Press Reviews

We've been operating since 1920, and in all that time we've had some rather good reviews from the press. Scroll down to read more about why travel writers love Peltours...

Western Daily Press - August 2006

Even a shimmering troupe of belly-dancers can't beat the drama beneath waves, reports JAMES COWLING 

Bella - 26th September 2006

Egypt Holiday in history

Share lying on a beach with visiting amazing ancient sites on this enduring and magical location, by Adele Evans

Egypt's Red Sea Riviera is the perfect place to flop on the sand, snorkel, dive and enjoy year-round sunshine.  What's more, five-star luxury comes at three-star prices, which means you can afford to splash out on a tour of one of the amazing sites.  There are lots to choose from but if you only have time for one, make it the pyramids at Giza.

Where to stay: Taba Heights on the Red Sea is sheltered by the mountains of the Sinai and is the ideal spot for relaxation and water sports.  From here it is a 5 hour coach journey to Cairo, which is best combined with an overnight stay.

Best sights:The Red Sea teams with marine life and it's an underwater paradise around Taba Heights as the water is a constant 21-25C and visibility is excellent.  The pyramids of Giza date from 2550BC, these pierce the skyline near Cairo. Nearby the Sphinx is the world's oldest attraction, spectacular sound and light shows are held here at night.  The Khan al-khalili souk in Cairo has not chaged since the 14th century, perfect for souvenies including shisha pipes. Cairo's Egyptian Museum has more than 120,000 antiquities and it is here you can see the priceless treasures from the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Top nosh: Humous, Tahini, and fuul are often served on flat bread.  Fish and shellfish are in plentiful supply along the Red Sea coast. And if you've got a sweet tooth try baklava - sticky, sugary, pastries.  Local wines such as Omar Khayyam and Sweet Delilah are worth trying. 

Treat yourself: Have a blissful Egyptian full-body massage in the Marriott Beach Resort's spa. 

Try it!: There are all kinds of watersports on  on offer in Taba Heights, including  windsurfing, catamaran sailing and waterskiing.  For those wanting a relaxing time, take a glass-bottom boat.  For a bird's eye view of the coast try parascending.  If you have ever hankered to do a bit of scuba diving, this is the place to try it.  Waterworld s a good local sports centre.

Out and about: As well as visitng Cairo, you can take jeep safaris into the desert and day trips to Petra in Jordan by boat.

Bargain buys: Look out for basketry, perfume bottles, leather goods, ceramics carpets, copperware and Egyptian cotton - they are all a fraction of UK prices.
And remember to haggle.  As a general rule, offer a third of the asking price and go up from there.

Your holiday:  The five-star Marriott Beach Resort Taba Heights has a huge swimming pool, spa, comfortable rooms, and reasonably priced good restaurants.

Take a Break Magazine - February 2006

Daily Express - January 2006

HIT THE HEIGHTS OF DELIGHT

Taba Heights has fabulous beaches and stunning coral reefs. SIMON EDGE discovers how the five-star luxury resort on Egypt’s Red Sea coast was created from the barren desert.



A baking slab of rock in an arid landscape where the only thing that grows is the forlorn acacia tree is an unlikely setting for Paradise.

Moses wandering this parched wilderness with the children of Israel would have laughed in your face at the notion. But he never met the group of visionaries who have created the luxury oasis of Taba Heights.

Operating for the past six years but now only getting into its stride, the resort offers a few hotels such as the Hyatt Regency, Sofitel and Marriott with a small water-sports centre a shuttle-bus ride away and another hotel, the Radisson SAS, a little further down the coast. More is promised: a total of 20 hotels, no less, and a golf course.

This is where Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia converge and the adventurous can take organised trips to those countries’ historic jewels of Cairo, Jerusalem and Petra – only Mecca is off limits. Beach – potatoes can simply bask in the heat – it was 40C when we were there, eased by a seductive warm wind blowing from the heat of the Gulf – and wonder how to burn of the calories between the all-you-can-eat five-star buffets at either end of the day.

The great advantage of the Red Sea coast is that once they have watered the dusty landscape enough to make it bloom, the location is peerless – not least below the waves.This is the real-life version of Finding Nemo, where a simple snorkel will take you into an extraordinary other-world of coral gardens and reef fish of such improbable shapes, sizes an colours that you need to keep pinching yourself to check it’s all real.

You can hire equipment to snorkel off a jetty on the beach outside the hotels but we paid the extra for a full-day cruise from Red Sea Waterworld that took us in a luxury yacht – the kind where you get a slap up lunch on board – to a tranquil turquoise bay at Pharoah’s Island. Lying face down on the surface of the water at the edge of the reef you see such extraordinary fish.

The same centre will teach you the more serious business of scuba-diving as well as such things as sailing, windsurfing and parasailing. We had a crack at water-skiing (£13.50 for a 20 minute session) and I managed to stay up for about a second and a half, while my companion proved irritatingly good at it.

We took a coach ride into the forbidding red granite interior of St Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of mound Sinai, which has been continuously inhabited since the 6th century.

You will be glad to return to the comforts of you air-conditioned luxury hotel with its slick, friendly service and pools, gyms and Jacuzzis. The Sofitel has the most luxurious rooms.

The great selling point of Taba Heights is the price. A five-star all-inclusive holiday with year round sunshine, within striking distance of some of the greatest historical sites of the region, where you can still get change from £600 is my idea of a good deal.



 

 

Western Daily Press - September 2005

Peltours offers top-of-the market, tailor made, value-for-money holidays in Egypt, including Taba Heights, Sharm El Sheikh, El Alamein and deluxe Nile cruises.  Direct flights from Taba Heights are available from Bristol, as well as Gatwick and Manchester.  The company concentrates on comfort and the best of service, the aircraft from Gatwick offers seats with a 35-inch pitch.

The hotels on offer include:

• The five star Marriott Beach resort at Taba Heights – the company’s best selling hotel.  Peltours offers an exclusive VIP Plus package and single-parent family holidays.
• Sonesta Beach Resort Taba- all-inclusive four-star hotel with private beach, dive centre, fantastic value for money.
  

Excursions from Taba include Cairo, Cairo and Luxor, St Catherines Monastary, Petra (the Red Rose City in Jordan), Jeep Safari, Nile Cruise and Jerusalem. Watersports include Waterworld, a PADI-licensed diving centre, parasailing, windsurfing and sailing.

Peltours also offer holidays to:

• The five-star Jolie Ville Movenpick Golf and Resort at Sharm El Sheikh, which features an 18-hole championship golf course and a scuba diving centre.
• The five-star Movenpick Resort and Spa at Egypt’s Mediterranean resort El Alamein.  From here you can visit the historic World War II sites, World War II Museum and cemetery. The hotel is a 90-minute drive from Alexandria and three hours from Cairo.  Excursions are also available to the Siwa Oasis and the Egyptian desert.
  

One of the company’s real specialities is five-star deluxe Nile Cruises.  These include private guides, and a choice of cruise and city, cruise and resort holidays.

Peltours offer single parent holidays, child-friendly holidays and is the only specialist company in the UK to offer an excursion pre-booking service.

Full House Magazine - September 2005

The yellow sand is soft underfoot and the water lapping the shore is as warm and clear as bath water. Below a myriad of colourful fish dart in and out of the coral.
This is Taba Heights, the newest resort on the Red Sea coast of Egypt.
No one can deny that the main attraction of staying somewhere like this is the beautiful coastline. Backed by rock and palm trees, you can settle down on a sun-lounger or take to the waves. The Marriott Beach Resort also boasts a golden sandy beach with waterfalls and caves.
The warm, clear water makes this the ideal place for snorkelling and scuba diving. The Red Sea is known as the “underwater classroom” because its shallow reefs and lack of currents make it ideal for beginners. There’s a large diving school near Taba Heights called Waterworld.
You can even take a bus ride over the border to Eilat in Israel.
There’s also lots of culture to explore. The Monastery of St Catherine, built in the sixth century under the Roman Emperor Justinian is the oldest monastery on the world. The monastery is overlooked by the sacred Mount Sinai.
Egypt is famous for its rich cultural history stretching back thousands of years. You can book day trips to Cairo, a five-hour trip will find you standing in front of the Sphinx and three Pyramids. Despite their familiarity, the impact of seeing them in reality takes your breath away.
As for Cairo itself, there’s the hustle and bustle and cars speeding about in every direction. By contrast on return to Taba Heights you can enter an oasis of calm.
There you can concentrate on relaxing again and sampling the delicious Egyptian food. The national dish is call “fuul”, a stew made with broad beans, garlic, tomatoes and paprika and often served with flat bread, while veal is the most popular meat.
As for evening entertainment, you’ll find belly dancers aplenty along with Egyptian folk music and opulent bars. It all adds up to make the perfect holiday destination for couples and families alike.

Mail on Sunday - May 2005

EL ALAMEIN’S NEW BATTLE…TO TURN INTO THE EGYPTIAN ALGARVE
In 1942 it witnessed an epic military clash.  Now, says JOHN CARTER, the Western Desert is fighting to lure an army of tourists.

As holidaymakers enjoying the Mediterranean beaches, the April sunshine and the comfort of a five star hotel.  Though none of us had chosen the destination because of its past, many of the guests at the newly-opened Movenpick Hotel took the half-day excursion to the Second World War museum.
A new airport has been built for the charter jets that will bring in holidaymakers.  It currently deals with one plane a week – the Monday-morning Boeing 757 from Gatwick operated by Astraeus for Peltours.  Being the only arrival means little fuss and formality entering Egypt, though it entails buying an £8 Egyptian visa.  First impressions during the 12 mile drive to the Movenpick hotel were of a barren landscape, thinly populated by Bedouin tribesmen.
This region is destined to become Egypt’s Algarve, the opening of Faro airport in 1965 brought tourists and prosperity to Portugal’s south coast.  The opening of El Alamein will do the same for this stretch of the Mediterranean’s southern shore.  But that is to come.  
The 253 room Movenpick El Alamein is as new as the airport serving it.  Located on the broad white sands of Ghazala Bay, it has four swimming pools, two tennis courts, two air-conditioned squash courts, gymnasium, aerobics room and spa, with sauna, Jacuzzi and steam bath.  Holidaymakers praised the friendly staff.  
Given the quality of the hotel, Peltours’ clients reckoned that they were getting good value for money. This means that there’s money to spare for excursions- a day trip to Cairo for under £85 (about £135 for the overnight version) and a day trip to Alexandria for about £60.  The half day visit to the Second World War museum and cemeteries costs less than £3.

Daily Express - May 2005

FOLLOWING IN THE TANK TRACKS OF MONTY’S ARMY
A former battleground in Egypt is setting out its stall to become a major tourist destination, discovers ANDREW EAMES

Sixty-three years ago El-Alamein, on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast between the Libyan border and Egypt’s second city Alexandria, was the venue for an encounter that altered the course of the Second World War.
Now the British are back!

The new campaign is led by the Egyptians, who are creating airports and luring hotel investors to a coastline that previously has only ever welcomed local tourists.

So far the first foothold is at El Alamein, with the opening of the international airport and the fist major hotel, the Movenpick.  British tour operator Peltours has started a once-weekly charter into the airport-currently the Astraeus flight is the airport’s only use.

There is an excitement in being in the vanguard of new tourism, which is plainly felt by many British holidaymakers at the Movenpick, and there’s a freshness and friendliness in the way hotel and tour staff interact with customers.
Temperatures stay around early 30s through most of summer.

Alexandria and Cairo are both the subject of excursions, and the majority of tourists are taking the opportunity of seeing one or both.  Cairo (three hours away), that great maelstrom of a city with the Pyramids and the Nile, is essential viewing.  Alexandria (one and a half hours) is more manageable, more European and less of a culture shock.

Then there is the battlefield itself, with its three cemeteries (British,Italian and  German) and a museum surrounded by old tanks and artillery.  The museum has an eclectic selection of souvenirs of desert warfare.

Reveal Magazine - April 2005

When you long to escape life’s hectic pace and unwind in a location where you’ll be shamelessly spoilt, look no further than Taba Heights.
This luxurious resort in Egypt’s Red Sea Riviera offers sun, sea and sand in abundance.  It’s a beach holiday without the bustle.  Souvenir shops don’t line the promenade, nor do music bars drown out the sound of the breaking waves.  In fact, there isn’t a promenade.  You step out of your five star hotel on to private beach of golden sand.
Throughout your stay, the warm, courteous staff will insist that you need not lift a finger.  They’ll provide you with beach towels, unfold your sunlounger and position your parasol.
Taba Heights offers the kind of holiday that dreams are made of.  It rarely rains and a gentle breeze tempers the heat of the sun.  There’s the Red Sea.  Just like Egypt’s Pyramids and Pharaohs’ tombs, it hides a wealth of treasures.
If you’ve ever fancied learning scuba-diving, this is the place,  The Red Sea’s reef is right up there with Australia’s Great Barrier Reef as one of the top dive sites in the world.
Another great way to get to know this fabulous underwater paradise is to take a day’s snorkelling cruise aboard the Henry De Monfreid.  This elegant sailing ship cuts through the waves to Farun Island in the Gulf of Aqaba.  Your guides will jump in the water with you to share the secrets of marine life, before preparing an absolutely delicious lunch for you.

Nightlife: The Marriott, Hyatt and Sofitel hotels provide the nightlife in Taba.  Check out their entertainment programmes for adults and kids, then choose a belly-dancing show, a Bedouin banquet, a disco for dancing the night away or an evening of Karaoke.  If you’re in the mood for a romantic night, a moonlit stroll along the beautiful beaches is hard to beat.

Shopping:  While your relaxing in Taba Heights, your plastic can have some time off, too.  Apart from a gift shop in each hotel and a small precinct up in the small town of Taba selling souvenirs, there isn’t anywhere to spend your cash.  Exotic perfumes, gold and gemstones jewellery, leather goods and ornaments of mummies and pyramids are the best buys available.

Don’t leave without…: Visiting the Egyptian capital Cairo.  Book an excursion and see the Pyramids at Giza, the Sphinx and the Egyptian Antiquities museum, which is packed with the Pharaohs’ treasures.
Taking a glass bottom boat round the coral reef, an excursion kids will love.
Seeing St Catherine’s Monastery.  Sit in the shadow of Mount Sinai, where according to the Bible, Moses received the Ten Commandments from God.

Closer Magazine - January 2005

ONE EL OF COASTLINE
EGYPT IS THE NEW….GREECE

Egypt’s coastal town of El Alamein offers the beach perks of the Mediterranean at half the price,
as well as the chance to see a few wonders of the world.  It’s only 90 minutes from Alexandria, and Cairo’s within easy reach so you can even check out the Pyramids and the Sphinx.  And you don’t get that in Crete.

Daily Star - October 2004

SOLD ON THE PYRAMIDS BY VICKY LISSAMAN

I took a long drag on the shisha pipe, inhaled the sweet apple and cinnamon tobacco then passed it along the line.
In my hotel, the five-star Marriott, in Taba Heights on the Red Sea, you can ask the waiter to bring a pipe to you table along with your beer.  He’ll even spare your blushes if you haven’t got a clue what to do with it when it arrives, by getting it going for you.
Taba Heights resort is the perfect place to be lazy, all the hotels are right on the beach and across the Red Sea are spectacular views of the scorched red mountains of Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
The Marriott Hotel has a buffet style main restaurant with a huge choice including roast meats, spicy kebabs, baked fish, salads, dips vast array of breads and pasta cooked on command.  For a special night try the Tuscany Italian restaurant, which offers fancy steaks, pastas and seafood dishes.
Or for a taste of the old Egyptian way of life, go to the hotel’s Bedouin night, down on the beach.  Here you can sit on leather cushions under canvas and watch alluring young belly dancers shake their rather svelte bodies on the sand in front of you.
The waiters then bring you a selection of dips and flatbread to hover them up with a great wedge of barbecued lamb, followed by fruits and sticky cakes.  This is then finished off with a smoke of the all important shisha pipe.
The Red Sea is famous for its exotic fish.  I’d never dived before, the instructor Ben from the Red Sea Waterworld diving centre, just down from the Marriott was a pro at putting me at ease.  Swimming around under the sea is a truly unique experience.  You can’t hear anything, so you feel like you’re in your own little world with the fishes of all colours swishing merrily past.
The resort of Taba Heights is mostly devoted to hotels and watersports, so if you want to go further afield, it’s best to take an organised trip.  I decided to go on an overnight adventure to Cairo.  Peltours, the tour operator I booked with do a great one.
After a long journey across the desert and the Suez Canal we arrived in Cairo, we left our overnight bags at the Cairo Marriott, which is on the River Nile, then headed for the Pyramids.  The Sphinx is right next to the Pyramids and there are camel rides galore so make sure you’ve got plenty of film in your camera.  I’m not big on museums, but the Egyptian Museum is Cairo is an exception.  You get to see more than 150,000 exhibits, and there is lots of amazing stuff inside, such as intricately decorated mummies.
A Nile cruise by moonlight is a good laugh, so remember to pack a posh outfit.  These fancy moving restaurants are parked along the riverbanks, so you just stroll on.
While you have dinner, you are treated to singing, belly dancing.
Visiting Cairo is surreal and fantastic – like having a vivid dream in Technicolor, where all your senses are on overdrive.  So it’s a good job I had 3 days left back in sleepy Taba Heights to chill.

Mail On Sunday - September 2004

ALEXANDRIA THE GREAT 

BY ANNA MELVILLE JONES

Once the greatest of all cities of antiquity, the port of Alexandria on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast was the centre of the civilised world during the reign of the Ptolemies.

Expat resident Lawrence Durrell referred to “Alex” as the capital of memory, and now Hollywood plans to remind us with two epics about the city’s founder, the Macedonian hero Alexander the Great.
The three-hour excursion from Cairo certainly peppers up the more familiar sights and stories of an Egyptian visit.

Today’s corniche city is part Marbella with minarets – functional seaside resort popular with Cairenes – and part colonial fantasia, stitched together by genteel squares such as Midan Saad Zaghloul, overlooked by Durrell's beloved Hotel Cecil and French patisseries where waitresses still serve tarte tatin.

At the centre, old Alex's railway station resembles an Agatha Christie film set.  To the East, Montazah, an oasis of palms and the palaces of former King Farouk I, now houses top-end hotels and beaches.  You can sunbathe here.  The private beaches are cleaner, emptier and relaxed in dress code; although there's something cooling about swimming fully clothed, which is mandatory for women on public beaches.
In the compact old city it is possible to "do" the sights in a day - and Alex's wild breezy streets and friendliness make walking pleasurable, especially at night when they fill with a Mediterranean promenade.
It's not just time but style that has reduced Alex's past to hints.  Alexandria was a capital of intellectual artefacts, of ideas, trade, delicate Nile delta pottery and mosaics.  Its most famous monument was the Mouseion, a collection of observatories, laboratories and the Great Library of Alexandria, torched in 293AD.  The new Bibliotheca Alexandria opened in 2002, is both homage and a renaissance for modern Alex.  The city is not without ruins; Pompey’s pillar is a gioan granite testament to Roman ego, while the pretty Roman amphitheatre is used for theatrical performances.

Diving excavations in the bay, into which large proportion of the ancient city flopped, have turned up the remains of Pharos Lighthouse, one of the Seven Wonders of the World and debatably Cleopatra's palace.
At the Graeco-Roman Museum - a courtyard delight, with the weird and wonderful classical and ancient Egyptian styles of art and sculpture.  With smiling sphinxes, naturalist figures in Egyptian dress and Caucasian mummy masks.
It’s the acceptance of mysterious, hidden worlds that is the key to understanding Alexandria, a city that offers up its memories to those who a prepared to search - or at least to remember that they are there, just below the surface.

The Times - January 2003

HAPPY BIRTH ON THE SHORES OF THE RED SEA BY JILL CRAWSHAW

It’s exciting to be in on the birth of a new resort, and Taba Heights in Sinai, just 20 miles from the Israeli border, is a very new baby-it doesn’t even feature on the map.
The new British-owned airline Astraeus Airways, which took to the skies on its first five-hour direct flight in July landed at an airport with, as yet, no restaurant, bars or duty free shops.
Even the 40 minute transfer was so unfamiliar that a coach driver nearly ended up in the middle of the desert on the way to our hotel, the Marriott, open for just three months.  None of our planeload of passengers had a clue what to expect.
With its year-round sunshine, underwater riches and 644km of sandy beaches, Sinai had looked set to be a big player in the holiday stakes.
Now the new British charters to Taba Heights are going out full, and the destination is set to be low-rise luxury rival to Sharm El Sheikh, a three-hour drive away.
Taba Heights consists of three miles of beach, two five-star hotels, the Marriott and the Hyatt, and a state-of-the-art diving and watersports centre.  Scattered along the coast are eight more hotels under construction with the Sofitel and the Radisson opening soon; a golf course is on the drawing board.
Apart from exceptional watersports diving, snorkelling, sailing instruction and parasailing with a view of four countries (Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and Egypt), there is nothing to do in the resort away from the hotels.
Holidaymakers scrambled to book up excursions which included Luxor, St Catherines Monastery, Jerusalem, and Petra in Jordan.  More than 100 people took the coach trip to Cairo (five hours away at a cost of £95).  I myself chose a stupendous day trip to St Catherine’s Monastery (£35).  I’d like to have done the Jeep Safari deep into the desert (£42). Full marks for the watersports and the excursions.
There was praise galore for the bubbly enthusiastic young staff, and everyone loved the waterslide and the pool that meandered through grottoes and waterfalls to the swim-up bar.  Snorkelling from the white sand beach in search of a family of five turtles who were using it as a home base was a favourite pastime, though the span and tennis courts were only lightly used.  
Most agreed that Taba Heights after dark certainly isn’t for ravers – an outdoor amphitheatre with folklore shows and belly dancing every night was the hub for guests, while the Regatta Bar with an Egyptian dive belting out western pop had become the resort hotspot for the younger crowd.

The Times - June 2002

HEAD FOR THE HEIGHTS AND DIVE IN

Dig out your atlas and look up Taba Heights and Nuweiba on the Sinai Peninsula.  The string of gloriously undeveloped beaches in between these small resorts don’t yet feature – but the Brits are on the way.
The area has plenty going for it: there’s year-round sunshine, and the gloriously unpolluted water are a nursery for snorkellers and divers.  The backcloth of cinnamon-coloured mountains and desert offers Jeep safaris, camel treks, Bedouin experiences and religious sites such as Mount Sinai and St Catherines Monastery.  Petra, Jordan’s rose-red city, is accessible on a day excursion.
Peltours can do a week’s half board with direct flights at the five-star Hyatt Regency and Marriott Beach Hotel.