El Mouradi Cap Mahdia Hotel — Hotel in Maghreb

Booked this as a cheap last minute holiday, aware of the previous negative reviews but it was cheaper than most so what the hell.

First off, without dramatics, I would not recommend this hotel to anyone. It is my second visit to Tunisia and likely last. Even being cheaper than most, it is not worth the money. The staff in all areas are unfriendly and even the animation staff seem to not want to be there, often all staff on their phones ignoring their job. The all inclusive is barely all inclusive, more like full board with extras. Any women in your party will likely feel uncomfortable and unsafe, with staff constantly trying to touch and hit on them, staring at them and using your personal information provided to message through WhatsApp.

Drinks: Water is only available at lunch and dinner, otherwise it is in the lobby from a water cooler. All drinks are served in a water cooler sized cup, and the bar staff are very unfriendly. Queuing is non existent at this hotel, bar staff serve who they want when they want, and the bars are far away from everything so you will likely only have 1 drink an hour if that. I mainly stuck to non alcoholic drinks as no cocktails are included in the all inclusive, and even then I didnt feel the time it takes to get a drink and the amount given is worth the hassle of getting one.

Food: The food was barely passable, I personally got lightly ill early on, there is no sign of food hygeine and safety at the hotel. Staff will offer 'mysterious treats' that they will not tell what they are when pushed for information, turned out to be nuts which luckily I wasnt allergic. The food at lunch and dinner do not have descriptions. What may seem like plain rice will have random meats in that usually get picked by national guests, so other than the salad selection, nothing else could be trusted to be vegetarian or vegan. National guests use their hands to scoop food from the containers, I even saw a guest taste the food from the serving spoon and put it back, and the staff do not care and just ignore all problems. The food often has no taste and just looks decent. The dining area itself is outside, which becomes a problem with flies, birds, and wind. Have to walk outside to get to it, which unfortunately there was a couple of rainy days which meant that dining was very difficult with rain and wind spoiling the meal.

Beach: The only saving grace of the hotel, however all hotels in tunisia with a beach area has roughly the same standard. It is swept daily to ensure the sand is nice, the water is crystal clear and able to be stood on all the way out up to the rope. The odd jelly fish will appear but generally they are easy to sea. Lots of fish swimming that can be seen from snorkeling. Lot of local sellers trying to get your attention and will not leave you alone, with animation staff sometimes trying to help them sell as the sellers themselves are not allowed to come directly to you to bother you.

Animation/entertainment:

The entertainment was generally the same thing with different spin on it each night, animation team dancing to some extent. Not really worth seeing but nothing else to do. The nightly entertainment is at an outside amphitheater so expect bug bites and uncomfortable stone seating, only benefit being you wont be disturbed in your room

Hotel itself:

The hotel has 0 accessibility aid. Steps down into the lobby, pool doors, steps up to all rooms with no lift option. Staff were often helpful in lifting wheelchair users up stairs and giving aid when needed, only tome they seemed to be helpful. Checkin will often be stressful, with it being from 2pm but no rooms will be available until 5pm onwards. The reception have a major communication issue and are all very unpleasant. It is the areanin the hotel with the most workers and is the least efficient. They will argue with each other in front of you and demand things from you that you may not have, and then say you need it to check in, but then after a while will check...

Honest review; the pictures look amazing, don’t be fooled! ||Reception: rude staff (except one young girl) the reception staff couldn’t care less. WiFi only available in reception - all doors open so no air conditioning working! ||Rooms: had to change rooms due to broken shower, no water, leaking sink, however they didn’t accommodate this until after 3 nights as they claimed they were full, very dated, no fridge, terrible lumpy pillows, 1970s TV that didn’t work, I wouldn’t bother with a TV if replace them with a fridge! You can hire a fridge if wanted! No tea or coffee making facilities, no room service, no telephone - all available as stated in their brochure. Maid service shocking, seems they’re instructed to clean rooms ready for arrival and not the guests staying there - keep your towels, you will be lucky to get them returned - 4 of us constantly given 3 towels if we were lucky - one night I had to wait at reception for 45 minutes trying to get towels this went on until 8pm!||Grounds: with the exception of the “vine walkway” from the hotel to the pool the grounds are not looked after. This could be beautiful - but the gardens are dry and arid, not looked after. ||Breakfast area: cockroach on wall - yes I know we are in Tunisia but have a sweep of your restaurant before you open for service. Told the staff and they laughed.|Omelette - ordered 2 mixed and tried to order 2 plain for my children - told to go to the back of the queue as I’d already ordered 2! Very basic breakfast and weirdly no toaster or bread? Just baguettes?||Main restaurant: shocking ! Dirty tables, not enough bottled water for everyone, chipped glasses and crockery, consistently running out of food, raw chicken served off the hot griddle, however the pizza man NEVER stopped - the most hardworking chef there - praise to him! Why he was working alone baffled me - there needed to be at least 2 chefs there ! Very polite hardworking chef. Melon bar was brilliant at lunchtimes, again another really busy chef ! ||French restaurant: (if that is what it was?) non existent - used as an area to house the beach and pool DJ - some days the music was so loud when we came off the beach we couldn’t sit and enjoy a drink before getting showered. ||Pool and bar area: dirty pool, dirty area around the pool and patio area, dirty tables, broken sunbeds, and the bar area left a lot to be desired, hand washed glasses but the pool bar lads worked relentlessly - another credit to the hotel - the bar lads. The poolside toilets were disgusting at times - clearly need a cleaner doing half hourly checks. ||Entertainment team: great lads trying their best, good fun with various games if you wanted to join in, very friendly lads. “Fatty” the tea man - very friendly, always happy singing his “we like to move it” song - another credit to the hotel.||Beach: beach umbrellas falling apart but did the trick, broken sunbeds, we managed to always get nice sunbeds but only because we were up on the beach early. Security was ok, moved people on when they sat on our beach area, but not always. The beach was beautiful but slowly being ruined by people taking all the beautiful shells and people leaving their cigarette ends !||The staff mentioned that I have credited to the hotel are purely because they are good members of staff and not because the hotel have trained them. If it wasn’t for these staff members this would be a dire place! ||Honestly - in summary - if it wasn’t for the beach and these staff members I would have insisted we move to another hotel. This hotel needs major capital invested as it has the potential...

On checking in room not ready, check in is 12 ish and we got our room around 4 ish. As you go through the main doors we stayed on the left hand side of the building, whereas you could hear a disco keeping us awake sometimes until 4am, in all fairness some music played was ok. The rooms i have posted some pics to let you make up youre own mind. The beds you get a main over cover and a cover you have to make youre own bed with, yes it was square folded and left in the middle of the bed. The room service was at best poor, due to having to chase down toilet rolls, spare blankets from the maids you see on the corridors but never seem to come to youre room. Saying that we dont mind keeping our room tidy, its the fact reception tell you to find a maid from house keeping if you need bed covers and toilet rolls 🤔....dont think reception knew i had paid for small things in my reservation...heyho 😁 Towels get collected early so dont have a lie in past 9.30 am or you cant have a wash, they do come back around 6pm sometimes lol...we started with 2 big towels, 2 medium size towels and 2 hand towels, day 3 we got 2 medium towels and 1 hand towel. We knew by now to just go with it as we where fed up of asking reception to be told to find a house keeper, oh goodtip if you see the maids trolley knick some loo rolls out of the bin bag she has stored on her trolley 🫣. Beer as in spirits runs out frequently around 10pm, so do glasses which are washed early for the next day,so its served in them plastic glasses you cant pick up with out squeezing all the beer out. Meals and breakfast Breakfast is missing just a basic appliance called a toaster and what i must not of paid for in my holiday booking, "butter" if only that toaster existed i could of said breakfast would be worth having... Snacks are crepes with choclate served at the pool bar and pizza served cold near the main bar in reception. Now its a northern thing,its called dinner and tea lol, not lunch or brunch 🤣. Personally i walked in to both then back out and used an app called glovo...great pizza and burger delivery... The loungers by the pool and sea dont come with the mattress, but its only 4 dinar a day too hire 2...they call them mattlesses..😄 Beach is well kept and the sea is warm, the pool is also kept clean and tidy. From airport in enfhida to mahdia cap its approx 2 and a half hours trip. One more thing in our room on arrival, we didnt have a tele, too which the receptionist did sort out i think i have uploaded a pic, which took us 2 days too figure out it needed a finger and/or a broom stick to change channels.. Wont be coming here again as it has no good points...But thats only...