Hi Mike

I landed at Sharm on 30th July and flew back from there last Monday.

I've been to Sharm before so was expecting the worst.....men insisting you DO need a Visa, men trying to force you to take a luggage trolley then demanding money for them, people demanding money for one sheet of toilet paper in the toilets, men waiting outside the terminal trying to grab your suitcase and pull it to the coach and demanding money for doing so and men demanding money for putting your suitcase on the coach.

We experienced every single one of the above last time and flatly refused to part with any money for any of them.
When we read on HT about people having their suitcases off-loaded from the coach for not tipping however, we decided that this time we would tip at that point, but NOT before!

You can imagine our delight when we made it to the coach without a single demand for money! Not even the coach driver demanded any for putting the luggage on! We had no small LE currency so were all prepared with a £1 in our pockets, all four of us! As the driver didn't even hint about giving him a tip two of us gave him our £1 coins anyway!

When we visited in 2005 we also witnessed demands for money on our return journey. there were men at check-in demanding money for placing suitcases on the luggage belts...we just said 'La' and did it ourselves.

This time the men weren't in evidence.

I can honestly say the whole airport experience was a totally different one to that which we went through in 2005! It wasn't even crowded but that's due to the fact we travelled on a Monday this time, Thursday is the busiest day at the airport.

If any of them demand money when you travel I'd only pay the coach driver if I were you, as you say it's not worth losing your luggage for the sake of £1! Take tissues in your hand luggage in case any of you need the loo.

Hope that helps!

Pippy

The new terminal ( called 1 ) is open but the UK flights are usually in and out of terminal 2 the old one ( which is not really very old as it has been built, expanded and upgraded umpteen times just in the last 5 - 6 years or so ). T2 can be very busy times or if you are lucky not so busy ( when Carrot left it seemed pretty quiet ). T1 is still very new and very much underused and thus so easy to arrive and depart from. I picked up a guest from Switzerland last Thursday - she was due to arrive at 17.15... the flight arrived at 16.46.... she was out, in the duty free shop, and we were on the road to Nuweiba by 17.30.

Footnote : Never allow yourself to be badgered into paying any money whatsoever at the airport.

Excellent guys - thanks so much for your posts

Hi

I have booked flights to sharm with Freedom flights and they use Excel airways planes. Does anyone know what terminal at Sharm Airport they use the old one or the new terminal. The hotel we are staying at offer airport transfers at a cost and i would like to arrange the transfer via email but not sure how i can find out about terminals.

Thanks

XL use the old terminal.

We recently travelled to Sharm from Gatwick and, for the first time, arrived and departed from the new terminal. Admittedly, early feb is not the busiest of times for the airport but we were very impressed by the terminal. It was less than 30 mins from deplaning to entering the car sent to collect us and on our return trip we did not even find a queue at the check in desk for GB Airways. I assume that Easyjet, who have now bought GB Airways, will be using the same terminal and flight slots.

One thing that has not changed, however, is the exhorbitant prices of food and beverages at all outlets in the terminal. Maybe not by british standards, but by egyptian standards they are excessive!

Duty free is spacious and well laid out. There are some really good bargains if you look around. There are also some things which are cheaper in a british supermarket!

when i came back from sharm 2 year ago the man checking your tickets was falling a slept?