OUR FIRST ALL INCLUSIVE FAMILY HOLIDAY TO EGYPT

Pollyanna has taken to travelling like a little duck to water.

Her first trip was at four months to Marrakech and since then we have done a European road trip from the UK, South of France ending in Spain, and a week Portugal, but we had never experienced the popular all-inclusive holiday which seems so popular with families.

In March, we decided to book our first all-inclusive holiday to Hurghada in Egypt with Thomas Cook for my birthday and as a treat for finding out we were having baby number two (which we hadn’t annouced yet)

Adam searched the internet for the right hotel for us, and eventually booked Sentido Mamlouk Palace Resort in our local Thomas Cook Store as the hotel had the best reviews online.

The flight was Pollyanna’s longest at almost five hours, you can read my tips on flying with a baby here.

It all went pretty smoothly, despite my worry of entertaining a one year old for that amount of time up in the air.




Greeted by the warm night air of Egypt we arrived at the hotel gone 10pm. We were checked into our hotel and was taken to our family garden view room which also had sea views.

It wasn’t long before we all fell asleep and woke up to sunshine.

With any holiday I always find that the first day we are finding our feet and getting used to our surroundings.

Every day started with breakfast which had everything you could imagine on offer.
I went for eggs on french stick daily, while Pollyanna and Adam tested the local food on offer.

Netted Dress

Basket Bag


Santido Mamlouk Hotel has two swimming pools, which is being very generous, as they are extremely large.
One is heated, with three slides and a bar and the other is not.

It’s sister hotel SUNRISE Garden Beach has a waterpark with eight slides (also slightly heated).

We spent the first day lounging by our heated hotel pool. Taking a dip as soon as we set our bags down.
It was the first holiday Pollyanna understood the swimming pool and got super excited spalshing around and watching Mummy and Daddy go down the slides.

Polka Dot Swimsuit

In between floating around, and visiting the bar for a cold beverage, Pollyanna would tend to fall asleep under blue skies in the shade.

The hotel is set on its own private sandy beach, we alternated our days between pool and beach.

The beach consists of your own umbrella, sun beds and wind breaker. All together made a great trap for Pollyanna to play in the sand.

It was another first for Pollyanna since being a baby and to say she loved it was an understatement.

She soon caught on that we were keeping her in a confined space and began to venture along the beach.
Everybody was very friendly and Pollyanna made several little friends.

She visited the Red Sea with no fear at all and no wincing at the coldness

Daddy and Pollyanna enjoyed a dip – it was too cold for Mummy

We took our own spades and beach toys which helped entertain Pollyanna.

In between sunbathing whilst Pollyanna napped and lunch at the beachfront restaurant we ended the day back by the pool for one last dip.

Every inch of the hotel is surrounded by Egyptian architecture and palm tress

Each evening we got dressed up and visited a different restaurant every night.

The hotel offers a mexican, Italian, International, Grill, and Asian

You can also visit the sister hotel which offers a steak, fish and my favourite of all was the Mongolian restaurant.

High Chairs are available in every restaurant unless you baby insists on falling asleep on your lap

When she didn’t fall asleep our nights would end at the kids mini disco

The third day was spent at the sister hotel with their eight water slides.

Pollyanna was a little too small for them but they also offered a children’s pool with children’s slides and you can see more of that in my Egypt Vlog at the end of this post.

Normally on our trips, we have jam-packed days of sight seeing and places or things to do, the experience of this whole trip was completely different. It had a more laid back and relax feel to it.

On the fourth day, Daddy went diving for the day. An experience available onsite but no included in you all inclusive package of course.

So we had a mummy and daughter day in and out of the pools

Not wanting to visit a country and stay at the hotel we paid for a day excursion to Mahmya Island, which I will cover in a separate blogpost but highly recommend.

We took a 30 minute coach ride to the port where we hopped on board a boat, before hopping onto a smaller boat to be taken to the white sand beach island of paradise.

The journey with Pollyanna was absolutely fine and so worth it to spend a full day on an Island that had a Med feel to it.

By the time we arrived Pollyanna had fell asleep in her pushchair which allowed us to go for a short snorkle in the sea.

The sea here was surprisingly warmer a lot nicer to swim in

I had waited all week to take the perfect pregnancy announcement photo and this spot seemed like the perfect place

The trip ended with a sunset cruise and an unexpected dolphin experience.

Our final day before flying back home later that evening was a chance to meet someone I had wanted to meet all week

The hotels own Camel…

It has always been something I have wanted to do and to be able to do it with my baby was even more precious

I expected tears but to my surprise there were none

Instead she was trying to hold the rains and guide the camel

It was the perfect end to our seven day all inclusive trip

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