Marina Palace Hotel

I'm not sure where to even start with this review, before you think I'm a hard to please old fogey, Im 23 years old, easy going guy and have slept on enough kitchen floors in my student days to be easily pleased.
First holiday away with the girlfriend and to be perfectly I genuinely dont think Yasmine Hammamet is ready to be a holiday destination.
The hotel seemed pleasant enough, seemed clean, the weather was terrible but not their fault obviously. The staff however were rude and the locals were lucky I didnt punch them in the face (40 year old man with two young children bent down to look up my gf's skirt).
Thomas cook wrote to me before I left advising of some building work going on next to the hotel, however we didnt let this put us off as it was described as "minimal" and "just a small amount of painting required" the building looked like it had been hit by a bomb the night before theres no other way of describing it.
I'm conscious of rambling on so I'll just list our main gripes and unfortunately this is not a pros and cons list, only cons.
- clothing stolen from our room by maids
- pirate boat trip - faulty wiring, electrics exposed to heavy rain, elderly woman thrown from one end of the ship to the other because the crew were purposely shaking the boat up and down, it was supposed to be "fun"
- pervert locals everywhere you go
- because you are british or white, everyone wants to fleece you, Im not talking about haggling in markets Im talking about you took a picture of my camel I want ten dinar, you touched my camel I want ten dinar, u sit on my camel, u ride my camel and so on....
- the food for want of a better word was just disgusting, a caterpillar crawled out of one of my strawberries in the hotel
- the beach was dirty we spent an hour on it in the whole two weeks
- make sure u stock up on food wherever you can find it because at night there is nowhere to buy food not in the hotel, no local shops etc, also the supermarket only sells drink, crisps and biscuits, dont risk the bread sticks as the local kids fight with them.
- no joke, everytime the wind blows you are slapped in the face by a strong stench of urine.
In general, adults this is no place for kids, Tunisian holidays are cheap but trust me there is a reason why. I've done this review pretty quickly if anyone would like to discuss with me or ask questions please feel free to email me at peeb_86@hotmail.com, everything Ive said has not been exaggerated or embelished it is pure fact.
Thanks

1 reader found this review helpful

I went to marina palace from march with my family. At first when we got there, I have got to say I was not impressed the receptionist handed our keys and left us to it. We were half boardand he did not say where we had to go for breakfast dinner etc. When we went to see the room he had handed the keys for, i have got to say i was not impressed, it hadnt been cleaned and was dusty and very smelly. I went back and got the room changed and the next room only had single beds together and not a double as asked so then I asked again. After the initial upset of changing rooms, the other staff were quite helpful but I have been to other Med countries and stayed at different hotels and I have to say this hotel staff were not as friendly as others I have been to. The pool was quite nice. I do have to say that I dont think it is a chld friendly hotel, there was nothing for the children to do, there was a very small park area with one toddler swing and a slide and no entertainment for the children, there was actually no entertainment for anyone in the hotel. I suppose previously we have always had entertainment in hotels in the evening and also things for the chidren to do where staff would just call the children to do competitions, have a mini disco in the evenings, other comps in the day. This hotel could do with some entertainment in the evening like belly dancing or a singer or comedy shows etc. The room cleaning service was however good and cleaning got done every day with new towels etc. The rooms were very spacious we had a family room with double and 2 single beds for the children and these rooms were quite spacious for us.

Our first impression of the hotel was good when dropped off. We entered the lobby and this was also quite impressive, a big open space leading out to the pool at the back of the hotel. We checked in, and unfortunatly everything went down hill from there.
The first room we checked into was not clean, and not what we expected. We informed the reception and were given another room, slightly better overlooking the pool. But the carpet was still dirty and stained, as were the bed covers, lamp shades and walls. Throughout the hotel the wall paper was peeling off, some of the walls had been plastered and never painted over, also the carpets were coming up and enough to break someones neck in the dark. We later discovered our key wouldn't even work properly so had to fiddle for a minute or 2 each time we entered our room. Which was no fun especially in the dark when all corridor lights would be off... god knows why!
On our second night the air con broke and was just blowing out hot air. This got fixed at about 2am when we woke up so hot. it lasted about 2 days but broke again.
I was suprised to find the grass so long around the pool area which wasnt nice on your feet when returning from the pool. The pool was also full of bits everyday, probably from peoples feet walking on the long grass. but if didnt seam to get cleaned. There were also no signs around the pool for depth or diving areas.
The tennis court was found, but like a building site. Also there was table tennis outside, but the table was bent. The pool tables indoors were working, but all the ends of the cues were worn away and no chalk.
My main complaint is about the food, it was awful and was pretty much the same each day, or left overs were used up in something else. there was an omelette out every morning, and if not eaten, put out again at night, like most of the food. The fruit was covered in flies everyday and the bread was left out over night.
Apart from the awful food i found it very odd and rude how all the staff from the hotel also helped themselves to the buffet during service, apart from the waiters working in the restaurant abviously.
Overall i was very dissapointed and the hotel almost ruined our holiday. Thankfully we were only there for 1 week. I wouldn't go back there again and I definatly wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
Yasmine Hammamet is a clean tidy place, but very quiet, very boring, few restaurants and no bars or clubs. And the shopkeepers are extremely rude, pushy and annoying, you just can't seam to get away from them.

I thought it was a lovely hotel, very clean and most of the staff were very friendly and made you feel welcome.
Not many english people at all, most of them were french, german or spanish.
However, during our stay there was a hotel next door being demolished which every hour or so caused a huge cloud of dust to be scattered all over the pool area outside.
I know that this could not have been helped but we were not once warned by our Thomas cook rep about this.
Also the food was pretty awful, very bland and a lot of carbs! Not much choice with the food at dinner time and most of the left overs got reused the next day.
Also during our stay the receptionist gave somone our room key by mistake and so we were woken up at 5am the one morning by some french man looking just as confused as we were! Not really too good when you think that that could have happend in the afternoon when we were not in our room and he could have helped himself to all of our monies etc.When i reported this to reception i never even got an apology!
Also the brochure stated that there were tennis courts and mini golf facilities, well the teenis courts were covered in building materials and there was no mini golf to be seen!!
The resort of Yasmine hammamet itself was also a let down, very annoying shopkeepers, no nightlife, no bars what so ever and just generally too quiet.
It was nice for a quiet week away but i wont be going back again and i know that fellow guests certainly felt the same way.

Shabby hotel, staff very pleasant, had belongings go missing from room, spa was NOT a spa - it was a dirty little booth with uncaring staff, food was bad, BBQ area and a la catre restaurant did not exist. Chidrens play ground, crazy golf and tennis courts were non existant. Lovely noises coming from a hotel being demomlished one side of the hotel, foundations being laid for a new hotel the other side and the icing on the cake - the actual hotel was being extended. This started at 7 in the morning. Our room was next to the building site. How relaxing!!
Hassled every day by people trying to sell excursions. One occassion the man told us "de garge" which is french and very impolite.
I did not expect to get hassled in the hotel.
I would never recommend this hotel to anybody.

Having read review from Sept 2005 I was a little apprehensive having booked this hotel and resort. However I was pleasantly surprised to find rooms spacious, very clean and tidy. No complaints about the food, excellent pancakes (no chips so my 9 year old son had to settle for other food which was a good thing).
Excellent pool which was not crowded at all, indeed at times we were the only ones in it. Sun beds by the pool always available. Staff always friendly. Entertainment could have been better (karaoke twice a week). A bit disappointed the Pizza restaurant was not open.
Thomson rep was not on site so we lacked a little hotel and resort information - seems as though this is now the norm with Thomson relying on their 24 hour telephone hotline rather than personal service.
As for resort and Tunisia only downside is the continual haggling over prices for clothes and gifts as it gets a bit tiresome after a while. It becomes refreshing to find some fixed priced shops occasionally.
Hope you find this of use.