Destinations · Sep 23, 2026

Hurghada or Makadi Bay: the hotel is not the difference

One has a town around it. The other does not, on purpose

Makadi Bay is about thirty kilometres south of Hurghada and around twenty from the airport, which makes it one of the easiest arrivals on this coast. It is also the choice people make without quite knowing what they are choosing, because the brochure photograph of a Makadi hotel and the brochure photograph of a Hurghada hotel are the same photograph.

The difference is not the hotel. It is what happens when you walk out of it.

Makadi Bay is not a town

This is the single fact that decides the whole question, and it is rarely said plainly: there is no town at Makadi Bay. There is a bay, a road, and a line of large resorts along it, plus a small commercial strip built for the hotels. No old quarter, no souk with locals in it, no streets that existed before the hotels did.

That is not a criticism. A great many people want precisely this and are happier for it. But if your picture of the holiday includes wandering out in the evening to somewhere that is not your hotel, Makadi will not give you that, and no amount of good weather changes it.

The desert behind Makadi Bay

The desert behind Makadi Bay

Hurghada is a city

Several hundred thousand people live there. It has an old quarter, El Dahar, that predates tourism — it grew out of a 1905 oil-prospecting camp and was a fishing town long before anyone came to dive. It has a working souk, a Grand Mosque, a museum that opened in 2020, traffic, noise and street food.

It also has the marina, most of the restaurants on this coast, and every hotel category from hostel to five-star.

Who Makadi Bay suits

Families with small children. This is the strongest case. Big resorts with water parks, shallow protected beach, short distances, nothing to negotiate, and no road to cross. A week here with a four-year-old is genuinely easier than a week in Hurghada.
People who want the hotel to be the holiday. If all-inclusive and a lounger is the plan, Makadi does it better, because there is nothing else pulling at you.
Snorkellers who like a house reef. Several Makadi hotels have reef straight off the beach, which means you can be in the water in the time it takes to walk down the steps — no boat, no day trip, no early start.
Short arrivals. Roughly twenty kilometres from the airport. After a long flight with children, that matters more than it sounds.

Who Hurghada suits

Anyone who wants to leave the hotel. Restaurants you choose, a souk, an old town, a marina to walk along in the evening.
Budget travellers. Makadi is mostly large resorts at resort prices. Hurghada has everything, including cheap.
Teenagers and young adults. Things happen in Hurghada in the evening. Very little happens in Makadi in the evening, on purpose.
People doing a lot of boat trips. The marina is in Hurghada, and every extra kilometre is minibus time at both ends of an eight-hour day.

The desert argument, which runs the other way

Everything above favours Hurghada for excursions. The desert is the exception, and it is a real one.

Quad, buggy and jeep safaris run inland from the coast, and the sand behind Makadi is as good as the sand behind anywhere else — so we run trips that start there rather than dragging you north first. Our Makadi quad safari and the buggy version both go straight out into the dunes and the coastal desert behind the bay.

So a week in Makadi built around the beach, the house reef and a couple of desert afternoons is a very good week, with no wasted driving in it at all.

Desert behind the Red Sea coast

Desert behind the Red Sea coast

The honest arithmetic on boat days

We pick up from Makadi Bay, Sahl Hasheesh, Soma Bay, Safaga, El Gouna and Hurghada itself, so nothing is off-limits wherever you stay. But the boats go from the Hurghada marina, and from Makadi that is around thirty kilometres of coast road, twice, on top of a day that already runs about eight hours.

One boat trip in a week: irrelevant, ignore it. Three or four: it becomes the thing you remember about the holiday, and not fondly.

If your plan is Orange Bay on Monday, Dolphin House on Wednesday and a snorkelling day on Friday, stay in Hurghada. If your plan is the beach with one boat day in it, stay wherever you like the hotel.

What about the reef?

Makadi and the bays south of Hurghada generally have better shore snorkelling than the Hurghada hotel strip, which is built on a stretch of coast that was developed early and heavily. If getting into the water from a beach without booking anything is important to you, that is a genuine point for the bays.

Do check the specific hotel rather than the area, though. "House reef" covers everything from a wall of coral thirty metres out to a sandy bottom with three rocks on it, and the word alone tells you nothing.

Sahl Hasheesh, since it comes up

Sahl Hasheesh sits between the two, about twenty kilometres south of Hurghada, and it is the compromise: newer and quieter than Hurghada, but with a promenade and a small centre, so it is not quite as sealed off as Makadi. If you are torn, it is worth a look — most people comparing Hurghada and Makadi have never heard of it.

The mistake to avoid

Do not book Makadi Bay expecting to "pop into Hurghada" in the evenings. On paper it is half an hour. In practice it is a taxi each way, negotiated twice, at the end of a day in the sun, and almost nobody does it more than once.

If seeing Hurghada matters to you, either stay there, or book a city tour and see it properly with someone who can take you into the old town — our Hurghada city tour covers the marina, El Dahar, the mosque and the museum, and there is a private version if you would rather set your own pace.

What a week in each actually looks like

Put side by side, the difference stops being abstract.

A week in Makadi tends to go: arrive and not move for two days, discover the house reef on day three, do a desert afternoon on day four, take one boat day, and spend the rest by the pool. It is restful and it repeats, and for a lot of people that is exactly the holiday they paid for.

A week in Hurghada tends to go: one boat day, one desert day, an afternoon in the old town, an evening at the marina, a day doing nothing, and a second boat day because the first one was good. More happens, and more of it involves getting into a vehicle.

Neither is better. But if you read those two paragraphs and one of them sounded tiring, you have your answer, and it took less time than reading a hundred hotel reviews.

So which one

Makadi Bay if the holiday is the hotel, the beach and the reef, and especially if there are small children in it.

Hurghada if you want a town around you, more choice at every price, and a week with several boat trips in it.

And if you genuinely cannot decide, the tiebreaker is simple: ask yourself whether you expect to leave the hotel after dinner. If the answer is yes, Makadi will frustrate you by the third evening. If the answer is no, Hurghada is noise you are paying for and will not use.

Book what you just read about

Tours from this article — private, with a licensed guide, and priced per person.