Package holiday or book it yourself?
On most coasts this is a close call. On this one the charter flights tilt it — and the honest answer for divers is a hybrid almost nobody suggests.
Most destinations make this a straight trade: a package buys convenience at a premium, and doing it yourself is cheaper if you can be bothered. This coast is not most destinations, because a very large share of the seats here are charters sold as part of a package. That changes the arithmetic rather than the convenience, and it is why advice that works for a European city break does not transfer.
What follows is not an argument for either. It is an account of which decisions a package makes on your behalf, which of them actually matter here, and the one it makes badly.
Side by side
What it usually costs
A package ↑- A package
- — Frequently the cheaper way to reach this coast, because the flight is a charter seat sold inside the price rather than a fare you are quoted
- Book it yourself
- — Works out well in the shoulder months and on scheduled routes; in the school holidays it rarely beats a package
Which hotels you can reach
Book it yourself ↑- A package
- — The ones operators contract, which is most of the big resort bays and very little else
- Book it yourself
- — Everything — including the small places in El Quseir and the far south that packages barely serve
The airport transfer
Book it yourself ↑- A package
- — Included, and chosen by price by somebody who is not in the vehicle. This is the decision a package makes badly
- Book it yourself
- — Yours to arrange, which means you can pay for a named, licensed car on a late arrival
The dive centre
Book it yourself ↑- A package
- — Usually the one in your hotel, which may or may not be the one you would have chosen
- Book it yourself
- — Free to pick on the nine things the diving section says are worth checking, and to change your mind after a day
Excursions
Even- A package
- — Sold at a desk in the lobby at a markup, with the convenience and the accountability that come with it
- Book it yourself
- — Booked direct with licensed operators, which is cheaper and puts the licence question on you
When something goes wrong
A package ↑- A package
- — There is a rep, and a company with an address in your own country to complain to
- Book it yourself
- — You deal with the hotel, the operator and your insurer directly
Financial protection
A package ↑- A package
- — Package travel is protected in most European markets, and that protection is a real part of what you are buying
- Book it yourself
- — Protection depends entirely on how you paid and what you booked — worth checking for your own country rather than assuming
Going in the good months
Book it yourself ↑- A package
- — Charter programmes thin out in the shoulder seasons, which is exactly when this coast is at its best
- Book it yourself
- — October, November and early December are yours, and they are the answer the month guides keep giving
So which one?
A first week, a resort bay, not diving
A package
It is genuinely good value here, it removes every decision you have no basis for making yet, and the things it chooses badly barely affect a week spent mostly inside one hotel.
Divers
A package, but book the diving yourself
This is the answer almost nobody suggests and it is the right one for most people. Take the charter seat and the hotel; ignore the in-house centre and the lobby desk, and choose your own centre on its own merits. Nothing about a package obliges you to dive with the hotel.
Going in October, November or early December
Book it yourself
The best weeks of the year are the ones with the thinnest charter programmes. If the month guides have convinced you to travel then, the package market is working against you.
Heading to El Quseir, the far south, or anywhere small
Book it yourself
Packages serve the big contracted resorts. The places this site keeps recommending for quiet are mostly not in the brochures, and the transfer is longer — which is its own argument for arranging a car you chose.
A late-evening arrival with children
Either, but pay for the transfer
Whichever way you book, the leg from the airport in the dark is the most dangerous part of the trip and the one a package prices to the floor. It is the single upgrade worth buying.
The hybrid is worth repeating because it is the part people miss: a package is a flight, a bed and a transfer, and none of it obliges you to buy anything else from the same company. Financial protection rules differ by country and are worth checking against your own market rather than taken from a guide — one of the questions the insurance page suggests putting in writing.
Last reviewed 26 July 2026. No comparison here is tilted by who pays us — how we make money. Disagree with a call? Tell us why.