New Years Eve at Sunrise Arabian Beach Resort

Happy New Years! This year Emils and I are celebrated New Years Eve a little differently than we have in the past. His parents are told us that they, and some of my husbands other family members, had booked an all inclusive trip to Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt. They asked us if we wanted to join them. So we booked the holiday. We all arrived at different days. Some before New Years Eve and some the day after. We stayed at the hotel called Sunrise Arabian Beach Resort.

For New Years Eve, they had a gala. They put up a large tent outside one of their restaurants and they put a stage for performances. There was rounds tables with seats around, all covered in white cloths and nicely decorated. The evening we arrived at the hotel, they asked us almost right away, if we wanted to book seats for the gala, which we said yes to. Not sure what else we would do, as it seems other restaurants would be closed that evening. They showed us the seating charts and there was not much options left, as we had arrived the evening on 30th of December. The seats we got were at a table, which already had other people booked at as well and it was far from the stage. Although we were told that you could see the stage from any of the seating options that we were given.

Coming the night of New Years Eve, we got dressed up and I put on some nicer glittery eyeshadow, curled my hair and put on a skirt, shirt and adidas trainers. However, when we left our room and started heading to the gala, we could see that a lot of people were a lot more dressed up than us. A lot of women in sparkling dresses and high heels and some men in suits. At first we felt under dressed, but when we got to the lobby bar we could see there was a much a big difference in how peopled had decided to dress. Some in formal attire and some in casual hoodie and jeans.

We went inside at about 7.40 PM and were shown to our seats. No one had gotten to our table yet, so it was just the two of us. Some of Emils family members, who had arrived shortly before the gala, had gotten seats at a different table.

When we just go into the tent, there was live music at the stage and people had already started eating. So we headed to the buffet as well. It was very busy and it took some time to get through the queues at the different food stations. Which was to expected, when everyone from such a large hotel was having dinner at the same restaurant, at the same time. I would probably rate the food a 3 out out of 5. It was pretty average in my opinion. I ended up with a wide range of foods on my plate. Things like crap, sushi, lamp, chicken caecar salad and salmon bake. My favourite from that was the lamb. It was soft and nice. However, the sushi was made with the wrong rice, so it was too dry. Of cause, I do live in Japan, so of cause I am used to eating much better sushi and might be a little biased on this part. I will admit that. Caecar salad is something I normally love, but this one was unfortunately soaked in salad dressing and was a little too soggy. So these are the reasonings behind my 3 out of 5 rating of the food.

As for the show, shortly after we started eating, a dance show started. There was mixture of different performers and performances. The music at this point was turned up. It was very load and I could feel the bass in my body. Unfortunately we could not really see most of the performance. The view we had towards the stage was through a walkway. There was often people waking here to get to the buffet behind us, standing taking pictures or hotel staff standing there. It was blocking our view. Due to the load music, we couldn't really entertain ourselves by having a conversation, as we had to shout to hear each other.

A mom and her two kids were seated at out table, but she quickly left. I think they might have found another table. When the dance show were over they started talking in the microphone. At first, it was not in English. Although it seems they switched a little bit back and forth between languages. The microphone wasn't the clearest, so it was not easy for us to understand what was going on, so since we were sitting there alone, we decided to leave. This was maybe at around 9.30-ish. We wanted to go by the table where Emils family was sitting, to see if they also wanted to leave, but their table was empty. They had already left. We went to the Churchill Lobby Bar, as this bar had remained open and we found them there. They had also not enjoyed it. They had the same problem of not being able to see and the loud music making it difficult to have a nice conversation with the people around you. We ended up spending the rest of the evening here, until New Year. We had a much better time here. We were not alone. After we arrived, it didn't take long for the bar to be full, as others had left the gala as well.

At midnight we popped outside for our own little count down and when it the clock stroke 12pm, we jumped into the new year. This is a tradition in my family. We normally jump from a chair, but this time we just jumped on the ground. We stayed only a little bit after that before we started heading down towards our room to get ready for bed. The gala was still going, but we didn't go in to see what was going on, as it sounded like it was still just loud music. I must say, it added a little to the disappointment that there was no firework. For a large hotel like this, I am surprised they didn't have a firework show at midnight.

So in conclusion, this hotel is a fine hotel, however, I do not recommend it if you are looking for a good New Years Eve experience. As I am writing this, it is 1st of January and I am still at the hotel. It is only our second full day here, so it is still too early for me to give a full review on the hotel. However, I will be doing one.