Pickalbatros Palace Resort

Maybe for someone who never been on Holiday .But this is the worse service and resort I've been too. Please Please save yourself from this rude pathetic customer service. Have a goodnight with rat nest

We booked a 10-night all-inclusive stay at Pickalbatros Palace Sharm & Aqua Park through Stayforlong for 2 adults and 2 children aged 9 and 6. We paid £2,030 in full and received a confirmed booking for a double/twin garden-view room.

When we arrived at the hotel with our 3-year-old child, we were told that there was a problem with our booking and that we would have to pay an additional €1,125 for our youngest child.

This was extremely stressful and disappointing, especially as we had already paid for our holiday in full and had a confirmed booking. We were not asking for another room or an additional bed, as our 3-year-old could sleep in a cot in the existing room.

We questioned the charge and asked the hotel to provide the policy and calculation explaining why we were being charged €1,125. We did not agree with the charge and contacted Stayforlong immediately to ask them to investigate.

Unfortunately, because we were at the hotel and needed to check in, we had to pay the additional €1,125 while waiting for Stayforlong to respond. We made it clear that we were paying this under protest and that we expected Stayforlong and the hotel to resolve the matter.

It was incredibly upsetting to arrive at our holiday expecting to relax, only to be faced with such a substantial unexpected payment before we could even check in.

Our Stayforlong confirmation clearly showed our original booking details and stated that extra-person charges may apply according to the property’s policy. However, the amount of €1,125 was not something we were expecting when we booked and paid for our holiday.

We are now waiting for Stayforlong to investigate and hopefully resolve this fairly.

The way this situation was handled has left us extremely disappointed. For a family travelling with children, having to find an unexpected €1,125 at check-in is extremely stressful and has put a huge dampener on the start of our holiday.

I would strongly recommend that families travelling with children double-check the child occupancy and all additional charges directly with both the hotel and booking provider before travelling, even when you have a confirmed and fully paid booking.

There are several things we believe prospective guests should know before booking.

First, this is an extremely busy, family-oriented resort with a very high number of children. During our stay, children were present throughout virtually all pools, restaurants and communal areas, and the general noise level was consistently high. Although dedicated children’s facilities exist, we did not feel that there were enough genuinely peaceful areas for adults seeking a quieter resort experience.

The fundamental issue, in our opinion, is not simply the number of guests or children, but the resort’s lack of effective management and quality control for such a large operation. Standards of professionalism varied considerably between employees. Some staff members were polite and helpful, while others fell well below what we would expect from a five-star property in terms of courtesy, communication and professionalism.

Another issue that made us particularly uncomfortable concerned online reviews. During our stay, members of the entertainment/animation team repeatedly encouraged us to leave a five-star rating. We did not experience this merely as a casual request for feedback; we felt pressured to give the hotel the maximum rating. Guests should be able to leave completely independent reviews without being encouraged to select a particular score. This experience inevitably made us question how representative some of the hotel’s exceptionally high online ratings may be.

We also found the tipping culture unusually prominent. In our experience, interactions with some restaurant and front-desk staff created a noticeable expectation of tips, and tips received by staff were at times handled or displayed quite openly. Tipping should always remain an entirely voluntary expression of appreciation, not something a guest feels may influence the level of attention or service received. At a five-star resort, every guest should receive the same professional standard of service regardless of tipping.

During our stay, a large proportion of guests appeared to be large families from Middle Eastern countries. This is relevant for travellers choosing the atmosphere they prefer, but our concern was not anyone’s nationality. The issue was that some groups used shared spaces with very little consideration for other guests, including excessive noise, queue-jumping, children being left largely unsupervised and communal areas being left untidy. In our view, management did not enforce reasonable standards of behaviour consistently enough. An international five-star resort should apply the same rules of courtesy and shared-space etiquette to everyone.

Finally, the Wi-Fi was surprisingly poor and unreliable. The connection frequently dropped during our stay, was unstable, and worked poorly in several parts of this very large property. Even basic messaging and internet use sometimes required repeated reconnection. Reliable Wi-Fi should be a basic service at a resort in this price category, and the current infrastructure did not appear capable of consistently supporting the number of guests.

Overall, anyone looking specifically for peace and quiet, well-controlled adult areas, consistently professional service and a refined five-star resort atmosphere should take these points into serious consideration before booking.