Sharm- do all dive places pick up at hotel?

[Lady of the Lake]

I am hoping to book a bit of a break to Sharm and I may be booking hotel seperately to the diving. If I find out the name of the hotel I will be staying at do most of the outfits pick up from hotels within a certain radius does anyone know? I want to know how they work before I commit myself to a package holiday booking ! thanks

[tootricky]

Originally Posted by Lady of the Lake

I am hoping to book a bit of a break to Sharm and I may be booking hotel seperately to the diving. If I find out the name of the hotel I will be staying at do most of the outfits pick up from hotels within a certain radius does anyone know? I want to know how they work before I commit myself to a package holiday booking ! thanks

I would check with the dive centres. We used Red Sea College a couple of years ago and I think they picked us up from the Sonesta Beach (Na'ama Bay)

Cheers/Nic

[KimH]

Most of the larger outfits will pick you up anywhere in Na'ama Bay, Sharks Bay or around Old Sharm but I can't guarantee whether the smaller ones will. The more obscure your hotel is the worse pickup/dropoff you are likely to get - 1st in the morning and last at night but not always, it depends how they "plan" the route - bearing in mind there is no such thing as planning in Sharm.

Also it will depend what sites you are diving as to which jetty you use and that in turn affects your morning pickup, so the dive centres are all very flexible.

I would e-mail the main dive centres - Ocean College, Red Sea College and Emperor Divers and ask them - if you can give them some idea where you'll be staying then they can confirm or not. You can book on-line with Ocean College now and one of the questions they ask is what hotel you're staying at.

HTH

[Air Guzzler]

I stayed outside of sharm in a local place called Nabq which sits right opposite Gordans reef and emperor divers used to collect me at 7am every morning.
The only down side was trying to eat breakfast at that time in the morning & knowing you would be on the bus for 20mins collecting others and then hanging around at night waiting for the other boats to return so everyone got on the same bus back.

But at least the Sakara Gold was cold and £1.5 egyptian pounds

[Janos]

Ask them. If you make it a condition of your booking (with the school) then I'm sure it won't be a problem (and a taxi's only a couple of £ anyway).

Janos

[onthetrain]

Mate don't know if you have booked your diving yet, but a friend of mine did some interesting research on the big UK dive centres in Sharm last year. Her experiences leave a lot to be desired.

She makes an interesting recommendation on a dive centre which gave her excellent customer service at a lot less £££ than emperor etc were asking.##

Have a look here

BSAC TRAVEL CLUB - Trip Reports - Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt

Just to give you an idea TGI Charge 160 Euro for a five day boat dive package inclusive of nitrox 32%

Ocean college charge 250 Euro for the same package plus 5 Euro per nitrox fill

Emperor is about 230 Euro + 5 per nitrox fill.....

[Lady of the Lake]

thanks all for the info. I am still waiting for a travel agent to get back to me so havent booked anything at all yet but am going to follow up on the threads.
And thanks to onthe train- will have a look at that now!!

[tootricky]

Originally Posted by onthetrain

Mate don't know if you have booked your diving yet, but a friend of mine did some interesting research on the big UK dive centres in Sharm last year. Her experiences leave a lot to be desired.

She makes an interesting recommendation on a dive centre which gave her excellent customer service at a lot less £££ than emperor etc were asking.##

Have a look here

BSAC TRAVEL CLUB - Trip Reports - Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt

Just to give you an idea TGI Charge 160 Euro for a five day boat dive package inclusive of nitrox 32%

Ocean college charge 250 Euro for the same package plus 5 Euro per nitrox fill

Emperor is about 230 Euro + 5 per nitrox fill.....

Originally Posted by Lady of the Lake

thanks all for the info. I am still waiting for a travel agent to get back to me so havent booked anything at all yet but am going to follow up on the threads.
And thanks to onthe train- will have a look at that now!!

I did my first ever dives with TGI in El Gouna, near Hurghada, and found them to be excellent too.

Cheers/Nic

[IanD]

I stayed at the Baron which is about a 20min drive from Na'ama Bay and we had to get a taxi into town each day, but it was only about a fiver. The exception to this was when we did the OMG O'clock start to dive Thistlegorm and the dive centre picked us up then.

[Lady of the Lake]

thanks for the replies. I have been in contact with TGI and they pick up and hopefully will be booking with them