Darna Village Beach Hotel

This was our 2nd stay at Darna Divers Village and surely not the last! :-) We like the place a lot due to the super friendly and helpful staff, the tasty breakfast, and the nearby Red Sea with nice snorkeling opportunities. The rooms are clean and well-equipped. The overall place is nicely decorated, calm, and quiet as the street in front of the hotel is seldom used (most of the traffic passes by the straight road in the west). The food is tasty and we especially liked the breakfast. There are some nice and cozy seating areas that are especially comfortable to hide from the sun at noon or to gather in the evening. There is also a selection of board & card games as well as some books. The beach with nice reefs for snorkeling is right in front of the hotel. It is a fine option to walk a bit north to the Marine Park Visitor Center / Japanese Sea Garden with your snorkeling gear, get into the water there, and let the gentle current & waves take you back along the reef to South Beach in front of the hotel. This is a great option to see quite a lot of nice and colorful reef fish and even turtles and octopuses. The only downside in terms of snorkeling & relaxing on South Beach were 2 very annoying small glass bottom boats (plenty of those are usually located at Al-Ghandour Beach in Aqaba) with loud music and quite pushy skippers trying to gather customers on the beach (actually, nobody was interested but rather annoyed). They did not take care of the clearly marked swimming zone, crossed the reef even in shallow waters without care, and also passed us extremely close (without customers) while we were snorkeling, despite they clearly saw us. Diving was also nice with Darna (similar as during our first visit in 2018). The dive guides are friendly and helpful. I brought most of my own gear, but gear rental is also very common there. You do not have to walk to the dive sites as you will be taken by pickup truck of mini bus with max 5 min driving time to the nearby sites. In terms of dive sites, I liked most the magnificent wreck of Cedar Pride as well as the Rainbow Reef together with the soft coral covered Jetty nearby the latter place. Both offer great options to spot several species of fish as well as a lot of good photo opportunities. We would like to thank the kind, friendly, and helpful staff of Darna and are looking forward to come back for a 3rd stay with you. Thank you very much for the nice and relaxing week at your hotel & warm greetings from Germany!