Iberostar Lalla Baya Hotel

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Hotel Lalla Baya (Lella Baya)
Ok…what can I say about this hotel? Smashing!! For what its worth and how its advertised, its very pleasant and lives up to its 5 Star category its advertised as. First impressions of the outside make you liken it to a fairy tale castle and on entering is even more grandiose.
Arrived here on 5th Sept 2004 for a weeks stay. On getting there...as we arrived by Taxi, (Beware of not being ripped off as we did and don’t pay more than 20 Dinars per person from Monastir airport. We paid 40 Dinars each on our way to the hotel but days later and much wiser, on our way back, paid 20 Dinars each.) Bellboy immediately took our luggage; we filled out some forms and went up to the rooms.
Rooms are quite big, separate toilet and bathrooms and a balcony overlooking the pool and partial sea view. A safe is also provided free of charge which comes in handy and is normally charged for in most hotels we’ve been around the world and also a mini bar fridge (Do not drink the stuff here if you know you don’t want to pay for it, as what you drink is charged to your room on leaving. We were stung for about 30Dinars this way, when we thought the drinks were complimentary).
One other issue was changing our Pounds back to Dinars. You can do this at the hotel reception at mostly anytime. At the time we were there, £1 would give you 2.25Dinars and we tried a few times to change some money. Every time we went to change money, we were always told, they weren’t open or in 10 minutes time or 10am or something ridiculous. When we got there at the times given, another time would be doctored up. Just accept it’s the receptionist being lazy as my girlfriend completely snapped after being fobbed off about the 5th time. It was done pronto by the manager after then and every time after that, we got it changed when we wanted with the same receptionist
The downside of getting pool view rooms is, just near the pool is where most of the hotel entertainment takes place, is mostly quite loud and was on every night we were there till about half past midnight. We overcame this by not getting in till 1am most days so if you want an early night, forget the pool view rooms.
Being there on half board, went in the next morning to discover what the food was like. Now I’m a very fussy eater, my girlfriend though is willing to try most things, so she was loving it. All I can say is, don’t expect the food to be something from the Ritz as it isn’t, however, the food provided is quite good quality and very well presented being that this is North Africa and is mostly their local dishes modified to suit western tastes. If you go with an open mind and aren’t extremely fussy, you’ll get by. I did. Same thing applied during the evening meals I must say and I’d note the food provided was on a cycle of about 2days, so you might get bored seeing the same things every other day.
Sun beds for the pool were mostly always available when you needed them except on really hot days (which was actually every day we were there) when the pool area seemed to be packed by about midday. I don’t think the attitude of reserving a sun bed early in the morning is tolerated either as I didn’t see this happening. Towels are provided for sunbathing free of charge but the way this works is you pay 10Dinars the first time you need one, can change it once a day and get your money back the day you hand it back in.
Entertainment is provided during the day (pool volley ball, water polo, aerobics, water aerobics, darts, table tennis and some other funny daft pool games) and at night you’d have other games behind the pool area (cant say much about the night entertainment as we never went, but from what we could hear, was mostly always in foreign languages, though you’d recognise a lot of the music being played as English)
Now to get to the beach, you have to walk out through the back of the hotel compound, across a main boulevard which is pretty quiet and safe and get to a beach area directly behind the hotel, provided by the hotel for its customers. Sun beds here are free but there is a horrid stench and the water here is discoloured with far too much seaweed in the shallow part (I was actually dubious of it being seaweed due to the horrid smell!!). There is also so much crap on the beachfront, (which we later found out was horse poo…nice!! Considering we’d been in the water days before we found out). We stayed here on the first day and with your back to the hotel, moving right about 50m is where we went into the sea the first time. To get to a cleaner part of the beach, you had to go about 400m to your right (with your back to the hotel) and you had to pay 5Dinars per person to use the sun beds here as these are provided by other hotels. Try the Jet Ski or parachute on the beach. We went for the latter at 20Dinars each and it was such a nice treat. My girlfriend being a religious sunbather, definitely advises staying by the pool for sunbathing but beaching it for watersports.
By the way, beware of the hawkers trying to sell you stuff on the beach. Don’t!! And I stress don’t!! take anything offered to you in your hand, as once you take it, you have to pay what they ask for.. I was almost stung for 15Dinars for one poxy fruit the size of an apple. After I threw up a fuss, got security involved and made myself heard, he gave me 10Dinars back.
Yasmine Hammamet is a nice place for a vacation as a couple. If you have kids, forget it, as there is not much for them to do. Take a walk to the medina up the road from the hotel (If you come out the front its about 300m to your left. You’ll find some pretty good deals there. Nice open bars and restaurants and a supermarket for bits and pieces. Leather goods, jewellery are quite cheap and trainers though limited in styles, are unbelievably cheap as well, provided you have the nerve to barter hard.
Usman or Osram can be found on the hotel grounds of Lalla Baya selling his camel trip deal. Good value for the money, you pay at 30Dinars per person and he’s such an affable multi lingual man as well… Try getting a taxi into Hammamet for about 5-7Dinars (2 people). It’s about 20mins journey and there’s a bigger medina, cleaner beaches and restaurants too or if you’re up for a longer journey, for 10Dinars, that’ll take you to Nabeul. Be very careful when getting out of your taxi/coach for the Medina’s as you will definitely, at some point, be approached by a guy claiming to be a waiter from your hotel and wanting to show you around. He is NOT a waiter from your hotel and will take you on a wild goose chase to shops (that he probably gets commission from) and then expect to be paid for his troubles! It’s just their way of earning cash but is very annoying.
All in all, a great holiday, I’ll definitely go back but would love to sample another hotel just for the love of exploring and not the fact that the lalla baya was not good enough!