Opened in March 2025, Jaz Elite Asteria is the newest flagship of the Jaz Elite collection, the premium tier of one of Egypt’s best known hotel groups, and it has landed on the sheltered bay of Sahl Hasheesh with real confidence.
The setting does a lot of the work. Sahl Hasheesh is a gated, manicured resort community around 20 minutes south of Hurghada, and the hotel’s 250 metres of private sand face calm, sheltered water with a coral reef sitting offshore. Around that beach, 633 rooms and suites spread through low rise wings, gardens and four heated pools, with interiors that lean on contemporary art rather than the usual gold and marble.
Eating and drinking is where the Elite badge earns its keep. Six restaurants run from generous buffets at Aurora to Italian, Asian, Mexican, Arabic and Mediterranean à la carte venues, with evening visits included in the all inclusive package, and a quartet of bars keeps the day ticking along from lobby coffee to beach sundowners. The Mividaspa, a proper gym and a padel court round out the daytime options.
Couples get swim up terraces, an adults only pool zone and evenings that stretch from à la carte dinners to a nightcap at the theatre bar. Families get 55 m² Deluxe Family rooms, a dedicated children’s pool and a big, safe stretch of beach. And because every pool is heated, the resort works as hard in January as it does in July.
New hotels can take a season to find their feet; this one, in our view, arrived fully formed. Early guests consistently single out the food and the service, and everything still feels box fresh. It is pitched above the mainstream all inclusives along this coast, and we think the difference shows in the space, the dining and the finish. If you want the Red Sea’s newest five star with the polish still on it, book before word fully gets out.
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All 633 rooms and suites sit in low rise buildings threaded between the gardens and pools, so nothing feels remote and most categories are a short barefoot walk from the water. Interiors carry the collection’s art led styling, and every room comes with individually controlled air conditioning, satellite TV, a minibar, tea and coffee making, a safe and a furnished balcony or terrace.
The entry grade, and a genuinely generous one, with a king size or twin beds and a bright, contemporary finish. At around 42 m² it is bigger than many rivals’ suites, and the sea view versions are the ones we would secure for that first coffee on the balcony.
The same footprint with a terrace that steps straight into a shared lagoon style pool, so the morning dip happens before breakfast is even mentioned. Hugely popular with couples, and numbers are limited, so these go early.
The resort’s biggest single category and its family workhorse, with around 55 m² to spread out in, flexible bedding and the same choice of garden, pool, town or sea outlooks. Poolside options make mornings with younger children refreshingly simple.
Family space plus a terrace onto the lagoon pool. In our view the best value upgrade in the resort: the day starts and ends a stride from the water, and nobody argues about walking to the main pool.
Executive Suites, at around 85 m², add a proper sitting area, while Family Suites, at around 95 m², run to two bedrooms, ideal for older children or two couples sharing. Only a dozen exist between the two grades, so they disappear first.
Royal Suites, at around 110 m² and some with swim up terraces of their own, and a trio of Grand Suites at around 116 m² crown the resort, with the space and position to match a special occasion.
Classic Holidays sells Jaz Elite Asteria on an all inclusive basis, and the package is broader than most on this coast. Buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner are served at Aurora, snacks bridge the gaps between meals, and selected local drinks, beers, wines, spirits, cocktails and soft drinks, are poured across the resort’s bars from morning until late.
Evening à la carte dining is built in rather than bolted on. Stays of 7 to 12 nights include two à la carte dinners per person, and stays of 13 nights or more include five, with the Italian, Asian, Mexican, Arabic and beach venues all taking part. Allowances can change as new resorts settle in, so we confirm the exact dining package with your quote.
The engine room: international buffets with a proper Egyptian showing at breakfast, lunch and dinner. For a resort of this size it copes remarkably well, with enough variety that a fortnight never feels repetitive.
Roman leaning Italian cooking, from fresh pasta to the familiar classics. The reliable crowd pleaser of the à la carte five.
A vibrant pan Asian menu built on fresh ingredients, and the most adventurous cooking in the resort in our view.
Tacos, enchiladas, tamales and fajitas with proper colour and spice. More fun than formal, in the best way.
Regional Arabic specialities and traditional Egyptian dishes, and a lovely way to eat a little closer to your surroundings.
Grills and Mediterranean plates down by the sand, with the sea for a soundtrack. The one to pick for a barefoot sort of evening.
Look out too for the teppanyaki tables, dinner cooked at the counter with a flourish of knife work and flame; ask guest relations early in your stay, as seats are limited.
Between meals the snack service keeps everyone going, and it is worth saying that the coffee at Bar 22 is made properly rather than poured from a flask, a small thing that tells you a lot about how this resort is run.
Four outdoor pools thread through the resort, and all of them are heated in the cooler months, which makes this one of the safer bets on the Red Sea for a January or February escape. The main pool, with the Margarita swim up bar, is where the gentle daytime buzz lives; a second relaxation pool keeps an adults only zone for uninterrupted lounging; and a separate children’s pool takes the splashing elsewhere.
Beyond the headline pools, the lagoons that serve the Superior and Deluxe Family Swim Up rooms spread the swimming right across the resort, so no single pool ever has to absorb 633 rooms’ worth of guests. Loungers are plentiful, drinks reach the water’s edge, and the daytime tone stays closer to relaxed than raucous, with the livelier entertainment saved for the theatre in the evening. Families naturally gravitate to the main pool and the children’s pool, which keeps the relaxation pool genuinely relaxed, and there are enough terraces and lawns around the water that finding a quiet corner never becomes a competitive sport.
If you are weighing up seasons: summer is hot and glorious, spring and autumn are the sweet spot for pool and beach weather, and winter, with heated water and daytime temperatures of around 22 to 25 degrees, is when this stretch of coast quietly earns its keep as a winter sun destination.
The private beach runs for around 250 metres along Sahl Hasheesh bay, wide, sandy and sheltered enough that the sea usually behaves. A private jetty reaches out over the water, which is both the easy way in for a swim and the launch point for boat trips, and loungers and shade stretch the full length of the sand.
Snorkellers are the big winners here. The house reef sits around 150 metres offshore and stretches for roughly 400 metres, busy with the Red Sea’s usual technicolour suspects, and the wider bay is known for its sunken sculpture gardens, an unusual dive and snorkel site a short boat ride away. A dive centre at the resort can organise everything from first bubbles to guided reef trips, and full day boat excursions run to Giftun Island and Orange Bay for the postcard white sand.
Mividaspa is the wellness signature of the Jaz Elite collection, and the Asteria outpost is a proper facility rather than an afterthought: treatment rooms for massages and rituals, a circuit of heat experiences taking in sauna, steam and jacuzzi, a hammam on the menu, and the Mivida beauty salon for holiday grooming. Our advice is to book early in your stay; a hammam and massage on day two sets the tone for the whole week. The formula is simple and it works: heat first, massage second, then a long, unhurried sit with a mint tea before you rejoin the sunshine.
Away from the spa, a fully equipped gym takes care of the virtuous hour before breakfast, and there is more sport than you might expect for a beach resort, including a padel court, which is still a rarity on this coast.
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