  We investigate the influence of a deconfinement phase transition on the
dynamics of hot and dense nuclear matter. We apply a hybrid model where an
intermediate hydrodynamics stage is employed for the the hot and dense stage of
a system created in head-on collisions of Pb+Pb/Au+Au at beam energies from
$2-160A $GeV. The initial and final interactions are performed by a microscopic
transport approach (UrQMD). An equation of state that incorporates a critical
end point (CEP) in line with lattice data is used. It follows from coupling the
Polyakov loop (as an order parameter for deconfinement) to a chiral hadronic
$SU(3)_f$ model. In this configuration the EoS describes chiral restoration as
well as the deconfinemt phase transition. We compare the results obtained in
this approach to results from a non interacting hadron resonance gas, focussing
on observables deemed to be sensitive to the phase transition to the quark
gluon plasma.
