Which resort to go to for a Red Sea holiday?

[Tim in Belgium]

Planning on heading off to the Red Sea for a week in early October with a mate, any recommendations on which resorts to head to, here's what we're looking for:

1. Decent diving, we both dive and I fancy fitting in 8-15 dives over the holiday.

2. More than just a hotel surrounded by desert, we're both single lads, and whilst not looking for an Ibiza style holiday, somewhere with some bars/restaurants away from the hotel would be good, if only to chat to the odd yummy mummy!

3. Not a huge transfer as we're just off for a week.

One other quick question, when do the last minute deals generally start to take effect, 3/4 weeks before departure or earlier/later.

Cheers mighty .org look forward to your experiences!

[dizzyblonde]

Sharm el Sheikh.
If its diving your after then IIRC its the hotspot for it. Couldn't recommend anywhere else, as all the places I know of are in Saudi and you can't holiday there
http://www.sharmguide.com/
http://www.sharmelsheikh.com/

[pben47]

Sharm Sheiks your only option, plenty of bars around the Naama bay area. The whole area is quite small so not far to transfer, travel for bars and diving.

There are other great areas for diving but no night life a you know it.

Cheers, Paul

[cuffy]

Another vote for Sharm, your looking at around 30/40 minutes transfer time to most resorts, Dhaba (sp) is just over an hour away, like others have said there is a lack of night life, but in the centre of sharm there is a dive bar called camels iirc, you usually get alot of the younger crowd hang out in there.
We're going back out their again in October.
Diving is fantastic.

[fizzwheel]

Liz and I went to Sharm last year, scorching hot, nice beaches, good diving from what I saw and lots of learn to dive schools to.

There wasnt a huge amount of stuff to do outside of the hotel, but we went all inclusive so we didnt do a huge amount of exploring anyway.

[Tim in Belgium]

Thinking about a live aboard dive holiday too (staying on a boat for a week), less bars, less girls but more diving, and hopefully a bit further out from all the over dived local sites....

But still may just head to Sharm.... Thanks for the input so far people.