Makadi Bay for Families: Beaches, Kids & Schools Nearby

Every parent knows the holiday-home fantasy. You picture a long, lazy summer, the kids paddling in warm water, you with a cold drink and a book you will never actually read. Then reality turns up with a sunburnt toddler, a teenager complaining about the Wi-Fi and a seven-year-old who wants to know whether sharks can get in the swimming pool.

Makadi Bay is one of the few places on the Red Sea coast that copes rather well with that reality. It is calm, it is sandy, it has a proper reef you can walk into from the beach, and it sits a short drive from the airport. It is also, let us be honest, a bit quieter than Hurghada proper, which is either a selling point or a warning label depending on how old your children are. This guide walks through what Makadi Bay is really like for families, what the schools and doctors situation looks like, what a flat or chalet costs, and the questions worth asking before you fall in love with a pool view.

Where Makadi Bay actually is

Makadi Bay is a large, sheltered bay on the coast south of Hurghada, roughly midway between Hurghada and Safaga. Snorkel Around The World puts it about 30 km south of Hurghada International Airport, around 35 minutes by car, and the Labranda Club Makadi listing says about 33 km. The Orascom Development project page for Makadi Heights, on the other hand, quotes 15 to 20 minutes to the airport. Both can be true depending on where inside the bay you start, so treat the quoted times as a range and run the drive yourself before you commit. If you are landing with two tired children at midnight, the difference between 20 and 35 minutes is not a rounding error.

The easyJet holidays guide describes the beaches as sandy and palm-fringed, with clear water and reefs close to shore, and quieter than Hurghada's. That quietness is the whole personality of the place. Think resort bubble rather than city break: hotels, a few residential compounds, a golf course nearby and not much else on the doorstep. Central Hurghada's restaurants and bars are about a 20-minute taxi ride away, which is handy when you want pizza that is not on a buffet and inconvenient when a nine-year-old announces at 8pm that they are starving.

The beach, and the bit that matters most to parents: the reef

Here is the headline. According to Snorkel Around The World, the inner bay is protected from wind, waves and currents, and the reefs have no steep walls, which is why they call the area well suited to beginners and children. You can walk into the water from the sand, with no boat needed for the main reef. The North Reef is reached from the beach and a jetty in front of Grand Makadi, and the South Reef from a wooden jetty at Stella Beach Resort. Non-residents can visit by tour, so you will not be locked out if you do not own a flat on the beachfront.

The depth figures are reassuring for nervous parents. The same source describes shallow coral islands in about 1 to 2 metres of water, then a gently sloping fringing reef averaging 12 to 18 metres, plus a deeper drop-off on the northern curve that is best left to strong swimmers and divers. In plain English: little ones paddle around fish in the shallows, confident snorkellers go a bit further, and the deep bit stays somebody else's problem.

And the fish? Butterflyfish, angelfish, wrasses, parrotfish, clownfish, moray eels, turtles and rays make the list, with lionfish often spotted near sunset. Dolphins and whale sharks are possible but rare, so please do not promise your children a whale shark. Children never forget a broken promise about a whale shark.

The weather your family will actually live in

This is where a lot of holiday-home plans get a reality check. Champion Traveler's seasonal averages for the area put winter daytime highs at about 24 C, spring at about 31 C, autumn (October and November) at about 32 C and summer at about 38 C, with early August touching roughly 39 C by day and nearly 29 C overnight. Snorkel Around The World gives sea temperatures of about 27 to 28 C in summer and 21 to 22 C in winter.

So the school-holiday pattern writes itself. Easter, autumn half-term and the Christmas break are comfortable, with sea that is swimmable and air that does not feel like a hairdryer pointed at your face. July and August are properly hot. Plenty of families still go, because the sea is bath-warm and the hotels and pools are built for it, but you will plan your days around shade, an early morning and a long lunch. If your family only has the summer weeks, ask yourselves honestly whether everybody enjoys 38 degrees. If they do, great. If your teenager melts at 25, a compound with generous shade and a big pool is not a luxury, it is the entire plan.

What there is for kids to do

The hotels do a lot of the heavy lifting. The Labranda Club Makadi listing mentions a children's club and mini club, a children's pool, a playground and paid babysitting, and that pattern repeats across the larger resorts. If you buy in a compound next to one, you may be able to use those facilities, but that depends entirely on the arrangement the compound has with the hotel, so ask in writing rather than assuming.

Beyond the hotels, the easyJet holidays guide highlights Makadi Water World, which it calls Egypt's largest water park, with around 50 rides and a lazy river, and Mini Egypt Park, with miniature replicas of about 60 landmarks. Add snorkelling, caves, reefs and islands just offshore, plus dive and snorkel shops on land, and a week disappears without anybody asking for a screen. Evenings are the weaker spot. Nightlife is mostly hotel bars, which suits families with small children and bores teenagers rigid. Plan a few trips into town and make peace with it.

Schools: the question everyone asks last and should ask first

If you are only coming for holidays, skip this section and reward yourself with a biscuit. If you are thinking of living here with children, read on, because schooling decides whether Makadi Bay is a base or a beautiful daydream.

The Expat.com Hurghada guide lists several options in the wider Hurghada area. El Gouna International School follows the British National Curriculum through IGCSEs and A-Levels and sits at the top of the fee range, about 25 km north of central Hurghada. Deutsche Schule Hurghada offers the German curriculum with a bilingual German-Arabic approach and English as a third language. New Sunrise International School has been running a British curriculum since 2007, and Continental School of Hurghada offers a British curriculum through A-Levels. The same guide gives typical fees of USD 3,000 to 8,000 per year. Wikipedia adds the French School of Hurghada, founded in 2004 and run by the cultural centre of the French embassy, taking children from age 3 on a campus about 15 km north of Hurghada on the desert road to El Gouna.

Now the honest bit: none of these sits in Makadi Bay itself. From the bay, you are looking at a daily school run measured in tens of kilometres, which can mean an early start and a lot of sitting in a car. Some families solve it with a school bus, some with a driver, and some choose to live closer to the schools and treat Makadi as the holiday house. The Makadi Heights project page lists a nursery and on-site schools among its planned amenities, with delivery expected in the fourth quarter of 2027. That is a promise on a brochure, not a timetable, so ask the developer which schools, run by whom, with which curriculum, and from when. Until you have a name and a start date, do not count a school that does not exist yet.

Doctors and clinics

The Expat.com guide describes private healthcare in the area as meeting good standards, with many English-speaking doctors trained in Europe or the US, and names El Gouna Hospital as an international-level option. It gives family health insurance at USD 80 to 150 per month, and retiree policies at USD 500 to 1,000 a year. The Makadi Heights masterplan lists medical services and clinics among its amenities, again as a plan rather than something you can book an appointment at today.

For a family, the practical checklist is short. Find out where the nearest paediatric-capable clinic is and how long it takes to drive there. Check that your insurance covers the facility you would really use, and whether it includes transport. Keep the numbers of two doctors on your phone before you need them. Tummy bugs, sunburn and the occasional coral scrape are the realistic risks on a family holiday, and a good local clinic handles them without drama.

What it costs to buy

The honest answer is that Makadi Bay property data is thin, so treat everything below as a starting point, not a quote. The Orascom Development Makadi Heights project page on Property Finder gives a starting price of EGP 11,000,000 for apartments ranging from one to five bedrooms: 59 to 66 sq m for a one-bedroom, 80 to 105 sq m for two bedrooms, 102 to 122 sq m for three and up to 146 sq m for five. The payment plan is 10% down at launch with the balance in instalments, delivery is expected in Q4 2027, and ownership is listed as freehold.

At the exchange rates of 19 October 2026 from 30Rates (1 GBP = EGP 71.74), EGP 11,000,000 is about GBP 153,000. A separate Property Finder listing for a 120 sq m, two-bedroom-plus-maid's-room chalet in Makadi Heights shows EGP 96,666 per sq m, which works out at roughly GBP 1,350 per sq m. That listing is marked as no longer available and it is a single data point, so use it for a feel for the level, not as a market price. For comparison, our earlier guides to Sahl Hasheesh and Soma Bay show how widely per-metre pricing varies on this coast, which is a good reason to compare at least three areas before you decide.

Unit type (Makadi Heights)

Size

Good for

1 bedroom

59 to 66 sq m

Couple plus one small child, or a pure rental investment

2 bedrooms

80 to 105 sq m

Young family on school holidays

3 bedrooms

102 to 122 sq m

Family of four with visiting grandparents

4 to 5 bedrooms

136 to 146 sq m

Two families sharing, or a long-stay base

Source for sizes: Property Finder, Makadi Heights project page. The "good for" column is our suggestion.

A realistic monthly budget for living here

If the plan is to live rather than visit, the Expat.com guide gives a monthly budget for a family of four of USD 1,820 to 3,120, built from a three-bedroom rent of USD 600 to 900, groceries at USD 350 to 450, utilities at USD 90 to 120, school fees for two children at USD 500 to 1,200 (the guide's monthly-equivalent figure), health insurance at USD 80 to 150 and transport and leisure at USD 200 to 300. That is a Hurghada-wide figure, not a Makadi one, so a compound with service charges and a car-dependent location will push some lines up. Still, it is a useful sanity check against the number you are carrying in your head.

Holiday-home or home-home: who Makadi Bay suits

Makadi Bay is at its best for families who want a calm, safe place to switch off. A holiday home here can sit in a rental programme while you are in Manchester or Munich, and the family-friendly reputation of the bay helps. We unpacked the maths of holiday rentals against long lets in our earlier guide, and the same warning applies here: occupancy is seasonal, hotel-managed units can limit your own use and there is no substitute for running your own numbers. Our platform average of 12.4% net rental yield is the upper end of what you should expect, not a promise for every flat in the bay.

Makadi is less natural for families who want a walkable town with a bakery, a school and a doctor within ten minutes. If that is you, it may be a base for holidays and half-terms rather than full-time living, and a place like El Gouna, with its schools and hospital nearby, might suit better. There is no shame in that. A holiday home that gets used six times a year and loved every time beats a house you resent.

Six questions to ask before you pay a deposit

Whether you are looking at off-plan in new developments or a resale chalet, work through these with your lawyer and agent, in writing.

• Does the unit come with beach access, a beach club pass or hotel facilities, and who confirms it in the contract?

• What is the annual service charge, and what does it actually cover?

• Which school, clinic or nursery is promised, who runs it, and from what date?

• How long is the real drive to the airport at 11pm, and how long to the nearest hospital?

• For off-plan, what happens if handover slips past the date in the brochure?

• Can you rent the unit out on short lets, and does the compound or hotel restrict it?

On that last point, our holiday rentals guide explains why the paperwork for furnished short lets matters, and the Real Estate Registry's own advice is that a property is not legally yours until it is registered. Keep every receipt and use bank transfers, never cash in an envelope.

The verdict

Makadi Bay does one thing exceptionally well: it makes the sea easy for children. The sheltered bay, the sandy entry and the beginner-friendly reef are real advantages that you can feel in the first ten minutes, and few places on this coast give families such a gentle start. Where it asks more of you is everything around the sea: schools are a drive away, evenings are quiet, summers are hot and the property data is still thin.

If that trade-off sounds like your family, start with the homes for sale in Makadi Bay, compare them with Hurghada and decide on a spring half-term trip to see it with your own children. Book the flights, pack the factor 50, and let the smallest member of the family choose the beach. They will pick the right one.