I stayed at the Sonesta Beach Hotel when I went and I loved it- the place was nice, out room was huge, staff were brilliant, really helpful and the cleaning guy took a bit of a shine to me and my mate and use to leave a swan made of a towel on our bed every day! The diving is meant to be beautiful there- I went snorkelling in Ras Mohammed, and that was amazing, wish I'd gone diving instead. My cousin went diving at Tiran Island which she said was brilliant, but the diving in Dahab (not far from Sharm) is meant to be incredible!
Took a day trip to Cairo as well- we went on the overnight local bus and didn't realise they do a drug check at the border so was a bit scary being woken up by men with guns talking to us in Arabic. Lucky there was a guy who spoke English so we understood what was happening! Loved Cairo- it has it's beautiful parts and it's poverty, in the same way as most major tourist cities. Well worth going to though I think, although I think it's a bit violent at the moment.