Marsa Alam

Introduction

Marsa Alam is a small seaside resort town in the south of Egypt, located along the beautiful coastline of the Red Sea.

Sights and Activities

Red Sea Scuba Diving

The famous Elephinstone is a few hours boat ride away. It is only for Advanced Scuba Divers upwards and is the place to see the man-eating Oceanic White Tip Shark (Carcharhinus longimanus) - its name means long arms. They are very curious of divers and can bump into you. The Elephinstone itself is a steep wall with powerful currents full of turtles, remoras, soft/hard corals and eels. More on diving near Marsa Alam.

Weather

Windy and sunny. Despite the wind, sand is not usually a problem. Temperatures are high from June to September, generally around 35 °C. Winters from December to February are mostly well above 20 °C, but the best times are probably March-May and October/November, when it's warm, sunny and dry.

Getting There

By Plane

Numerous airlines currently fly to Marsa Alam International Airport (RMF), including Thomson Airways to/from Birmingham, London and Manchester. Many other airlines serve Marsa Alam, with destinations being Amsterdam, Warsaw, Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart, Hanover, Düsseldorf, Brussels, Vilnius, Bologna, Milan, Verona, Kuwait, Cairo, Luxor, Sharm el-Sheikh, Nuremberg, Basel and Zürich.

By Bus

It is a 3-hour busride come from Hurghada.

By Boat

Live-aboard diving boats call into Marsa Alam.

Sleep

• Coral Reef Diving Hotel was the first hotel in Marsa Alam primarily catering for tourists/divers. It is 4-star hotel.

Upscale

View our map of accommodation in Marsa Alam

Keep Connected

Internet

Internet access is easy to find and cheap. Most cities, such as Greater Cairo and Luxor, and even smaller tourist sites, such as Edfu, boast a plethora of small internet cafés. The price per hour is usually EGP 2-10 depending on the location/speed. In addition, an increasing number of coffee shops, restaurants, hotel lobbies and other locations now provide free wireless internet access. Free wi-fi (Mobilnil) is also available at modern coffee shops such as Cilantro and Costa Coffee, where you obtain access by getting a 2-hour "promotional" card from the waiter, and if you go into almost any McDonald's, you will have access to a free WiFi connection.

Phone

See also International Telephone Calls

The international telephone code for Egypt is 20.

Egypt has a reasonably modern telephone service including three GSM mobile service providers. The three mobile phone providers are Mobinil, Vodafone and Etisalat. Principal centers are located at Alexandria, Cairo, Al Mansurah, Ismailia, Suez, and Tanta. Roaming services are provided, although you should check with your service provider. Be aware that using your home SIM card can be very expensive, especially when using internet services but also calling is much more expensive. Try to get a local SIM card for your cell phone instead. Also, it is possible to purchase tourist mobile phone lines for the duration of your stay, which usually costs around EGP 30.

Post

Egypt Post is the national postal service in Egypt. Services are generally reliable, affordable though pretty slow, even if you send post domestically. International letters and postcards take days, if not weeks if send to the US or Australia. They do have express mail services though, but these are relatively expensive. Opening hours of post officies are mostly from 8:30am to 2:00pm or 3:00pm daily except Friday, when all of them are closed. The central ones might keep longer hours, generally until 8:00pm. You can buy stamps here, or at certain newspaper kiosks. In touristic areas, these are available at many shops as well. For parcels, it's much better to use international courier services such as DHL, TNT, FedEx or UPS.