Monastir, Sahara Beach Review

Overall Rating

Lovely huge Swimming Pools, fantastic friendly staff, plenty of choice of evening entertainment, lots of daytime activities.

Too many people for the size of the hotel, sea was terrible, not really suitable for couples.

We arrived at Sahara Beach on August 3rd for a two week stay, after a very short transfer we hit the first of the few minor problems we experienced... we arrived at midnight and at that time the airport and hotel money changing facilities were closed, this meant there was no way to get a drink (even water) until the next morning, we were not even able to get our AI cards until breakfast time the next morning. A small welcome pack in the room including a couple bottles of water would have been sufficient to at least kick start the holiday in a good way.
In the morning we were shown to our allocated table in the huge restaurant, this unfortunately was where we found the second problem, the smallest tables were small square tables that sat 4 (just), for a family this would be fine but couples are expected to share with another couple, the size of the tables becomes very apparent when sat with 2 complete strangers. Over the two weeks we sat with a foreign couple who as far as I could tell hated the fact we were near them, then an English couple, then another English couple who sat opposite each other meaning we couldn't even sit together at the table. This would be understandable in a really small hotel, but there were easily 2000 seats in the restaurant and I rarely saw more than 15% of that being used at any time, it felt odd sitting cramped up with two strangers when there were literally 70 tables in eye view empty around you. Oddly enough despite being billed as a family hotel, even families were split up, numerous families of 6 we knew of, had a 4 table and then two of the party sharing with a couple, I found this extremely disappointing, even though it never effected us. The waiters couldn't even move you if you arrived for your meal at the start of the time slot, as this would mean kicking someone else from their allocated table if they turned up. Consequently we ended up learning the times of our fellow table "buddies" and working around them, which looking back is no way to enjoy a relaxing holiday.
The food was fine considering it was a family hotel, vegetarian options were extremely limited (pasta, pasta, and occasionally even pasta), but we always found plenty to eat over two weeks, and some of the stranger things we ate (e.g. roti) only appeared once in 14 nights, so there was variation if you were looking out for it.
Aside from those two annoyances the Sahara Beach really is a fantastic place with some great facilities, the pools are incredible (I'd imagine the biggest in Tunisia, easily the biggest I've ever seen), there is a huge freeform waterfall pool as seen in all the brochures, a top level pool popular with kids, a small "Jacuzzi" pool excellent for infants, and then a surprisingly big deep pool not even shown in publicity, which was great for teens and above, as it reached 2.2m in places, so was great for diving etc... As always though, sun beds were a problem, the welcome letter states that towels will be removed if placed before 7:30, believing this we went down at 7:30 and there were virtually no sun beds left, this meant we (somewhat embarrassingly), had to join the hoards of people rushing for beds between 7-7:15am. Despite rave reviews, the sea was very black when we were there, lots and lots of seaweed and extremely busy (not much space to play around), we avoided it after the first day for the rest of the holiday.
Daytime activities were extremely varied, everything from archery to horse riding to sailing was available (some at a cost), although the pool games daily at midday in the deep pool, were probably the most entertaining, we only saw one game repeated in the whole two weeks and anyone could take part as long as you didn't mind a bit of friendly competition in front of pretty big crowds (e.g. underwater distance swimming, pool long jump etc).
Whilst there we took two excursions with Thomson, one to the Aqua Palace Waterpark which was around £5 (but you had to make your own way there, they don't tell you this until you go to book), it was terrible and not recommended at all. We heard several families expressing their dissapointment. Secondly we wanted to do the Barborosa Cruise listed in the welcome book, which when described by the rep at the welcome meeting as being called "Sail Away", and included a stop off at an island, we booked "Sail Away" (the only boat trip on the booking form), but it didn't include anything mentioned in the bookle,t and was no more than a pirate trip out to sea past some industrial coastline, which anchored off-shore in the middle of the ocean for an hour, so you could eat and swim. Many many people were very ill, and the toilets didn't even have a flushing mechanism, so you can imagine how pleasent that trip was.
Evening entertainment was also pretty varied, the big one was the outdoor show every night in a huge area, seating a good 1000-1500 people, but there was also the more relaxed Piano Bar, and the Skanes Bar which showed a movie on the big screen every night (13 out of 14 were in English).
Overall the Sahara Beach is an excellent hotel for families; the kids certainly won't get bored. For couples I would look elsewhere as they didn't really cater for couples of any age particularly well.