El Gouna Times - Red Sea

This is how the pool terrace at West Golf Appartments looks like: cooked salt and sand plus unhygienic foot prints of all the people that regularly use this pool. Not the kind of pool one should expect in a Resort as El Gouna that claims to be of much higher standards as Hurghada…

After phoning to Mr. Amr Afifi, Orascom Customer Service Mgr., he came over to have a look at the situation of the terrace and confirmed that it should be cleaned. Mr Amr Afifi phoned me some days later to tell me that the situation is quite complicated, because the daily pool cleaning service which is done correctly, is not responsable for cleaning the pool terrace. Also, the cleaning of the pool terrace is not included in the yearly fee of about 2500-5000 LE that owners of the West Golf Appartments Block Y12 and Y11 (about 70 owners in total) pay for the exterior maintenance of their appartment blocks.

Mr Amr Afifi confirmed me that he had got an offer from Best Services and that it would cost approx. 40-50 LE to have the pool clean during about one month, but this should be paid by the owners of the appartments.

Allthough i think it really strange if an additional cost of about 1 LE per month per owner for cleaning also the pool terrace can not be automatically be included in the yearly maintenance fee, I agreed (even if i am just renting an appartment and not being the owner) to pay for having cleaned the terrace at least once. So i got the phone number of Best Services, but the friendly lady at the phone could not confirm the price, since the workmen (2 would be needed) will cost 10-15 pounds per hour. So it would cost certainly more as the estimated 40-50 pounds which Mr Amr Afifi told me.

So here I am, getting myself some cleaning material from my appartment and cleaning at least “my area” of the pool terrace. Nobody would like if the editor of the El Gouna Times Magazine ends up in hospital with foot problems due to the unhygienic situation at the pool, do you?

But, due to interference of the pool maintenance person, i was not allowed to get the water for the pool terrace out of the pool, but had to go to the lagoon to take water (something like: too little water in the pool would harm the motor of the pumps…)
So that issue has also to be solved, since there is no water tap at the pool. And getting the water out of the lagoon would transport automatically new beach sand onto the terrace… Life can be difficult.

Anyway, even some unprofessional cleaning done by a clumsy editor has improved the situation at the terrace very quickly, imagine what professional cleaners could realize?

Attention: during the upcoming two weeks, this part of the terrace is “mine”…

Come on Orascom, think to the end when you are planning a resort… this really does not make any sense.

Same is valid for the exterior lighting of the walking paths along the appartments. As far as me was told by some residents, Orascom provides the power supply for lightning the paths (paid by the appartment owners in the yearly maintenance fee), but Orascom does not replace any broken bulbs…

So it becomes darker and darker nowadays in El Gouna.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 18th, 2005 at 09:52 and is filed under Editorial, The Art of Living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.