Riadh Palms Hotel

5 readers found this review helpful

GOOD POINTS....really nice hotel / staff are very friendly / food is very good with lots to choose from / very clean hotel with maids working most of the day cleaning rooms / pool is very very very cold but nice and clean with plenty of sun beds /one down point is there is not alot of entertainment only one bloke playing a keyboard on some nights so its kinda boring ,so in my view it needs a band playing or at least a disco . There is a english pub not far from there called the rose and crown that is quite good and cheap and has karaoki on fridays
BAD POINTS..... Although there is a nightclub that starts around midnight that just play dance music but might play something else only if you beg the idiot d/j who cant read the crowd and only plays what he wants to play oh and only sell one crappy beer that should be called liquid head throb! but that dont start untill after midnight but by then your so bored with nothing going on in the other bars so you dont really fancy going / beach is very nice if you can handle people trying to sell you camel rides, and others asking for money and trying to sell you head scarfs. If you do go outside the hotel be warned you will get alot of hasel when you walk past shops and people following asking for money . But saying all this i had a great holiday and would recomend the hotel as the staff make up for the very frw bad points so i would give it a 8/10

2 readers found this review helpful

Riadh Palms. 4 stars. Nah. Dont think so. The beach and pool are are wonderful. Plenty of room, nice water.. Cant complain. The hotel itself, though a bit worn, was quite ok. Cepty that our AC didnt work and when we told the staff they said it would be fixed next week... And no fridge in the rooms.
The staff. Rude. They are there to get paid. Not to help out.
And the food. Horrible. They served RAW chicken. Tasteless food. Old/reused food. The hotel doesnt serve the cheap but tasty wine that Tunis is known world wide for but rather a waterd down type. The "gin", "vodka" and what not contains alcohol but other than that I think they might make it themself.
The lines to the bar are long and in the evening be prepared to elbow your way to a beer.
Thanks to this hotel I will NEVER return to Tunis. 4 stars? lol

Hotel was clean, room cleaners were friendly, pool was nice, whether was good but thats where it ended!
Food was more or less the same every day and had no taste and i'll eat anything! Lucnhtime chips were often cold. We looked forward to breakfast as the best meal of the day although no bacon or english breakfast food.
The hotel staff with the exception of the room cleaners were rude, not very helpful, creepy around my 4 year old daughter to the extent of kissing her back and making her cry.
The hotel appeared to cater for non-english guests, other guests were rude and greedy.
Pool staff were very rude and even admitted to hating english people with threats of throwing beach towels into the pool when we were not around.
We could not leave the hotel as the street sellers were just as creepy as the hotel staff and forced goods upon us even after saying 'No' time after time.
There was a limited choice of all inclusive drinks at the bars.
The kids disco was the same routine every night.
The reception ran out of money when wanting to change travellers cheques.
The windows along the corridors open inwards and the wind blew a window into my sons face which required stitches because there was a nail sticking out the window.
We went to the Dominican Republic a few years ago for the same price and it was 10 times better, this holiday has put me off booking anywhere in northern Africa again as a holiday, would not go back

this is 100% truth
2 dinar to the pound and you want a lot of it .
ask for a room away from the hotel renovation work or you out of your room at 7.30 and dont go back till 1900.
5 dinar a day to get a beach chair to beach security man.
if you dont pay him your towels get taken off.
3 dinar a day for the safe.
and you have to use it or lose it.
2 dinar a day for tv control.
will work with out and only 3 stations in english.
5 dinar a day for a fridge.
dont need it you can get water every day free.
the normal day time entertainment the only night entertainment apart from the animation team a week is a 10 dinar per person to watch some snakes and a monkey.
food was hot and a good choice but same every day.
beach and sea very good no stones and not a lot of fish.
dont use the free hotel bus its not free con .use the train its cheap but pay one way only or you have to get same train back evry 90 mins but 1 runs every 30 mins.
the drinks are ok but not a lot of choice no rum - brandy . And at night use the little bar to the right outside faster and only open at night .
dont go in mid summer hotel to big and you will not get on beach or round pool .we had probs and only 60% full
and dont forget the tips tips tips

I suffered an upset stomach, sickness and diarrhea, not due to the water, I used only bottled water very carefully, I can only attribute it to the food, 3 days out of my 7 days holiday were lost due to this.
For a hotel of this size I counted only 4 lifts.
I think a realistic grading for this hotel would be a 3 star at best.

20 readers found this review helpful

I know better than to read other peoples reviews, however, i did and was a bit concerned about staying at this hotel. (if u read the rest of the reviews you will understand why) I still think it's best to go and make your own mind up about the hotel, i have never left a review before but after reading the others i feel i have to.
I go to Tunisia several times a year and this is by far the best hotel i have ever stayed in......i can't think of one thing to complain about (apart from a couple of annoying guests, but thats not the hotels fault).
The pool is fantastic, you are right on the beach, the food is lush, the service is amazing. The animation team are fabulous and the holiday altogether was the best yet. You are just a short strol away from the medina or a short taxi / tuk tuk or train ride away from the marina.
I loved it so much i am going back in 8 weeks time, it was absolutely amazing, all i can say is ignore all the miserable people who have to find fault with every little thing, stay at this hotel, enjoy yourself and make your own mind up...!!!

1 reader found this review helpful

smokers paradise smoking allowed all over this horrible hotel food crap room crap dont go

2 readers found this review helpful

It seems that every one gets a road view room when you first book in to the hotel. These rooms are OK but there is a lot of traffic noise on a night and nothing much to encourage you to sit out on the balcony as there is little to see appart from the hotels opposite. I think it cost us about £40 to move to a sea view which was better. This hotel has seen better days and was probably a very good hotel in it's day. The rooms are OK but in need of some TLC and it seems to be nearly as far from the lift to some of the rooms as it is from the hotel to the airport. I am a very fussy eater but I found something acceptable to eat every day as did everyone else in our party. If you tip your waiter a couple of quid each evening your glass will never be empty during meals. The entertainment team work very hard and are worth watching for the effort they put in alone although it does get a bit repetitive after a while. One thing you have to put up with is the occasional smell of sewage in the entertainment area on a night. I don't know if this is always the case or whether we were just unlucky. The free bar for all inclusive is OK and we never had a problem getting served although I defy anyone to get drunk on the beer and you have to go to seperate bars for beer and spirits although the bars are next to each other it still means two queues instead of one. By far and away the best thing about this hotel is the fantastic beach which is literally a stones throw from the hotel door. If you can find a working sunlounger/chair on the beach it is beautiful and the sea is close, clear and warm which could also accurately describe the beer from the beach bar. The only real downside to the beach is the constant pestering from the guys trying to sell trips on the pirate boat (Total waste of money and seems an ideal way for them to keep you in a confined area for three hours while they try to con you into paying for pirate scarves and henna tattoos etc), camel safari (This was pretty good but haggle over the price as we paid £15 each but others on the same trip paid upto £35 each and don't expect romantic desert views as it can seem as though you're riding through a landfill site at times) and the quad bike safari (didn't manage this one as we were all ill by then). These people do not understand the word no and I bet one of them gets to you before you can cover the 40 or 50 yards from the hotel door to the beach on your 1st day. All 6 adults were extremely ill with a violent and explosive stomach bug and four of us were still as ill two weeks after returning home. Everyone we spoke to had someone in their party missing from the camel trip due to this same illness. This bug, or whatever it was, is absolutely vicious and makes venturing far from the hotel risky to say the least even when dosed up with extra strong immodium. I had read about this on other review sites so it wasn't just a one off with us and seems to have been happening on and off for a few years. We can only blame the booze as the two young kids with us were absolutely fine and the only thing we had that they didn't was the alcohol. Beware the locals!! They appear friendly enough but they will do almost anything and use every trick in the book to part you from your cash.
If you don't include the most ignorant, uninterested, sourfaced receptionist it has ever been my misfortune to clap eyes on, the staff were very friendly, polite and helpfull
Never in a million years a 4* hotel. 2* at a push.
Would I go back to this hotel ------ Absolutely not.

5 readers found this review helpful

Hello everybody.....I just want to say,IT WAS BEAUTIFUL holiday in this hotel and in Tunisia,beach is goog,swimingpool,rooms,restaurants are olso good...and just want say too, thanks everybody in hotel,because peoples are very very good....and i hope that i will come again...everybody miss me soo much....by by.....................

8 readers found this review helpful

Firstly, may I add that I was wary after reading the posts here, but am open minded and thought I'd make my own decision based on experience - my rating is based on what was promised and I am sorry to say that the 4 star all inclusive holiday I paid for and was not as promised in the brochure. This is my complaint. Advertised with but had NO entertainment during the day NO games/Tennis NO poolside games so when the sun didn't shine (5 out of 7 days for us) there was nothing to do but sit around waiting for meal times in the bar and drink beer (not such a bad thing!) There was no bingo or such inside, no cards or boardgames to borrow, NOWT at all, not even a TV rambling with arabic waffle to watch.
The bedroom was adequate and clean BUT apart from a TV (with only CNN in english) there was nothing. No kettle, no fridge, not even a hairdryer. The bathroom was equally bare, just one hand towel and body towel per person, WHICH YOU WERE NOT ALLOWED TO USE OUTSIDE OF YOUR ROOM..... handsoap in dispensers on the wall of the bath/shower, which had cracking pressure and plenty of hot water.
The rooms were cleaned daily if you wanted - however there was a lot of petty theft and we saw a maid go into rooms without any equipment in her hands or a trolley so why???
Food was ok, breakfast was european style, NO BACON. Cereal was only choco-ish flakes and Vanilla flakes, not cornflakes more like chopped biscuit flakes. Fried eggs were prepared to order. Lunch and Dinner was much the same day in day out - I like pasta/rice/mediterranean dishes so I was quite satisfied however it was always cold, there was a microwave to pop-de-ping yer meal though. If you don't like med food, then you'll not be impressed. Not much veg options either, and most cooked veg was oily to be honest, there was a wide choice of salads and sweets/cakes and plenty of apples/oranges/tangerines. The fruit juice was NOT fruit, it was more like fruit flavoured syrup watered down.... yak!
Both me and my sister suffered from delhi belly during our stay - make of that what you will.
the pool area was clean, and supervised (unused due to the weather) and if you tipped the guy he would save you a bed in a good spot.
the entertainment - what little there was, existed in the late evening 9.30pm onwards and in a disco where there was a bar but you had to pay if you were all inclusive. The disco was HOUSE - nothing anybody wanted seeing as the majority of the residents were over 50 - german/dutch and there for 2-3 months!
THE 4 STAR RATING WAS GIVEN TO THIS HOTEL IN 1973 when i'm sure anybody visiting would have thought it was palacial - but today, it looked very dated, dusty, grotty but had it's charm. If you want a quiet holiday just sitting around drinking beer and chatting and grazing on salad then you'll be very happy, me, I wanted sun (not their fault we didn't get it of course) poolside music and lots of beer in the evening. One thing to bear in mind, when the bottles of spirit run out - that's yer lot cocker - one night a group of Spanish students hit the bar and drank it dry - they had an allocation of 3ltrs of each of Brandy/Whiskey/Vodka/Gin/Martini and a couple of others, and cocktails made using that awful syrupy fruit juice. Beer was like Amstel - quite nice actually, and the wine was the local brew and also very tasty.
MORE GOSSSS..... there were prostitutes working in the hotel, and I mean MALE who were happy to be with men and women alike - this was NOT hidden and permitted by the hotel management. They didn't take money but were expected to be "cared for" ie, they were invited to stay and in return for their "services" their stay was paid for by the guest on a daily basis - that's how we were told it worked. Even we were approached by a young guy who walked by us 3 or 4 times, attempted to make eye contact and when by mistake I looked up as he was looking across the room, took that to mean he could invite himself to interrupt our card game and ask if he could sit with us and keep us company....I don't chuffin well think so matey! This is not an exaggeration and although we were highly amused watching the obvious action - it did disgust us when we saw this old white european guy with a young dark tunisian lad following him like a puppy.
When you walk down the streets ladies cover up - it is a muslim country and you stand out like a sore thumb when you wear a brief top. They approach you on the street all the time and in addition to the shopkeepers and their staff it all gets a LOT too much and we were completely fed up to the back teeth after a couple of hours. Get used to men approaching you saying they are a security guard or waiter at your hotel (hide your AI wristband) and try to lead you to a shop where they say... i know where you can buy cheap.....blah blah blah - at times you have to be brutal give the look of death and sternly say NO. If you are polite and say no "thankyou" they take that as a way to carry on pursuing you and won't let go, they will follow you for yards and yards until you are firm or just downright nasty! Sunglasses to avoid eye contact are a must.
The internet at the hotel is not reliable - slow (like dial up) and expensive, 6 dina for 30 mins no MSN. We found PUBLINET shop 5 mins walk away - it's opposite the calypso bar entrance which has a red stick out into the street cover. left out of hotel, cross the road to the right and take the right fork in the road PUBLINET shop is the first building on a side street on the right - you can't miss it if you pay attention! 2 dina for an hour and it's broadband - you can MSN on there no problem and you don't get hastled, they were nice peeps in there - just had to endure the pestered walk there and back!
We made friends with loads of peeps, german, dutch and english, and found no problem getting along with all the age ranges - but that's a brit thing isn't it. There were plenty of laughs (and moans) and to be honest it was that aspect of the holiday that we enjoyed but this is the first time I've been happier to leave than arrive - even though it was snowing in the UK!!!!