Palm Azur Hotel

what a strange place?!! the hotel seemed amazing on the first night, food ready for us at 11.30pm when we arrived, nice touch, quick check in. room was a good size but none of sea views are that good as lots of trees and buildings between the hotel and sea. the building is generally clean, quite cool and well decorated by some standards. the rooms wereok sized, bit basic, no fridge, hotel staff thought my suggestion that i may rent one was an absurd idea even though literature in room stated we could for 7 dinar a day! the staff here are strange! some are brilliant, most aren't. had 1 run in with one of head waiters whose attitude was awful. pool staff are a joke, if they run out of sunbeds, and you happen to be french, and happen to have a few dinars spare, sunbeds happen to appear, many times i saw the guy at the pool find unattended beds then remove the towels and give them to his 'friends'. on our 1st morning by the pool he woke us and asked if we would move as his 'friends' (french, with dinars) wouldlike our sunbeds. little tip, to get a sunbed you have to get up early, well before 7. there is a pile of sponge mats by the bar. go into the a la carte restaurant sidi boud and there is a pile of much thicker, better quality sponge mats, he can also find these for the french, i wondered why he kept going there at six am so one moring i followed him! he caught me though, and after that i noticed a few appearing from below the swimming pool in the maintenace area, again, always for french guests though, must be a coincidence. there were a few battles of wills between the french and british, i had a few when the french seemed horrified when i suggested that they may not like to squeeze into the 1cm gap between me and the bar. many thanks to the brits who cheered me on if you are reading this! its ashame these minor things happened, i can understand a lot of faults but when i have paid to be in a place i expect service, maybe i am in a minority or something. the food was very up and down. some of the basic stuff, chicken (make sure it is cooked though), burgers, omelettes etc are actually very good, the tunisian food is amazing, but the rest is better left for someone else to eat. there is a good pizza place, turn left outside of hotel 100yards on the right. beach is beautiful, soft white sand, soft discarded cigarette ends and packets too, pity. sea has a strong current and a lot of hidden rocks, a lot of injuries and cuts. the flights with mytravel were good, smoothest flights i've ever had, and the bangers and mash on the flight home was best plane food i've ever had! the cleaners are friendly and make an effort, the bar staff prioritise who they serve based on nationality/tipping history and the reception staff are very much 'yes men' nothing seems a problem, but in reality nothing really gets done, and when it gets complicated they suddenly lose english from their list of languages. if you want snacks/drinks the shops outside hotel are much cheaper. there is a jewellery shop in hotel, they imply prices are fixed, i jokingly tried to haggle and succeeded so persevere with them. we were told that on our last day we could have a room until 8 when we left. what they forgot to say was that we could stay in our room until 2pm, then evicted, but could have a room for 20 mins to have a shower. i could live with this. the 20 minute room though was filthy, stank and the showers were filthy, they didn't change the towels between uses either. it would actually have been cleaner not to have showered, within 2 minutes of us leaving the room another couple were in there, but no cleaners! if you go on the shopping trip, only a couple of quid and worth doing, they take you to a fixed price shop. do not buy!!! go to the shops outside, if you haggle hard you can get stuff for about half the price of the fixed shop, the shopkeepers are not great hagglers!, egyptians etc are much better and harder to deal with so you can always get a good price, about 5-10% of what they 1st quote is very achievable, when they say no cheaper, walk away, they WILL follow with a lower price. Djerba airport is small but immaculate and tidy. do not change over too much sterling into dinar, as at the airport they could only refund our dinar into euro's!! if you want a break in the sun doin nothing then this is the holiday for you. it is generally ok but i would only rate it as a 3 star. if you want fine food, great people, entertainment etc then go elsewhere! any questions please email us, no problem answering. anyone at the palm azur at the same time feel free to email and say hi