There are two places in Jordan where you can relax on the beach and in a hotel with swimming pools: by the Dead Sea and the Red Sea. There is absolutely nothing to do at the Dead Sea other than lay down and use the spa. The only option is an all inclusive hotel as there aren’t even shops or restaurants in the area. By the Red Sea a fairly large port town of Aqaba is located, and the beaches located south of the city are very popular with everyone who, in addition to relaxing, also likes diving and admiring the coral reef. In the very center of Aqaba, there are several hotels with a private beach, and a few more are located in Tala Bay, 15 km to the south.

Why am I writing about hotels with a private beach? Because theoretically only there, we can feel relatively comfortable in an ordinary swimsuit. Local women are always covered, even when they enter the water. Theoretically, there are no bans or orders related to dressing, and no one will give you a ticket, but it’s not very comfortable when all the local guys stare at a stripped-down Europeans.

It was in Tala Bay that we decided to spend a few days and recharge our batteries before returning to the autumn in Sweden. Tala Bay itself is a small bay with a yacht harbor, around which several resorts have been established. Most of them belong to one group (there is a hotel, apartments, shops and restaurants there). The place itself, especially now, when there are very few tourists, is pleasant and well-kept. But unfortunately the hotel itself did not make the best impression on us. We stayed at the Grand Tala Bay Resort, which, despite its 5-star rating, did not differ much from the other 3-star hotels we slept in. Well, unless the very fact of inserting a safe in the room adds stars. But let’s start with the positive side: the hotel seems to have 5 swimming pools (but only one heated – it was like a bathtub), 3 restaurants (there was only one open now plus a pool bar), a nice sandy beach (the prettiest in Tala Bay), and the whole area is green and well-kept. We had a family suite at our disposal, i.e. a bedroom with a large bed and a living room with a sofa. The room also had a nice terrace overlooking the pool and the sea. But unfortunately the sofa was very narrow and if we hadn’t blocked the children with other furniture, they would have fallen for sure. In addition, the room equipment is quite outdated and needs to be replaced. In addition, we believe that it was not clean enough… we do not want to whine here, if anyone would like to know the details, let us know.

The kids didn’t really want to leave the pool during 3 days so we didn’t do anything else. It is worth noting that at this time of the year it gets dark before 5pm, so the evenings were very long 🙂 Although, as I mentioned earlier, we had a private beach and swimming pools in the hotel, I didn’t have the luxury to sunbathe and swim in comfortable conditions. There were very few foreigners in the hotel (probably due to covid) and most of them spend the time on the beach, not by the pool. The only pool with heated water was occupied mainly by local families with children. Especially from Thursday afternoon to Saturday, there was a crowd by the pool. When we arrived on Wednesday it was empty. I don’t know why, somehow we didn’t know before that on weekends (Friday and Saturday in Jordan) there will be crowds at the seaside. So if you have a choice, try to avoid weekends at the seaside.

What can you do in Aqaba apart from sunbathing and diving?
You can visit the ruins of Aqaba Castle. Entry is free, and visiting the fortress will take you a dozen or so minutes at most. We visited this place on the first day waiting for the time when we could check in at the hotel (we left Wadi Rum very early). You can also go on a short boat trip with a glass bottom. Most of these boats depart from Al-Ghandour Beach. We paid 25 JOD for a 45-minute private boat trip. But unfortunately the impressions were average, because there was more garbage on the seabed than fish and corals…. I will later write even more about garbage in Jordan. Both Gabriela and Adam were busy counting cans and asking us why someone was throwing garbage into the sea. It was incomprehensible for our children, and it is common there. The original plan was to go on a “submarine” boat Neptune trip from Tala Bay. We had already booked tickets, but when we showed up on Saturday morning at the marina, the lady in the shop was not there, and she did not answer calls or text messages. We understand that it was probably not profitable for them to set sail with only 4 passengers, but why were we promised a cruise then? We were very disappointed. As a result, we went by the boat described above, because we really wanted to see the famous reef and the seabed. But it’s not worth it…

In Aqaba, we also had the opportunity to eat in some nice places that we will gladly recommend to you:
Alshinawi – delicious prawns, koftas, halloumi in a nice garden
Khubza & Seneya – delicious lemon-garlic chicken for me, chicken liver for Tomasz, children happily ate kids meals with nuggets
Al Aqbawi – a bit less atmospheric place, but they have fresh fish. You can choose which one you want (if you can communicate ;)) We managed to eat delicious fish and calamari
In addition, we ate at 2 places in Tala Bay: De Soto and C4 Shots. The food was good, but the prices are very European and it’s a touristic place. If you are in a hotel in Tala Bay, you will probably end up there, but from Aqaba I wouldn’t go there 🙂