SUNRISE Royal Makadi Resort
SUNRISE Royal Makadi Resort is a large all-inclusive on the Red Sea at Makadi Bay, a purpose-built resort bay south of Hurghada in Egypt, run by the Egyptian group Sunrise Resorts & Cruises. Families come for a private sandy beach with a gentle walk-in for little ones, seven pools and an aqua park, nine restaurants and heated pools that stay swimmable through the winter.
On this page
Is it worth it?
Who Royal Makadi suits, what's in the price and the facts to skim first.
Royal Makadi is a big, established Red Sea all-inclusive that works well for families with small children. The beach is the main reason families book it, sandy into the water and shelving in gently, which is unusual on the Red Sea and a help with a wading toddler. Add heated pools in winter, nine restaurants across a range of cuisines and an aqua park, and it works for a hotel-based week where you don't need to leave. Two things shape whether it fits you. There's no drop-off club for under-3s, only paid babysitting, and there are no lifts, so a family with a pushchair needs a ground-floor room. Some guests also find the rooms dated against a five-star badge.
Best for
You want a big all-inclusive with a sandy, gentle-entry beach, heated winter pools, an aqua park and plenty of restaurants, plus a kids club for children of 3 and up.
Maybe not for
You need a drop-off club for a baby or toddler, you want a walkable town outside the gate or you'd struggle with stairs, since there are no lifts.
Best ages
Strongest for children of 3 and up, when Kids Planet opens up. Babies and toddlers are welcome, with paid babysitting rather than a club.
What stands out
The sandy beach with its gentle walk-in, heated pools in winter and a well-established resort with a long awards record.
What to check
Whether you can get a ground-floor room for a pushchair, the current aqua park and kids club hours and how your airport transfer is arranged.
Where is it?
On the Red Sea at Makadi Bay, about 33 minutes south of Hurghada airport in Egypt.
Quick facts for families
What the resort is like
How the site is laid out, how you get around it and what's on it beyond the beach and pools.
SUNRISE Royal Makadi sits in Makadi Bay, a purpose-built resort bay on the Safaga road on Egypt's Red Sea coast, about 20 miles (32 km) south of Hurghada airport. Some operators list it as SUNRISE Royal Makadi Aqua Resort, which is the same place. It's a resort enclave rather than a town, with no high street or local life immediately outside the gate, so days tend to happen on site or on a short taxi ride out. The resort itself is large: 465 rooms, seven pools and a separate aqua park, nine restaurants, ten bars and cafes, a spa, a gym and its own private sandy beach. Tour operators list it as five-star.
The grounds are flat and laid out around gardens, with the pools spread across the site rather than gathered in one place. Flat ground is good news for a pushchair on the level, and the resort runs electric golf buggies, the small open carts that ferry guests around the grounds, including the ride from reception to your room when you check in. You ask at reception if you want one during your stay.
The one thing to plan for is that there are no lifts anywhere in the resort. If you're given a room on an upper floor, that means carrying a pushchair up and down stairs all week, so a family with a baby or toddler should ask for a ground-floor room when booking and confirm it before travelling.
On site there's a small supermarket, a pharmacy, a clothes shop, a shoe shop, a jewellers and an optician, with cash machines at reception; prices in the resort shops run higher than outside, so pick up everyday bits in town if you'd rather pay everyday prices. There's also a Special Needs Room category for guests who need adapted, step-free accommodation.
Every restaurant and bar
Every place to eat and drink, which are in the all-inclusive and how the à la carte booking works.
The board is all-inclusive around the clock, with a full drinks package that takes in local alcoholic drinks. Food runs across nine restaurants. Eight are included in the all-inclusive: the main buffet plus seven à la carte restaurants you can visit as often as you like. The ninth, the beachside seafood restaurant, carries a supplement on top.
| Restaurant | Cuisine | How it works |
|---|---|---|
| Shahrzad | International buffet | The main buffet and the biggest room, seating 555 indoors and outdoors; breakfast, lunch and dinner. Included. |
| Basilico | Italian | À la carte dinner, indoors, seating 110. Included. |
| Manzoku | Asian | À la carte dinner, outdoors. Included. |
| Elia | Mediterranean | À la carte dinner, indoors. Included. |
| Frida | Mexican | À la carte dinner, the largest à la carte room, seating 130 indoors. Included. |
| Chimichurri | Steak and grill | À la carte dinner, outdoors. Included. |
| Roots | Diet and light | À la carte, with vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and lactose-free dishes. Included. |
| The Bedouin | Arabic | À la carte dinner outdoors, seating 85, with Arabian dishes and nomadic music. Included. |
| Felucca | Seafood | À la carte, right on the beach. Carries a supplement on top of the all-inclusive. |
Shahrzad is the main buffet and the resort's biggest room, seating 555 across its indoor and outdoor sections. It's open for breakfast from 7am to 10.30am, lunch from 1pm to 3pm and dinner from 7pm to 10pm, with the broad choice that tends to suit children who change their minds. It's where most family meals happen. The seven included à la carte restaurants cover a spread of cuisines: Italian at Basilico, Asian at Manzoku, Mediterranean at Elia, Mexican at Frida, steak and grill at Chimichurri and Arabic dishes with live nomadic music at The Bedouin. Roots is worth knowing about if anyone in the family eats vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free or lactose-free, as it's built around free-from cooking.
Felucca, the seafood restaurant, sits right on the beach and is the one that isn't included: it carries a supplement, though booking your stay directly with the resort takes 15% off there once during the trip.
How the à la carte booking works
You reserve the à la carte restaurants on the screens at reception or through a QR-code web app on your phone, and you can eat around all seven included ones across the week. There are usually two evening sittings, at roughly 6:30 and 8:15pm, so check the current times when you arrive and take the earlier one if you're eating with young children. The buffet is the walk-in fallback when you haven't booked.
For drinks, six bars are included. Sun Ray is the lobby bar, Chiringuito sits down on the beach and Splash, Island, Aqua and the Family Pool Bar serve the pools. These are poolside bars rather than swim-up ones, and there's no bar anywhere at the resort you can reach without leaving the water. Three more bars are adults-only: The Hub in the lobby, the Victoria Pub and the late-night Aquarius Club, which runs into the early hours. The Sultana Café serves shisha in the evenings and is charged separately, so it sits outside the included count.
Rooms and suites
Every room type with its official size, and which ones work for a family with a baby or toddler.
There are six room and suite categories, from a 36 m² Standard Room up to a 90 m² Executive Pool Suite. Check how many people each sleeps when you book.
| Room | Size | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Standard Room | 36 m² | The smallest room, with a private balcony or terrace; suits two adults or one adult and a child. |
| Aqua Room | 55 m² | A larger room with a pool or garden view. Not a swim-up room; no room here has swim-up access. |
| Family Room (Bunk Bed) | 55 m² | One room with bunk beds for the children plus a double or twin for the parents, so no separate bedroom. |
| Family Suite | 70 m² | Two bedrooms, so the best choice for a separate space to settle a baby or toddler. |
| Pool Suite | 50 to 65 m² | A pool-facing or pool-access suite; the size range covers a few sub-types. |
| Executive Pool Suite | 90 m² | The largest room, a premium pool suite. |
For a family, the choice usually comes down to whether you want a separate bedroom to settle a baby or toddler. The Family Suite is the one with two bedrooms, giving you a door to close on a sleeping child. The Family Room (Bunk Bed) is a single 55 m² room with bunks for the children and a double or twin for the parents, which works for older children happy to share but gives you no separate sleep space. The Aqua Room, also 55 m², is a larger room with a pool or garden view; despite the name it isn't a swim-up room, and no room at the resort has swim-up access. The Pool Suite and the larger Executive Pool Suite are the pool-facing and premium options.
Connecting rooms are available if you ask when booking, useful if you want two linked rooms. Because there are no lifts, it's worth requesting a ground-floor room at the same time if a pushchair is your main way around.
Every room comes with a safe, tea and coffee making, Aurora Senses bathroom amenities, a minibar refilled with water daily and soft drinks weekly, free Wi-Fi, 24-hour room service, daily cleaning and towels for the pool and beach. Check-in is 2pm and check-out midday. Booking directly with the resort adds a few extras, subject to availability, each once per stay: earlier check-in or later check-out, VIP arrival amenities, a €5 spa voucher, the 15% Felucca discount, 10% off laundry and one in-room breakfast.
Seven pools and an aqua parkPools and water features
There are seven pools spread around the grounds plus a separate aqua park, so there's plenty of water. One zone is a family pool area with its own Family Pool Bar. There's an adults-only hydro pool in the spa for over-16s, set apart from the main pools. The pools are heated in winter, and guests who stay in January and February report swimming every day while the sea stays cool.
The aqua park has 18 waterslides for older children and adults, with a Kids Play zone that's the shallow area for small children. That slide count comes from operator listings rather than the resort's own site, which doesn't publish a figure. It's seasonal and can run in limited sessions rather than all day, with guests reporting roughly two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon, so check the times when you arrive.
The beach
The beach is private and sandy, and the sand carries on underfoot into the sea rather than giving way to rock or coral. The water has a gentle, gradual entry. A lot of Egyptian beaches shelve into coral or stone, and this one doesn't, so a small child can wade in from soft sand. There's room to spread out along it.
The water is clear, with colourful fish a short swim from shore, and Makadi Bay is known as a good snorkelling and diving area. Sunbeds, parasols and the Chiringuito beach bar are all included, and Felucca serves seafood right on the sand. Egypt isn't part of the Blue Flag scheme, so there's no Blue Flag status to look for here, which reflects the scheme's coverage rather than anything about the beach itself.
Babies and toddlers
The kids club and its age floor, the childcare option for under-3s and the baby kit question.
Kids Planet is the children's club, for ages 3 to 12, and it's included. It runs drawing, colouring, cooking, arts and crafts, sports, movies and a mini disco, on hours of 10am to noon and 3 to 5pm every day except Thursdays, though these can shift by season, so check them when you arrive. The age floor is firm at 3, so under-3s aren't taken into the club.
For a baby or toddler under 3, the childcare route is paid babysitting, which the resort arranges at a surcharge, so ask and confirm the cost before you travel. Baby kit is the other thing to sort in advance. Cots, high chairs and bottle warming aren't guaranteed, so request what you need when you book and confirm it with the resort ahead of the trip.
Beyond the club there's a big playground and free mini golf, and for water the gentle sandy beach and the aqua park's shallow Kids Play zone are the easiest spots for small children.
On and off the waterThings to do
There's plenty on beyond the pools. On the water there's scuba diving with trainers at the dive centre, snorkelling off the beach, boat trips, kite surfing and aqua aerobics. On land there are tennis courts, darts, meditation classes and the free mini golf, plus a gym with Precor equipment, fitness classes and a personal trainer on request, open 8am to 8pm for over-16s.
The animation team runs activities through the day, from morning beach yoga to poolside games, and the evenings bring live music around the resort and a different show each night, such as an Egyptian night or a Colombian dance show. There's a mini disco for children in the early evening.
Adults-only spaThe spa
The Spa & Wellness Centre is for adults and over-16s, open 10am to 7pm, charged on top of the all-inclusive and needing an advance booking. It has treatment rooms with a relaxation area, a sauna and steam, a Turkish hammam, the hydro pool and massage rooms. The treatment menu is long, running from aromatherapy and oriental massage to hot stones, Thai massage, hammam rituals and treatments for two.
The area and days out
What's around Makadi Bay, and the day trips that suit different ages.
Makadi Bay is a self-contained resort zone with no walkable town, so most families spend their days on the beach and at the aqua park rather than heading out. When you do want to leave, the nearest shopping and dining is Senzo Mall, a centre with a supermarket and UK-recognisable shops about 15 minutes away by taxi; ride-share apps like InDrive work in the area, with one family reporting a fare of around £1.50 each way to the mall (last checked February 2026).
Makadi Water World, the area's biggest waterpark, is only a few minutes' drive away and makes a day out for older children, though it's too much for toddlers and isn't connected to the resort. Central Hurghada, about 23 miles (37 km) and 40 minutes north, has the souq and the El Dahar market quarter, and Hurghada Marina, a little closer, is the spot for boat trips and waterfront restaurants.
The resort books excursions too. The usual Red Sea trips, snorkelling and glass-bottom boats, quad biking, camel rides and a Luxor day trip, suit older children best; Luxor in particular is a very long drive each way and too much with a toddler.
Loves and gripes
What families consistently praise, what they flag and the ratings picture.
Royal Makadi is consistently well rated: around 9.3 out of 10 on Booking.com (as of June 2026), 4.7 out of 5 across roughly 13,500 TripAdvisor reviews and 9.1 out of 10 on Trip.com. It also has a long awards record, including an Expedia Travelers Award and repeated Zoover honours. Reviews skew strongly positive.
What families love
- The staff, described again and again as friendly and helpful.
- How clean and well kept the resort and its gardens are.
- The smooth arrival, with a golf buggy to the room.
- The variety of food across the buffet and the à la carte restaurants, with picky eaters catered for.
- The sandy beach and its gentle walk-in for small children.
- The heated pools, which make winter swimming comfortable.
What families flag
- Rooms that some guests find dated against the five-star badge.
- A buffet that gets repetitive after a few days.
- Occasional reports of inconsistent food quality.
- Limited daily sessions at the aqua park.
- Slippery surfaces around the pools and the aqua park.
- No lifts anywhere, and inflated pricing if you arrange an airport taxi on the day.
How it compares
Around Makadi Bay and Hurghada there are a few big family all-inclusives worth weighing against it. The main trade-offs are the size of the waterpark, the transfer time and how established each resort is.
| Resort | Where | How it differs |
|---|---|---|
| SUNRISE Royal Makadi | Makadi Bay | A sandy, gentle-entry beach, heated winter pools and nine restaurants; the aqua park has 18 slides but limited daily sessions. |
| JAZ Aquaviva | Makadi Bay | Built around the much larger Makadi Water World waterpark; Royal Makadi has more restaurants and its own gentle sandy beach. |
| SUNRISE Alora Aqua Park | Al Ahyaa | Newer, from around 2023 to 2024, with 11 pools in a quieter spot; Royal Makadi is longer-established with a longer awards record. |
| Steigenberger Aqua Magic | Central Hurghada | A shorter 15-minute airport transfer and a more urban setting; Makadi Bay is quieter. |
| Pickalbatros Jungle Aqua Park | South Hurghada | A far bigger waterpark and a bungalow layout; Royal Makadi has a more conventional hotel layout. |
If a huge waterpark is the priority, JAZ Aquaviva or Pickalbatros have far more slides. Royal Makadi has the gentle sandy beach, the heated winter pools and the wider spread of restaurants instead.
Getting there and when to go
The transfer from the airport, the costs that sit outside the all-inclusive and the months that suit young children.
Most UK families fly into Hurghada airport, about 20 miles (32 km) and 33 minutes from the resort. UK operators such as TUI, loveholidays and Jet2 usually include a return coach transfer, though it's a shared coach that may drop at other resorts before yours on arrival day, worth bearing in mind with tired children. You can book a private transfer independently for a quicker, direct run: one operator, Suntransfers, has quoted around €40 return by minibus (last checked February 2026). One thing to avoid is hailing a taxi or ride-share for the airport on the day, as guests report airport pricing pushed up sharply, so arrange the return leg ahead through your operator or the resort.
The board is all-inclusive, so most costs are covered once you're there. Two seasonal charges sit outside it: the Felucca seafood restaurant, and gala dinners at Christmas and New Year, which carry a per-child supplement that operators revise each year, so check it before you book. For weather, the mildest months for young children are October and November and March and April, warm without the summer's fierce heat.
Month by monthWeather
Makadi Bay has a desert climate, dry all year, with rain barely a factor, and the resort is open year-round. Winter, from November to March, is comfortable, with daytime highs of 22 to 28°C that suit toddlers who overheat in summer; the sun is still strong enough to burn a baby, so sun cream matters, and the sea is cool at 21 to 25°C, so the heated pools rather than the sea are the warm option. Summer, from June to September, brings highs of 35 to 38°C, very hot with babies and toddlers and workable only with shade, the pool and a careful sun-avoidance routine.
| Month | Daytime high | Overnight low | Rain | Wet days | Sea temp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 22.5° | 11.5° | 0 mm | 0 | 23° |
| February | 23.5° | 12.5° | 0 mm | 0 | 22° |
| March | 26.5° | 15° | 1 mm | 0 | 22° |
| April | 30° | 18.5° | 0 mm | 0 | 23° |
| May | 34° | 23° | 0 mm | 0 | 25° |
| June | 36.5° | 26° | 0 mm | 0 | 27° |
| July | 37.5° | 28° | 0 mm | 0 | 28° |
| August | 37.5° | 28° | 0 mm | 0 | 29° |
| September | 35.5° | 26° | 0 mm | 0 | 28° |
| October | 32° | 22° | 5 mm | 0 | 27° |
| November | 28° | 17.5° | 6 mm | 0 | 26° |
| December | 24° | 13.5° | 0 mm | 0 | 25° |
Typical monthly averages from weather-station records. Sea temperature is the open-water figure, so a sheltered bay can feel a degree or two warmer. The resort is open year-round.
Egypt travel advice
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office doesn't advise against travel to Hurghada or Makadi Bay; its Egypt advice covers some other regions but not the Red Sea resorts. That guidance was last updated on 28 March 2026, and advisories can change, so check the current position, along with entry requirements and any visa, on the GOV.UK Egypt page before you book and again before you travel.
Questions
The things families ask most, the pages worth a bookmark and when this guide was last refreshed.
Can our under-3 go to the kids' club?
No. Kids Planet takes children from age 3, and the age floor is firm. For a baby or toddler the childcare route is the resort's paid babysitting, so if you want an evening out, arrange it and confirm the cost with the resort in advance rather than assuming a club place.
Is the sea safe for a toddler to paddle in?
Yes, for the Red Sea it's a good one. Underfoot it stays sandy into the sea rather than turning to rock or coral, so a toddler can wade straight in. Water shoes are still worth packing for the odd bit of grit.
Can we swim in winter?
Yes. The pools are heated, so families who visit in January and February swim through the trip. The sea sits at about 21 to 23°C then, cool for small children, which makes the pools the warmer choice.
How do we book the à la carte restaurants?
You book them at the reception screens or by scanning a QR code on your phone, with all seven included ones open to you across the week. The sittings are early evening, so with young children take the first one and fall back on the buffet on nights you haven't reserved.
Should we sort our own airport transfer?
Either works. The included coach is shared, so it may call at other resorts before yours. Booking your own private transfer is the faster door-to-door option. The one thing to get done before you fly is the return leg, since guests who grab a taxi at the airport report being quoted well over the going rate.
Will there be a cot and high chair for the baby?
Don't count on finding them waiting. None of it is guaranteed here, so name exactly what you need at booking and confirm it with the resort before you fly.
Is Makadi Bay safe to travel to right now?
Yes. The FCDO's Egypt advice puts no restriction on Hurghada or Makadi Bay, only on some other parts of the country. It was last updated on 28 March 2026, so re-check the GOV.UK Egypt page, with the current entry and visa rules, before you book and again before you travel.
See SUNRISE Royal Makadi photos
Open the SUNRISE Royal Makadi photo gallery →
Useful links
- SUNRISE Royal Makadi Resort: the resort's own site for rooms, board, dining and children's facilities.
- GOV.UK Egypt travel advice: entry rules, visa and safety updates before you travel.
- Hurghada with little ones: our guide to the wider area, its beaches and when to go.
Last updated 17 July 2026.
