Holiday Reviews > Africa > Tunisia > Djerba > Djerba Hotels > Palm Azur Hotel > Read Reviews
| Board Basis: |
All Inclusive |
| Date of
Holiday: |
Aug 2008 |
| Tour
Operator: |
Govoyages |
| Submitted
By: |
Miss Julia Zz |
| Overall
Rating: |
1/10 |
| Comments: |
My boyfriend and I passed 2 weeks in Melia Palm Azur in the August 2008. We travel a lot for business and pleasure and I can frankly say that it was the worst holiday experience that we have ever had.
We chose this hotel as we already knew hotel chain Sol Melia and were delighted with their hotels. Now I wonder how come that Palm Azur belongs to Melia chain, and do they guess what actually is happening in the hotel of their chain and how it is undermining their image.
So I will try to be short and factual.
Geographic location:
30 minutes from airport. Nearest city Midoun – not attractive dirty place with no restaurants or any other places interest.
Hotel itself:
Big standing a little bit old, but in ok shape. Reception is spacey with a lot of marble and even water fountains (these do not work however).
Rooms:
Rooms are ok. Old, but ok. Room service is regular but negligent. No mini bar or bottled water in the room. There are big water systems in the hall. So if you lucky and saved your plastic bottle from the trip – keep it as a treasure, otherwise you will be running with a lot of little plastic cups in order to drink enough after sun exposure.
Territory:
Relatively big territory with sad and dry plants. A lot of objects (umbrellas, benches) are rusty – so keep an eye on everything if tetanus is not your holiday dream.
Restaurants and food:
Awful! These 2 weeks were real gastronomical torture for us. All the menu consists of the cheapest products possible, with no variations. Breakfast: Uncut frozen or broken fruits ( and this is in august (!)), yesterday’s leftovers vegetables, 1 type of cheese, 1 type of ham (the cheapest one with milled bones), 1-2 types of bread, 1 type home made yoghurt, some low quality hot vegetables and dishes. Everyday for 2 weeks the same, not even slight change. Constant shortage of bowls and glasses.
Lunch and dinner the same low quality food. Maximum 2 types of meat. All the time cheap with a lot of bones ( doggy dream!). I have even seen marvelous goulash ( 85% of bones). 2 types of pasta ( yes, even past can be badly cooked). Choice of cut and rapped tomatoes, carrots and cucumbers. The most simple and cheap way. No composed salads or something like that.
Dirty plates with big stains from morning Nutella. I spoke 3-5 times with restaurant management – no change. Glasses full of soap – looks like cappuccino when you put water inside!
Wine is reused and leftovers are gently put in the used bottle.
During your stay you can once reserve a la carte restaurant in order to try authentic Tunisian cuisine. On practice you get the same food as in buffet restaurant and the saddest couscous that I have ever tried.
Swimming pool:
There are 2 of them: small for kids and big for adults. Main big swimming pool is beautiful, however not safe. There is a water intake filtration system that is rather big. However the grids that were supposed to cover it were permanently missing. There is a lot of children playing around and the area is deep. Parents spoke to the lifeguard near the pool and they received advice to “swim around’ (!). The result is that on the 23rd August in front of all the tourists a 14-years old French girl was sucked down. Lifeguard did not find how to switch the system off and they did not have any oxygen bottles, however they had fire extinguishers. So girl was removed 20 minutes after dead. Shock for everybody….. Spoiled vocations, constant stress and nightmares.
Beach:
Sandy beach with sufficient number of sun beds. Impossible to enter to the sea because of huge sharp stones that go for about 20 meters on the shore line. So no swimming for children and cut legs and feet for adults.
Water sports:
We also choose this hotel as the propose in the all inclusive system wind surfing. Well yes, officially they have it, but all the boards are missing parts and sail have holes = can’t be used. So we were forced to rent the equipment from the hotel near by for 20 EUR per hour.
Making water sport activities is simply not safe as the hotel do not even have safety motorized boat. So when tourists from Melia Palm Azur had a hole in their kayak and started to drown water sport guys rushed to the neighbors hotel in order to ask them for a boat.
So to conclude, this is the most horrible holiday ever, waist of money and unsafe ambiance.
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| Board Basis: |
All Inclusive |
| Date of
Holiday: |
Oct 2006 |
| Tour
Operator: |
Airtours |
| Submitted
By: |
Mrs A Thrower |
| Overall
Rating: |
10/10 |
| Comments: |
What can I say! It was the most amazing holiday. The hotel if fantastic, the staff, food and cleanliness are second to none.
We arrived at the hotel at 12.30 am after a long trip from home. It was an absolute pleasure to find the reception staff had kept the restaurant open for us, serving us with chicken salad and very welcome bottles of water! There was no queuing to check-in either. They checked us all in, in the restaurant while eating our food which was great!
On our last day, you have to vacate your room by mid-day, but there is a luggage hold in the main reception to store all your stuff. Also if you have en evening flight, as we did, they will give you a room at tea time free of charge to have a shower and get changed ready for your trip home. That way you can spend the day by the pool or on the beach and still enjoy your last few hours. Also your all inclusive is still available till the minute you leave!
It is peaceful, quiet and most of all relaxing. The hotel is bursting with stuff to do. It has a huge outdoor pool, which is well maintained and very clean. A good sized indoor pool, perfect in bad weather, less than 5 minute walk to the hotels private beach, which can I add had free loungers and parasols! There is three fabulous lunchtime restaurants to choose from and the choice of foods is top banana so there's something for everyone. The all inclusive feature is also top notch. There is very little that isn't in your all inclusive. There is always drinks and snacks available and all unlimited!
If you’re looking for an English family holiday with a busy nightlife, then it's probably not the place for you. This is purely because the Tunisian's first language is French, so although they do endeavor to try to involve the English people, the evening entertainment I would say is 85% French. Me and my husband traveled alone, we do however have 3 children ages 12, 10 and 8. Although the holiday would have been perfect for them, I feel the evenings would have been rather boring for them.
We did the 'tourist' day trip through our travel rep also. We went into Matmata then on to Douz for a camel ride in the Sahara desert. The trip was very well organised, great value for money and an overall fantastic experience not to be missed.
I would highly recommend the Palm Azur and Djerba and would definitely go back again, not just to Djerba but also the same hotel. It's a tropical paradise 3 hours from Manchester. You must try it, you won't regret it.
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