Kempinski Hotel Soma Bay

The 325 rooms and 34 suites at Kempinski Hotel Soma Bay are spread through low-rise, Moorish-inspired buildings threaded with gardens and water channels. Interiors are calm and classical with a soft oriental accent, and every room has a proper seating area, a marble bathroom and a private balcony or terrace facing the resort, the lagoons or the sea. At 39 square metres, even the entry-level categories are among the most generous on the Red Sea, sleeping up to three guests.

What half board and full board include at Kempinski Hotel Soma Bay

Classic Holidays sells the Kempinski on a half board basis, with full board available if you would rather have every meal taken care of. Half board covers the buffet breakfast, served from 7.00 to 10.30, and the buffet dinner, served from 6.30 to 9.00 in the evening, both in The View Restaurant. Water, juices, tea and coffee are included with breakfast; at dinner and through the day, drinks are payable locally. Full board simply adds lunch each day.

Dining at the à la carte venues is payable locally on either board, and we would build at least one Bamboo Shoot evening into any week here; it is a genuine destination restaurant, not an afterthought.

The restaurants

Bars and lounges

• Sultan Bar: signature cocktails, a premium cigar selection and refined live entertainment, open from early afternoon until midnight
• Beachcomber Bar: chilled drinks, gourmet snacks and sweet treats served along the 400 metre beach
• Laguna Club Lounge: all-day food and drinks with panoramic sea views, exclusively for guests in Laguna Club rooms and suites, ages 13 and above

Rather than one big rectangle of water, the pools at Kempinski Hotel Soma Bay form a lagoon landscape that winds through the gardens, edged by waterfalls, palms and Moorish arcades. There is a choice of pools to move between, along with a grand whirlpool, and one pool is heated through the winter months, so a proper swim is on the cards even in January.

The mood around the water is unhurried. Loungers spread across lawns and terraces rather than being packed in rows, pool attendants and certified lifeguards are on duty daily, and quiet corners are easy to find. When hunger strikes, Al Mar serves Mediterranean plates and cocktails right by the pool through the day.

• Lagoon-style pools set among gardens and waterfalls
• One pool heated through the winter season
• Grand whirlpool for a warm soak
• Pool attendants and certified lifeguards on duty daily
• Poolside food and drinks at Al Mar Restaurant & Bar

The beach is the reason many of our customers come back. Some 400 metres of private sand face a sheltered bay at the tip of the peninsula, and the water stays shallow a long way out, calm, clear and every shade of turquoise by mid morning. Sunbeds and shade run the length of the shore, with the Beachcomber Bar handling drinks and snacks.

Snorkelling and diving at Kempinski Hotel Soma Bay

Coral lies within swimming distance of the shore, so you can snorkel straight off the beach rather than booking a boat, and regular visitors report morays, turtles and dense shoals of reef fish. The celebrated Tobia Arbaa site, a cluster of coral pinnacles rising from the sandy sea bed, sits just off the peninsula. On the northern shore, a free shuttle ride away, a long jetty walks you out over the edge of the house reef for some of the finest shore snorkelling in Egypt, and the ORCA dive centre, one of the largest on the Red Sea, runs everything from first bubbles to boat trips out to the offshore reefs.

Wind and watersports

The peninsula’s 7Bft Kite House sits on a shallow, flat-water lagoon rated among the finest kitesurfing spots anywhere in the world, with tuition and equipment for complete beginners upwards. Windsurfing and stand-up paddleboarding round out the line-up, and the marina is the place to join a sunset sailing trip.

Wellness at Kempinski Hotel Soma Bay is split between the hotel itself and the peninsula’s showpiece spa, and both halves earn their keep.

The health club at the hotel

Within the resort you will find a fully equipped gym, a sauna, a steam room and a whirlpool, along with treatment rooms and separate male and female hydrotherapy areas, so a massage never requires leaving the gardens.

Cascades Spa & Thalasso

A free shuttle links the hotel with the Cascades Spa & Thalasso, the largest thalassotherapy centre in Africa and the Middle East. Its facilities spread over 7,500 square metres and 65 treatment rooms, centred on a 750 square metre Thalasso-Tonic pool, a warm seawater circuit of jets, currents and bubble beds where each zone works on a different part of the body. Marine-infused wraps, underwater massages and multi-day programmes fill a menu that draws spa devotees to Soma Bay in their own right; in our view it is worth planning a full morning here, not just a single treatment.

Staying active

• Four tennis courts, with equipment available
• A dedicated squash court
• The 18-hole, par 72 Cascades championship golf course, designed by Gary Player, minutes away on the peninsula with sea and desert views from almost every hole
• Fully equipped gym for keeping up your routine

Soma Bay, sometimes written Somabay, is a private, gated peninsula on Egypt’s Red Sea coast, around 45 kilometres south of Hurghada International Airport. Once through the gates you are surrounded by sea on three sides, sharing the headland with a handful of upmarket hotels, the marina, the golf course and the kite lagoon. It is self-contained, immaculately kept and quiet by design, which is precisely its appeal.

We arrange transfers for every booking, so you are met at Hurghada airport and driven straight through the gates without waiting for a coach to fill. Within the resort everything is walkable; the beach, pools and restaurants all sit inside the gardens, and free shuttles link the hotel with the spa, the golf course and the snorkelling jetty on the peninsula’s northern shore.

Beyond the peninsula, Hurghada’s marina and old town make an easy excursion, while a full day trip carries you across the Eastern Desert to Luxor for Karnak Temple and the Valley of the Kings. We arrange both as guided excursions, so ask when you book.

Answers to the questions we are asked most often about Kempinski Hotel Soma Bay. If yours is not covered here, our Egypt specialists are a free phone call away.