wild dolphins in the sea is a completely different adventure.
There are various boat trips available from Hurghada that will take you to locations well-known for dolphin spotting. Relax on board and soak up some sun as you take a leisurely cruise to the dolphin-populated areas. Once there, you will be able to swim or snorkel with the dolphins amongst coral and shoals of colourful fish. Of course, there cannot be an absolute guarantee that dolphins will actually be there on the day of your trip, but most tours visit a number of known sites so you should be lucky to see at least one of them.
The boat trip will usually include a delicious lunch such as seafood, meats and salads as well as refreshing complimentary soft drinks. Some excursions also include an authentic belly dance show, a banana boat ride or even a professional massage. A truly amazing experience for the whole family to enjoy.
Watersports
Hurghada is a fantastic choice for those wishing to indulge in watersports during their holiday, from exciting windsurfing and kiteboarding, to deep-sea fishing and sailing. The crystal clear warm waters also make Hurghada an ideal habitat for many varieties of rare fish and coral reefs, being particularly popular with avid snorkellers and divers.
Parasailing is also on trend in recent years here, and is great fun to embark on. A parachute accommodating one or two people is attached to a speedboat, which then races off to sea and causes the parachute to rise 40-50 metres in the air for a flight of about 10 minutes. Absolutely exhilarating. Kiteboarding is another relatively new watersport and the beach at Magawish, with its flat water and areas of choppy waves, makes this a perfect spot for practising this exciting sport. The abundance of shallow water makes this sport ideal for beginners, while the much deeper area further out to sea is perfect for the more advanced kiteboarders.
If you prefer to watch rather than participate, just pick your spot on one of Hurghada’s lovely beaches, relax on your lounger and enjoy the sight of others embarking on the various watersports on offer here.