Concorde Marco Polo — Hotel in Maghreb

Occidental Marco Polo – Hammamet

We stayed at Occidental Marco Polo for 7 nights and, unfortunately, the experience was far below what you would expect from a 4-star hotel.

Let me start with the few positives: we arrived at 6 a.m. after a night flight and transfer, and the hotel gave us a room immediately without waiting for check-in. The location is also fair, around 5 minutes on foot from the centre of Hammamet Yasmine. The room air conditioning worked very well during the whole stay. That is where the positives end.

Rooms and Cleaning Housekeeping is unpredictable. There is no “Do Not Disturb” option and on our first morning we were woken at 9 a.m., just 3 hours after arrival. Staff knock very loudly and shout in the corridors. Cleaning quality is basic at best, and timing varies between early morning and late afternoon.

Food and Restaurants Food is extremely poor, both in quality and hygiene. Most options are local/Arab style dishes, with very little choice for international guests. The “fresh pizza” is worse than a frozen supermarket pizza. Queues of 30 people at the grill are normal and can take more than 10 minutes. The restaurant is uncomfortably hot because ovens are inside the dining area and the air conditioning is weak. Breakfast is particularly bad: only instant powder coffee (Nescafé), no espresso, no americano, no filter coffee. Machines are switched off outside breakfast hours, and the bar serves the same instant coffee. Wine is limited to two types (red and white), served at room temperature. One waiter even tried to put ice in my wine glass. You can only get one glass at a time, never a bottle for the table. Plates, glasses and cutlery are constantly missing, and staff only provide better service to guests who tip them. I saw hygiene issues that in Europe would immediately close the restaurant.

Bars and Drinks The pool bar is dreadful: staff are rude, sarcastic and make fun of guests. Asking for a drink is unpleasant. Water is only available at bars, never in the rooms. Sparkling water is rationed, often refused in bottles and only given in glasses. The beach bar is a shabby hut with just one staff member, no shade, and you queue under burning sun.

Pool and Beach The swimming pool looks neglected, with countless small particles floating as if filters have not been used in years. There are too few sunbeds, and I saw staff reserving spaces for guests who tipped them. If you don’t tip, you are left without a place. When no sunbeds are free, you have to lie on the grass around the hotel, if you manage to find a spot. The beach is dirty, full of seaweed and even camel droppings. Camel sellers are constantly on the shoreline pushing rides. The sea water is warm but often smells strongly of sulphur. Showers and foot washes to clean off sand are limited (only 2 of each) and sometimes not working.

Facilities and Services There is no secure luggage storage: bags are simply left by the reception door. The spa is hidden, always empty, and no staff explained how it worked. The second restaurant (open until 2 a.m.) had cockroaches in the outdoor seating area because it is near the beach fence.

Entertainment Entertainment is almost non-existent, reduced to a few exercises in the pool.

Summary Occidental Marco Polo may call itself a 4-star hotel, but in reality it fails to provide even the basics:

Poor food, unsafe hygiene and disorganisation in the restaurant.

Dirty pool and beach, bad smell in the sea water.

Rude and unprofessional bar staff.

Tipping culture everywhere – better service only if you pay extra.

Inadequate facilities (sunbeds, showers, luggage storage).

Apart from a quick check-in and working A/C in the room, everything else was a disappointment. If you expect comfort, service and a relaxing holiday, I strongly advise you to avoid this hotel. Definitely not recommended.

translated...

We arrived and all had to spend many hours trying to get satisfactory rooms my room was not even made up, no towels, beds clearly just vacated, no toilet rolls or hangers and the safe not secured in the unit so it could easily be picked up and removed! We had requested rooms with pool/sea views and asked for our son’s to be in separate rooms near ours, they were housed in a separate block and did not have the pool/sea view, we eventually got them moved a week later! Lots of days we had no towels in our room also.

The hotel was full of Algerian guests who were very rude, intimidating, and it made it impossible to get seated in the restaurant and they took all the food they could which then got wasted, they pushed into all the queues, and were aggressive, they actually even had fights with each other! We could not even get plates let alone food, the queues were ridiculous, the mess was unbelievable the staff tried hard but clearly there were not enough staff to deal with it, they chanted when they could not get what they wanted which was awful to witness. They took platefuls of food out of the restaurant and left them with food on in the very hot stairwells, the floors everywhere were filthy. The food was diabolical it was never like that previously, we had to eat out at a considerable extra expense to us! The hotel manager was informed she came witnessed the havoc and ran out when they were fighting, we also reported it to the TUI rep.

All the lifts bar one were broke the whole time we were there and all public toilets were so disgusting the floor covered in urine & Pooh they were unusable.

We had our own towels, flip flops, a watch, a ring and money stolen in our group of 14 some of the party spent hours at the police station and the cctv cameras were not working to help us catch the thief’s this is a serious safety issue.

One Male Algerian was out cold on the stairwell which was witnessed by our sons then in the morning we were told one of them had died. We witnessed a very young girl who drowned in the pool no one on life guard duty no one knew what to do, three Algerian men carried her to the reception desk and placed her on it, which was horrific and very upsetting to witness, an ambulance arrived to take her away. Then another lady collapsed was dragged out of the pool, again clearly no one knew what to do! This surely is a serious health & safety issue.

We spent so many hours with the TUI rep, instead of having a holiday, he offered to move us to another hotel as he had already done with others, but as we were joined by some other friends who flew in later on we did not want to leave them and the reviews on the other hotel were not good and after checking with some of my Tunisian friends they told me that was also full of Algerians, so we decided to stay and we were told the hotel was going down to a 500 occupancy, which it did for a few days then it went way back up and the havoc continued.

The animation team was three people normally it 10+ but management will not I was told employ anymore so the entertainment was awful, the staff are not to be blamed, they tried hard but with so few it was very difficult for them to entertain us, all the staff in the hotel are very unhappy and we really felt for them but it spoilt our experience, we know so many of them having been to the hotel 3/4 times.

The whole holiday was a massive disappointment, many tears were shed, lots of people ate in there rooms because they were actually scared and we had to fork out a lot of money to enable us to be able to eat. 7 people in our party were ill with diarrhoea and some since returning home are still ill and have not been able to return...

Let's go for a detailed review that I hope would catch the attention of the concerned people:

The hotel infrastructure: is good, with spacious and comfortable rooms with large balcony and beautiful terraces outside the reception, restaurant and snack restaurant. A very big swimming pool but you need to come by night or early morning to "book" your seats and sun umbrella, otherwise you'd find yourself installed one of the trees to avoid the burning sun. Information about available services/Orientation: Nobody will inform you about anything, unless you ask for it or you guess by your own. We guessed the snack area on the 3rd day. We found out there was a space and small pool for kids on the 3rd day! The Personnel: we can easily understand that the waiters, barmen and receptionists are either not trained for the positions they're assigned to or are seasonal workers hired for the occasion. The only kind and smiling person we met is the room maid and the manager! * I send a special review to the lady working day shift in the reception to let her know that if I were the manager, she would've been doing dishes in kitchen backroom! Every time you go to see her for information or a claim, you feel like you are begging for something. The rest of the personnel work with coins (tips). If you do not tip, you do not receive the attention you need! It is as simple as that. Safety: I was wondering how could a 4 star Hotel not having an evacuation plan displayed somewhere everyone can see it, on each room door, in the corridors or in the elevators (I guessed where the muster point is while leaving the hotel for a walk). Total absence of safety signs, slippery hazard, fire, hot surfaces...etc nothing...nowhere. My daughter has been bitten by a cat in the restaurant terrace and once at the reception, the lady sprayed some alcohol on her hand, after what I understood that that was the only thing available in the first aid box. Facilities and services: No Air Conditioning in the reception and it is barely cool in the restaurant room (we eat in the terrace). The biggest scoop is that there's NO WI-IFI in the rooms! The reception inform us that we have to come down to reception if we want Wi-Fi connection. Animation at night is absent, as far as I'm concerned. You can attend some animation at the pool during the day with music, dancing and exercise. Maintenance: I spent the 3 first days claiming about the liquid soap disposer that is leaking all the time and leaving the area next to the washing basin full of soap with our belongings spoiled (see picture). I personally fixed it and did the same thing for the clogged washing basin! (see picture) The receptionists take note every time but nobody comes to fix the issues. I claimed for the safe code but the guy they sent had no idea how it works, so we had to hide our belongings somewhere in the room lol The Food: the food is served in wide varieties on self service but there's a dominance of the local specialties with hot sauces but it is quite acceptable. If you drink alcohol, I'd advise you to add this to your all inclusive package as it is quite expensive to buy on need. I have even been requested to pay a glace of wine that I asked during my meals.

Besides the forgoing, the hotel offers good relaxing and enjoyable spaces, including the big pool, a beautiful and peaceful private beach.

NB: There is no airport fleet to take you to the hotel, so you will need to negotiate with a taxi the price of the 1 hour and half ride to the hotel and back. It cost us 80...