Seven nights
Seven nights, no certification needed, one inland day and two days with nothing planned. The plan for someone who has never been and does not yet know what they will like.
Day 1
Transfers here are short but the day is gone regardless. Swim, eat at the hotel, sleep. The single most common first-trip mistake is booking something for the afternoon you land.
Day 2
Snorkel from the shore before you get on any boat. It costs nothing, it tells you whether you actually like having your face in the water, and it is how you find out that the top five metres are where the colour is.
Day 3
The Giftun islands trip is the standard first boat day and it is standard because it works — sheltered water, several stops, lunch on board. Book through the hotel or a dive centre rather than off the street.
Day 4
Deliberately empty. Four days in, the heat has caught up with you whether you have noticed or not. Read, swim, eat somewhere outside the hotel in the evening.
Day 5
A long day — leaving in the dark, back after dark — and the only chance most visitors get to see the part of Egypt they have actually heard of. Take it or skip it deliberately; do not leave it to day six and run out of week.
Day 6
See somewhere that existed before tourism. Dahar in Hurghada is the obvious one. Go late afternoon when it cools, learn to say la’ shukran before you go, and eat where the queue is.
Day 7
Nothing booked. Swim, pack, and if you have been putting off the grilled-fish restaurant, this is the evening for it.
It is a week of samples rather than a week of anything. You will come home having done a bit of everything and mastered none of it — which is the right shape for a first visit and the wrong one for a second.