Half Board, All-Inclusive or Room Only: What Your Hotel Plan Means for a Diving Week in 2026

Almost every diving holiday in Egypt is sold as two separate purchases: a hotel with a board plan, and the diving. The hotel side is where most people overspend, and they overspend on food they are not there to eat.

Here is how the two halves fit together in 2026, with the diving numbers taken straight from our own catalogue and the hotel side left as your number, because we sell diving and not rooms.

What the board plans actually mean for a diver

• Room only (RO): bed and nothing else. Fine in a town with restaurants nearby, awkward in a resort ten kilometres from anything.
• Bed and breakfast (BB): breakfast only. Workable, and often the cheapest sensible option for divers who eat out in the evening.
• Half board (HB): breakfast and dinner. The classic diver plan, for one simple reason explained below.
• Full board (FB) and all-inclusive (AI): lunch included too, plus drinks on AI. Excellent value for people who spend the day by the pool, and poor value for people who spend it on a boat.

Why half board usually wins for a diving week

On a diving day you leave the hotel between 07:00 and 08:00 and come back in the late afternoon. You are on the boat at lunchtime, and on the Hurghada day boats lunch, coffee, tea, water and soft drinks are already included in the trip price. So the hotel lunch you paid for on full board or all-inclusive is a lunch you were never in the building to eat.

• Five diving days on all-inclusive means five lunches, and most of the daytime drinks, paid for twice.
• Half board fits the day exactly: breakfast before the pick-up, dinner when you get back hungry.
• Check the trip page before you assume, though — what is on board is listed trip by trip, and not every boat day includes a hot meal.
• The exception is a non-diving group. If your family stays at the resort while you dive, all-inclusive can still be the right call for them and half board for you — hotels will usually price the room, not the person, so ask.

What does the diving itself add to the week?

Per person, from the live catalogue, everything included unless stated:

The pattern is the point: the longer the package, the lower the price per dive. Booking five separate day trips is the most expensive way to dive five days.

Do you pay an entry ticket to dive in the Red Sea?

Yes — a small one, and it is not usually inside the trip price. The marine park entrance fee is around USD 5 per person per day, collected locally in cash, and it goes to the protected areas you are diving in. It is listed as excluded on our trip pages precisely so it does not appear as a surprise on the jetty.

The other costs that are commonly quoted separately:

• Equipment rental: around USD 15 a day where the trip does not already include it. Courses and many packages include full kit — check the trip page.
• Nitrox: around USD 10 per two tanks, for certified enriched-air divers.
• Hotel transfer: free within the Hurghada area on most day trips, with a surcharge for hotels further out. Marsa Alam distances are longer, so ask when you book.
• Tips: not obligatory and genuinely appreciated. Crews work the whole day; whatever you would leave a good waiter is a fair guide.

Everything above appears in the "included" and "excluded" list on each trip page before you pay. That is the whole point of publishing it: no fee should ever appear on the day.

A worked example: seven nights, five diving days

One diver, Hurghada, half board, 2026 prices:

• Diving: 10 dives over 5 days — EUR 374.
• Marine park fees: 5 days at about USD 5 — roughly EUR 23.
• Equipment: EUR 0 if the package includes it, or about USD 15 a day if you rent separately.
• Transfers: EUR 0 from most Hurghada hotels.
• Hotel on half board: your number — this is the part that varies by three or four times between properties.
• Food not covered by half board: almost nothing. Lunch is on the boat on diving days.

So the diving side of a full week lands near EUR 400 all in, and the difference between a cheap holiday and an expensive one is almost entirely the room you chose, not the reef. The wider budget — flights, hotel bands, food, extras — is broken down in how much a Red Sea diving holiday costs in 2026.

Should you book the hotel or the diving first?

The hotel, then the diving, and here is why: hotels sell out and reprice far faster than dive boats do, and the diving is flexible in a way the room is not. Once the dates are fixed:

• Check your hotel is in the free transfer zone, or budget the surcharge.
• Book the diving days early in the week, leaving the last day dry — you need 18 to 24 hours between the final dive and your flight.
• Book the package rather than the days, for the per-dive price above.
• Leave one day unbooked. Wind happens, and so does the desire to do nothing at all.

Our booking is free to cancel up to 48 hours before departure, so reserving early costs you nothing if the plan changes.

What about non-divers in the group?

They are the reason half board sometimes loses. A partner who stays at the resort all day genuinely uses the all-inclusive lunch, and children definitely do. The usual solution is not the same plan for everyone but the same hotel: they take the board plan that fits their day, and they join the snorkelling and boat days on the days they want the sea. Reef days, Dolphin House and the turtle bays are all snorkel-friendly, and everyone is back for dinner.

Book the diving; keep the lunch you paid for

Pick the board plan that matches how you will actually spend the day, then book the dive package with live prices in your own currency, free cancellation up to 48 hours before, and payment online or in cash on the day. Read the site briefings to choose days that suit your level, and check each trip page for exactly what is on board.

Half board, five diving days, one lazy day. That is the week most people come back for.