Riviera Hotel

1 reader found this review helpful

Hotel was advertised as a 4* but felt more like a 3*. Accommodation was good but basic. Ensuite was clean, but looked like it needed redecoration (they were redecorating some rooms whilst we were there).
Food was ok - plenty of choice. Soup and salad, and things cooked in front of you were generally good, but the other hot food was rather reminiscent of school dinners. Poor selection of fresh fruit and other deserts. No proper fruit juice which meant that cocktails were very sweet and sugary (and rather grim). I'm a veggie and there wasn't much selection.
Bar was very smoky in the evenings.
Staff were lovely, very friendly and willing to go out of their way. Most spoke excellent English.
Entertainment was poor. Daytime entertainment was limited to games with the reps (ten pin bowling comp with sand filled bottles anyone?). Evening entertainment was almost non-existent.
Pool was clean and large - plenty of sun beds for all! Only a short 2 min walk to the beach which was clean but full of sellers.
Overall, a good holiday but not quite up to 4* standards.

The resort is lovely; large rooms with en-suite bathrooms and a balcony and king-sized beds. The maid service is also very good. There are lots of facilities to use; 2 indoor and out-door swimming pools, a gym, steam room, table tennis, mini-golf and being able to use the sister hotels facilities is an added bonus. There are also other facilities: massage, sauna, pool tables but you have to pay for these.
The food is very nice, there isn't much change in the menu throughout the week, but there is a lot of choice (English and Tunisian) and the food was always hot. There are also two A La Carte restaurants (one Tunisian, one Italian) where you can have a meal in included in the All Inclusive Price (one meal per restaurant per week). The food in these are also very tasty.
Most of the people staying in the hotel were middle aged, me and my boyfriend are in out twenties and we were the youngest people there, but there is a good atmosphere between the guests and everybody is very friendly to each other. We did go off season though so there may be younger people there in the Summer.
The staff are friendly and do their best to help you if you have any problems. The entertainment leaves a lot to be desired, and the entertainment team are quite over-friendly to the point of being offensive. We had to complain about one member in particular as he was making derogatory comments to my boyfriend about his appearance.
This is NOT what you expect from someone who is meant to be entertaining you! The manager we complained to was very understanding and made the staff member apologise to us and sent a bottle of wine to our room. This is not the hotel to go to if you wish to be left in peace by the entertainment team!
Expect to get a lot of hassle from shop owners if you leave the hotel. It is not to bad in Port El Kantaoui but if you go to Sousse (the neighbouring town) it can feel intimidating as they have no problem with grabbing you and trying to take you into their shop. Also, if any ladies are thinking of going be warned, especially if you have blonde hair as you will get extra hassle. This is not really a country for girls to go out alone.
However if you do decide to venture out you can pick up some excellent bargains, just be prepared to barter for them! Also, keep an eye out for pick pockets, some people at our hotel nearly got their wallet stolen.
If you get a chance to go on the Sahara tour...DO IT! It is amazing and this tour alone is worth travelling to Tunisia for! There are several other excursions you can do: we went to the Arabic Feast and that was excellent as well. We also went quad biking, organised through the hotel and had a brilliant time.
We travelled with First Choice and have no complaints, our rep, Markus, was brilliant and was able to answer any questions and looked after us to a very high standard.

On Arrival the Hotel looked impressive with beautiful chandeliers and ceilings. All the staff were dressed in traditional uniforms. From there it just kept getting better the food was lovely and Theo alternative restaurants must be tried (Brik with egg in the Medina restaurant a must have !!!). The general restaurant has a large choice and for the fussy you can get a fresh steak or pasta on request. The indoor pool is lovely and for that extra bit of pampering try a massage.
The rooms are large an well equipped - no need to pack your hair dryer!! and you will find the cleaner will leave an artistic display with the towels and your nightwear. One lovely touch were the sweet with the cards with goodnight sweet dreams on them and the roses on the last day.
The entertainment was fun and Rio Kimo and Ramesis do their best with a depleted team they will certainly make you feel welcome and add a bit of fun
Beware of the carpet trips as they can be a hard sell
Haggle for your bargains.
Overall a lovely hotel and lovely staff - enjoy
There will always be habitual moaners - one was at a table next to us go with an open mind -we did we loved it. I am sure you wont be disappointed.

Pros: the weather was fantastic, the maid service was pretty good and the staff were friendly. The hotel itself was beautiful and the grounds very well kept. Good veggie selection of food, however a lot of the salads seemed to have loads of vinegar in them and it gave me constant heartburn. The soups were really nice though.
Our holiday rep was very good - apparently she was much more helpful than the Thomas Cook rep who spent most of his time blabbing on about his loadsamoney job at Matalan.
Activities booked through Thomson were good fun, I recommend the camels and the quad biking. I don't recommend the catamaran trip though as he overloads the boat and then inflicts 2 hours of '3087 greatest 80s love songs' on you.
The Golfbrau pub in Port El Kantaoui is fun, as you can get a 5 litre tube of beer for 40 dinars. They brew the beer themselves and it's quite pleasant.
Cons: The beds were quite uncomfortable and we woke up with backache every day. The food was luke warm a lot of the time. My husband must have eaten something dodgy as he had a really bad stomach during our stay and could hardly eat all week.
The 'alcohol' is impossible to get tipsy on. You have to give the barman a large tip to get a decent measure of spirits and the beer will have you burping for England. I was a really bad alcoholic before I went to Tunisia and the week's holiday left me fully detoxed ;)
The animation team were good, people seemed to enjoy the poolside games. Apparently they look spiffing in their yellow clown suits. The beep beep beep song will be stuck in your head forever after this holiday, by the way.
The evening entertainment was DIRE. Apparently a pub singer type dude with a keyboard singing Chris Rea, Lionel Richie and 'Sess Bomb' is standard entertainment in Tunisia.
The disco at the sister hotel Abou Sofiane is pure quality amusement. You won't see dancing like it anywhere else in the world. One guest described the dance floor as being like a scene from 'One Flew Cuckoo's Nest'. That description is absolutely spot on.
One last thing: don't leave your knickers on the floor of your hotel room as you will return to find them on your bed in the shape of a fan. And don't leave anything valuable in your room if you're booked for a massage - our friends had their phone and 20 dinars pinched during the half hour they were getting their massage and facial. The hotel manager didn't even apologise to them.
Overall, I don't think this is a suitable place for families or couples under 40 due to the lack of variety of entertainment, activities and decent food and drink on offer. It's fine for someone who wants to get up early, burn in the sun all day and then spend a teetotal evening listening to Vic Reeves's pub singer.

1 reader found this review helpful

A very relaxing holiday, good beach reached through the sister hotel Allegro Abou Sofiane, you could get a sunbed easily here, not so at the pool area as you had to be up before the Germans, but the weather was so hot the beach suited us as you got an lovely sea breeze.
Excellent choice of food from the buffet restaurant from which you had breakfast and lunch from, alternatively there is a snack bar beside the pool which is open all day and there are two al a carte restaurants (Tunisian and Italian). There are three bars one by the pool, a lounge bar and a cocktail bar, the cocktails were sweet and sickly. The staff are excellent and look after you well and the whole place is immaculately clean if a little jaded around the edges, but nothing too much to put you off.
The only minus was there was little to do in the evenings, there was a piano player outside on the patio for a couple of hours until about 8.30-9.00 and the entertainment after that was daft young lads trying to get you to join into what could only could be described as holiday camp style competitions.