I stayed at this hotel on an All Inclusive basis for 4 nights from February 14 to 17th 2008. On arrival at the hotel, my family and I were very impressed as the hotel is new and very beautiful. The hotel lobby is very spacious and large with a spectacular chandelier hanging from a domed ceiling making for a memmorable first impression feature. The staff are friendly at this hotel. There are many Russians who stay with package tour companies. Ther are also French and German guests but very few Brits.The main problem with this hotel, is the buffet menu which is very un-appetising. My wife, daughter and I did not enjoy the food on any occasion. The food is tasteless, unimmaginative and repetiative. If the food was better, this would be a good hotel to stay in. There are many swimming pools that are set around the grounds. The grounds are beautiful and are kept clean and tidy. The Red Sea is beautiful, Hurghada is not a bad resort.

When we arrived at Aqua Blu, we were informed that we were staying at the new resort on the same site - Aqua Vista. I've put a separate review up for Aqua Vista but as we used all of the facilities apart from the rooms and restaurants, I thought I'd pass comment.

There are four hotels on the same site and you can use all of the facilities of each hotel except that you must take your meals in the restaurant according to your hotel. Aqua Blu, Aqua Vista and Albatros resort are next to each other and you can walk freely between all 3. You have to cross the road to Beach Albatros which is located on the beach.

The pools in all the hotels are good, with Water Slides at Albatros and Beach Albatros and a Wave Pool at Aqua Blu. Sunbeds are plentiful but be warned that in 'winter' it is difficult to find a sunbed out in the sun due to the plentiful permanent shades which I guess are welcome in Summer. In 'winter' the sun is warm but the wind can temper this and a shade is not helpful - you can only really sunbathe between 10am and 3.30pm.

The hotels are on the flight path to the airport and planes fly low directly over the resort. This didn't bother us and on the upside, it's only a 10min transfer to the airport.

The one thing that was a let down for us was the service particularly from reception as to where you can eat and drink and trying to sort problems out. As the resort is so big, a map would be handy but doesn't exist. It took us a while to work out where we should be for meals. Bizarrely you can get a drink anywhere in Aqua Blu, Aqua Vista and Albatros, but at Beach Albatros, you can only use the beach bar.

I didn't see the rooms but somebody we met tried to change rooms from Aqua Vista and was offerred 5 alternatives in Aqua Blu and Albatros and she wouldn't take any of them and was not complimentary on their appearance. Rooms at Aqua Vista (new) were very good.

Drink was perfectly ok and certainly not watered down. Food at Aqua Vista was fine with a choice of 4 restaurants. Albatros has 3 restauarants but we could only see one at Aqua Blu which would have been dissapointing if we had stayed there.

As others have mentioned, the majority of guests were Russian. We met up with the small number of British guests on Day 1 and this made our holiday more enjoyable. The Russians were no problem and the hotel staff love the British. In hindsight, if the hotel was full of Brits I doubt we would have mixed but when there are only a few of you the 'Bulldog Spirit' took over and we actually saw this as a positive!

The service let this place down, but for the money we paid for the Hotel at £9 ppn then it is mst definitely excellent value for money.

If given the choice again, Aqua Vista would definitely be a return visit but I'd be wary of the other 3 unless it was a deal I simply couldn't resist.

When we arrived at the hotel late at night on the 26/10/07 the staff could not have been more helpful. the two weeks we stayed there they made us feel like we belonged there. The food was great, vodka not to hot but the other drinks were fine. We really enjoyed the hotel and looking forward to going back next year. When you go there you have to go into town to the Hard Rock cafe, what a night fantastic,hotel taxi will take you there and pick you up, they even walk you to the door. Give the waiters a pound tip and they cant do enough for you especially if your English. You have to go there and find out for yourself, we are definatly going back.

I would love to write a full review of this hotel but i can't as we never actually got to stay here.We arrived on the 26th Oct late at night and began filling in the hotel forms.We were given armbands for All inclusive and then promptly told that there were no rooms available!! The alternative hotel was a 20 minute drive away and a lower star rating.When we asked to be roomed in either of the sister hotels (albatross beach and resort) once again no rooms!! The manager was appalling, he didn't care at all and told us that we could sit in the lobby all night for all he cared!! When we began to get annoyed he magically vanished and left us with his underdog who shoved all 8 of us,2 kids included onto a minibus where our luggage was already waiting for us.We were told that we could still use the aquablu resort for our meals and amenities and that a minibus would be available for us day and night 24/7.What a joke!! We visited the hotel one day and had to wait 2 HOURS for a minibus back to our hotel!!Again the manager was VERY rude and ignorant,he just doesn't want to know,and seems to vanish when he can't sort anything out for you.The aquablu resort is not as it seems in it's adverts, the waterslides are a let-down as 2 out of the 4 were not working and in the albatross beach resort you can only use 1 out of 2 as they make you buy your own rubber ring to use on it!The hotel shops must be making a killing!Also none of the signs and notices,even the warning signs, are not in english and the voice over the tannoy and animation announcements are all in either german or russian,no english spoken at all throughout the day.All in all i would strongly advise against booking a stay at the aquablu resort,but even if you have booked don't worry because there probably won't be a room for you!!Our alternative hotel where we ended up staying.Alf Leila Wa Leila, was much better and the reception staff were outstanding,especially Hany,and we had been downgraded!!