The Ritz Carlton chain has fast developed a reputation for excellent five-star hotels. The locals describe the Sharm hotel as six-star, but in all honesty, you should knock at least one star off if you want to compare internationally. Similarly I mentally add a star for Thai hotels.
The main hotel building features a vast and impressive lobby with comfortable sofas, a few shops, a bar, and a wall of windows that look out over the Red Sea. There is also an excellent Italian restaurant on this level.
On the first (lower) level, there are Oriental and Lebanese restaurants, and on the 'ground' floor is the main restaurant, which serves breakfast buffets and evening buffet meals. Themed nights during the week include Chinese, French, Mexican, and Egyptian meals.
To assist you in working off the calories from the excellent bread, pastries, and desserts, there is a well-equipped gymnasium.
There ARE a lot of steps, and any slopes are very steep, so this is NOT a hotel for people with mobility problems unless they have VERY powerful electric wheelchairs. Does Humvee make wheelchairs yet?
The guest rooms are laid out around the hotel ground in blocks of ten rooms. The hotel does cover quite a bit of ground (10,000 square metres), but the hotel has golf carts to whisk guests to their rooms, if required. The rooms themselves are clean, spacious, and resonably well-equipped, with telephones, satellite TV, hair dryers, and minibars. These are perhaps not QUITE as luxurious as rooms in other Ritz Carlton hotels, but you simply have to shrug and say, "It's Egypt."