Umbi Sharks Bay Diving Village

My partner and I just came back from a week at Umbi Sharks Bay. We stayed in one of the cabins. It had what we needed. The beds are relatively firm, and the AC worked well. The water pressure is decent, and the temperature was good. The bathroom layout was a bit cramped, but honestly not a big deal. I don't know if it makes sense to go here if you're not diving. (Or at least snorkeling!). The location really is perfect for it. On the land-side of the things there's not necessarily a lot to do. Though, we walked down to Soho Square twice, it's about a 20-30 minute walk (or a 5 minute cab ride). I did the Open Water and Advanced Open Water courses. While my partner just did the Advanced. All the staff at the center were lovely. Our instructor was clearly very skilled, and taught with a pragmatic and realistic approach. But still with a sense of humour. The food was really an unexpected gem. We had opted for full board, to avoid having to think too much about it I was really impressed with every meal. Everything had nicely balanced flavours, the portions were generous, and the menu has a good variety. The staff were very attentive: after my partner had picked out some onions from her salad, the server remembered and prompted her the next day whether she'd like them removed. We will definitely be coming back!

Here's the thing: we (partner and I) had a great time and definitely don't regret our choice. Price was right, too. Just some snags that left us scratching our heads. We did the 3 day liveaboard +4 nights stay/2 days fun diving. Pros: - Kareem is a great instructor, had an epic time getting my advanced and our nitrox. -Ship was run very tightly, schedule was almost always tight (except one delayed night dive due to an exceptionally hard time anchoring) -boat crew was great and the food was amazing- looked forward to each meal. Eat, sleep, dive, repeat! -We saw amazing stuff. Really, made our diving in Thailand boring in comparison. -Price, esp. for the package was the best we could find. -Snorkleing on the beach is epic!! Like a fish tank. -food at the restaurant is pretty amazing. Not the cheapest but def not bad. Get the curry. Cons: -Another instructor on the boat disregarded safety. On a Thisselgorm dive, he brought divers back with as little as 20 bar. On a night dive he was leading, he pretty much ditched the whole group for 40 mins. We were swimming in circles around each other looking for him. We didn't have dive computers so we were relying on him for our decomp times. He skipped the safety stop and just hopped back in the boat. Didn't count us back in or anything - we did that ourselves. We safety stopped with another guest. When we questioned him after the dive, he was totally standoffish and claimed the dive was shallow enough for no dive-limits. (Except several in the group with computers went into decomp). Smh. Just unsafe. -Rooms by the resort (the cheaper ones, not the bungalows) were very bare, dirty, and basic. Puddle of water on the floor to greet us so we switched rooms. Found a big old roach on my computer at night that I had to hunt down. Not the end of the world, but still annoying. -when paying the shop, if you don't pay in euros in cash, there's a 3% card fee. If you pay in Egyptian pounds, they give you a lousy conversion rate. Felt like a gimmick. They also charge for nitrox tanks whereas most liveaboards include it for free. -On our daily fun dives, saw an instructor break off a big chunk of coral while helping a diver with her mask. It happens, I guess, but it was just rough to see. Tl;dr- If you want to save some money and you're not too picky (or panicky), this is a great shop. If you're a stickler for safety or luxury, you may want to consider alternatives. Since we booked last minute and had a great time, we'd probably do it all again.