We stayed at Jaz Aquamarine hotel from 5th of May till 18th of May 2018. We travelled with FirstChoice. After our flight was delayed we finally arrived at the hotel. Transfer from the airport to the hotel was quick and comfortable. Due to our delayed flight check-in was already completed and we didn’t have to waste any more time at the reception.
Room 4257 – superior twin room with a sea view
We were transported to our superior twin room with a balcony and sea view. Our room number 4257 was located at the back of the hotel near the beach. It was quite a long walk from our room to the main restaurant but we didn’t mind and the views from our balcony were great and well worth the walk. Our room was really big, decorated in natural colours with large balcony with a view over slides, beach, nearby small harbour and the sea. We had 2 very comfortable twin beds with bedside cabinets in our room, desk with a mirror, small glass table with 2 chairs, chest of drawers with TV on top of it and another mirror, cabinet with fridge, tea and coffee making facilities, large wardrobe with a safe and bathroom with separate toilet, large walk in shower and very good air con. Our room was clean and our cleaner left us few cool towel sculptures during our stay. We also purchased a late check-out, which allowed us to use hotel facilities and our room for a little bit longer.
Swimming pools and water parks
There are 17 large pools and 2 water parks located in the Jaz Aquamarine hotel and Jaz Bluemarine hotel. Our favourite pools were the relaxed pools and and the big pool close to the beach and between both water parks. We also used main pool (it was a little bit too loud and too hot for our liking) and pool that looked like lazy river in Jaz Bluemarine part of the hotel. All pools were well maintained with warm water and with plenty of sun loungers with or without parasols and canopies around them. You could easily find a sun lounger located in the sun at any part of the hotel at any time, if you were looking for shade then you should reserve your sun lounger before or after breakfast. There were also towel houses available near the pools and the beach so you could have a fresh towel every single day. I really liked the blue slide on the left hand side of the hotel. You had to climb to the top of the tower but views from there were great and I had a lot of fun using this slide. We also tried the orange U shaped slide on the right hand side of the hotel. This slide was pretty scary, queue to this slide was always short, I wonder why? I also tried white and orange slide which again, was a lot of fun but the queue to this slide was pretty long most of the time.
Bars, restaurants and snacks
Main restaurant – we used it most of the time for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We mostly sat in the adult only zones. Food is definitely not 5*, probably 4*. It was a little bit repetitive over 2 weeks and definitely not enough variety. We really enjoyed freshly served omlets, especially that you could choose your own ingredients, and bread that lovely lady was making whole day next to one of the pool bars. During the lunch my favourite was pasta station with the best tomato sauce that I ever had. In the evening there was always a long queue to french fries. We visited Italian restaurant once and really enjoyed the food, I had bruschetta, cheesy pizza and pana cotta. Definitely better food than in the main restaurant. We also visited four corners restaurant after our arrival. There was not a lot of food variety available but we were hungry and we were happy to have any food at that point (very late dinner after arrival). We also visited beach restaurant for lunch twice. We had spaghetti carbonara, fish and chips, fruit salad and cake of the day. Everything was delicious, waiters are extra friendly in this restaurant and the view is amazing although it can get very hot in there. Snack huts were my favourite, especially crepes and doughnuts. You could also get sandwiches, pizzas and various drinks. We used pool bars on the daily basis and sometimes waiters delivered our drinks to our sun loungers which was a very nice touch, but sometimes it took so long for the drinks to be delivered that I found it easier just to walk to the nearest bar and get the drinks myself. Soft drinks, juices and non alcoholic cocktails were OK but I would prefer branded coke rather than pepsi (personal taste). 3 bars around main restaurant (1 in theatre) were very busy in the evenings and it took some time for the waiter to take the order and bring the drinks to our table. The inside of the bars especially lobby bar were amazing, beautifully decorated and almost always empty 🙂 but it was a little bit to cold inside for my liking. Alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks served in the evening were good. I really enjoyed my mohito.
Entertainment
We only seen 3 evening shows (belly dance and tanora and 2 acrobatic shows). Belly dance and tanora was interesting, although Jaz Aqumarine hotel had the smallest theatre that I’ve seen in all of the hotels that we visited so far. 1 acrobatic show was presented by professionals and it was very interesting and very funny and second show was organised by animation team. The one organised by animation team was quite boring and really painful to watch. It didn’t look and feel professional, we unfortunately left in the middle of this show. I can’t really comment on daily entertainment because I only tried yoga once. Yoga was nice but it was a little bit to noisy near the beach at that time due to volleyball taking part on the other side of the beach restaurant. There were other daily activities like: stretching, pilates, volleyball, zumba, water gym, water polo, darts, football, belly dance and aerobic. We really liked spending our evenings in the bar close to relax pool (I think it was called topaz) with good mohito and live music, music was not too loud so we could have a conversation. We also tried shisha twice (melon and grape). It was very nice but I would like this place to be a little bit lighter and see something else than sport displayed on the projector screen. Sport is fine but seriously all the time?
Beach
This is not a standard sandy beach but it’s fine. You can rent a beach hut/beach daybeds on the beach if you want to. Sea was very shallow for very long time (you could walk for 30 min and water was still knee deep) and it was very warm too. We just seen few small fish, few crabs in their shells and a jelly fish. There are no colourful coral reef fish around. When the tide was low the sea didn’t look and smell very attractive but you could watch loads of tiny crabs or go and explore what was left of the coral reef. There is a water sports centre next to the hotel offering excursions much cheaper than Tui/First Choice and loads of different water sports.You can also enjoy a camel ride on the beach if you want to.
Hotel grounds
Jaz Aquamarine Hotel grounds are beautiful. There are a lot of different types of palm trees, flowers, cacti and other plants. There is a cool maze between big beach pool and relaxation pool. Wherever you go everything is clean and well maintained. Wi-Fi was hit and miss.It was or wasn’t working. You can upgrade to faster internet if you want to. Wi-Fi was good enough to check your email, social media, weather and excursions. We didn’t like the hotel eco friendly plastic bottles recycling idea of only 1 bottle of water a day being left in our room. If you wanted another bottle of water you had to pay for it or you had to walk to the bar very often to get a plastic/styrofoam cups and fill it with water. We tried to fill our water bottle at the bar few times but we had been told off. I’m sure that people used more plastic cups than plastic bottles. This is not very eco friendly. Well done Jaz Aquamarine hotel for being eco friendly but you need to do much more than reduce plastic bottles to really be more eco friendly.
Check-out was quite fast too and transport back to the airport was fast.
The Hurghada airport is a different and very negative story.
