Hôtel Royal Azur Thalassa — Hotel in Maghreb

We would rate our stay at this hotel as average. Due to various inconveniences, inconsistencies, and the overall level of service, we would not recommend this resort for a longer holiday. In our opinion, the hotel is primarily oriented towards local guests, who seem to be given preference and are treated differently compared to visitors from Europe.||All necessary information and detailed evaluations are provided in the individual sections of this review. I recommend reading the entire review for a comprehensive overview, especially if you are considering staying at this hotel.||Accommodation:|The hotel is generally very nice, with plenty of sofas and armchairs in the interior, especially near the bar, providing a comfortable place to relax. We particularly appreciated the outdoor seating areas under the palm trees, as well as the abundance of plants, trees, and flowers around the hotel grounds.||Our room was, to be honest, quite average, and the cleanliness of the bathroom was below expectations. However, considering this is Tunisia and the standards are likely lower than in Europe, we tried to be understanding. Our room was located on the -1 floor with a view of the trees—not spectacular, but that didn’t bother us, as we don’t prioritize sea views on this type of holiday. For us, the quality of services, the beach, food, and relaxation are more important.||A few days into our stay, water started dripping from the ceiling (from the air conditioning) onto the floor. We reported this to the hotel, and although a repairman came to fix it, he was unsuccessful, so we had to deal with water dripping onto the floor for the rest of our stay. We were also disappointed that toilet paper and towels were not replenished daily or in the same quantities; sometimes we had to ask for fresh towels or toilet paper when they ran out. We don’t think such issues should occur in a 5-star resort, especially at this price point.||We also noticed that the cleaning staff were much more attentive and efficient when we left them a tip. If we didn’t leave money, the room was not cleaned as thoroughly. While we understand this is common practice, in a so-called "luxury" resort, guests should expect consistent service regardless of tipping.||Dining / Food:|The food was varied and tasty, with something for everyone. The hotel makes an effort to cater to guests from different cultures and parts of the world. There was always plenty of food, and it was regularly replenished. Occasionally, some of the vegetables in the salads didn’t seem completely fresh, but overall, we had no major complaints about the food.||However, our overall impression of the dining experience was negatively affected by the inappropriate behavior of some chefs and waiters towards young women. We observed several times that staff would give special attention to women dining alone or in groups, often flirting or prioritizing their service.||A particularly unpleasant incident occurred two days before our departure: a chef waited until I left my girlfriend alone at the table during dinner and then began flirting with her and giving her compliments, making her very uncomfortable. He even admitted he waited for me to leave so he could speak to her privately. When I confronted him, he became defensive, raised his voice in front of other guests, and verbally attacked me, saying that if I had something to discuss, I should speak to him directly and not look at him. We consider this behavior completely unacceptable for hotel staff, especially in a resort of this standard. As we were about to leave, we decided not to escalate the situation further, but we feel it is important to mention.||Hotel Services:|We would rate the hotel services as average. We did not participate in any special activities, nor were any offered to us, except for two performances on Fridays and daily live music by local musicians near the pool area. Otherwise, there was not much else in terms of entertainment.||The reception staff were always available and ready to provide any basic information we needed. We had only positive experiences with them and always managed to communicate and find solutions. We appreciated the currency exchange and ATM available at the hotel (although the ATM was reportedly out of order during our stay), with a good exchange rate (EUR-TND).||There is also a billiards table in the hotel, but be aware that each game costs 1 TND, which is difficult to obtain—even the reception and currency exchange desk rarely had coins.||Most hotel staff (except at reception) communicate primarily in German, French, or Arabic. Their English is very basic, so if you do not speak German, it can be challenging to communicate in English (it is possible, but sometimes difficult to explain what you need).||Beach:|We were pleasantly surprised by the beach. The entire section belonging to Royal Azur and Bel Azur (the neighboring hotel in the same complex) was clean, well-maintained, beautiful, and spacious. The sunbeds under the umbrellas were comfortable and soft—we have no complaints about the beach at all.||For about half of our stay (5 days), the sea near the shore was not very clean and was a bit wavy, but this is beyond the hotel's control and does not affect our rating of the resort.||A tip for future guests: If you want to go to the beach or pool during the day, it’s best to reserve your sunbeds early in the morning. When we arrived at 9:30 am, there were no sunbeds left. It’s not ideal, but we expected this in...

I have so much to say. I hope these comments will be relayed to staff - from Jo and Davie the Scottish couple. |The Royal Azur is beautiful, interiors + grounds. Several pools, large and clean. More loungers + parasols would be better though to avoid having to get up early to get a space - there is plenty of room for more. Take your own towels. Infinity pool esp lovely. Our suite large + clean. The whole hotel, every space, clean and well-maintained. Food was abs lovely. A real attempt at variety every day - high standard of meals. All-inclusive very good value for us. Only dined out twice for a treat. |The hotel must start labelling more of what's on offer. The majority of the food is unlabelled so we didn't try a lot - especially the Tunisian dishes. These days people expect labelling - they need to know what's in things. It would have made things even better to have been able to sample more North African cuisine. |Alcohol available on AI good, although the cocktails are weak, alcohol content wise, for the trained drinker lol. But local wine and beer nice and the spirits fine. Plenty of space for meals - air conditioned inside, beautiful terrace outside. Inside and outside sitting areas lovely and comfortable. The hotel has 2 sister establishments you can access too - the Royal Azur definitely the nicest. The real star of the show is the staff. They work their socks off to please their guests and 99% are well-trained, helpful and obliging. The pool serving staff less friendly, a bit grumpy, but then they work outside in the blazing heat all day, making millions of cocktails, so I don't blame them. Firstly, the reception staff. First class. Mohammed the tourist customer service chap is brilliant. Helpful and with a good sense of humour. The inside cocktail bar guys are lovely. All the waiters in the restaurant are brilliant. The cleaners are very friendly and hardworking. Overall, all staff are well-trained and almost all committed to doing a good job taking care of their guests. I hope management reading this will relay all of this. Your staff are a credit to you. |I recommend people tipping the staff. A 10 dinar note is worth £2.50, and so appreciated. They work really hard, try hard, do not earn much. We tipped staff who treated us well, and I could see how much they appreciated it. Yes, it's a high-class hotel and we don't generally tip in the UK apart from in restaurants, but they really do deserve it. Their smiles of gratitude were worth a few £2.50s. |If you're interested in loads of entertainment, you'll not find it here. But most evenings there is lovely live music, absolutely fitting for this hotel. There aren't loads of kids, it's mostly for adults, and quite quiet but still really nice. This isn't the place for partying but that suited us fine.|You can get cheap taxi rides into town - the hotel will arrange. They're rickety but very cheap and the drivers friendly. We tipped - again, £2.50 not much to us. |Hammamet is a well-established tourist town with a beautiful bay in the centre. Lots of nice wee places to eat and the Medina. So, yes, the Medina. In my guide book, the author states Hammamet is not pleasant to shop as a tourist. He especially highlights the Medina as being full of aggressive traders who really strongarm. This is sadly true. We bought souvenirs from our hotel shop as a result. We've been to Tunisia 5 times and the Medina here is the worst we've seen for hassle. Nabeul is suggested as being better, but fixed price shops in hotels were fine for us. |The scam is that con artists see you wearing the AI band from your hotel and can work out which one it is. We were taken in by a guy saying he'd seen us in the Royal Azur where he worked. He wanted to show us around. Then to his "Mother's" shop. His mother was an aggressive, large bloke who was quite intimidating. We wised up, and I dragged my husband out, with the guy shouting after us. Luckily we bought nothing and learned. The same thing happened again - and even with bands hidden we were still approached. The TUI rep played it all down, but we have been coming to Tunisia since the 80s and the Medina in Hammamet is the least pleasant we've seen. And would be especially intimidating for youngsters unused to this sort of environment.|Nice restaurants to dine in - La Bella Marina and La Barberousse. Expensive but still value for money to UK people. Lovely places where you need to book in advance. ||We had a brilliant holiday in the Royal Azur in Hammamet. Even as a top class place it's still good value at the height of the season compared to other Mediterranean countries and hotels. Tunisians are so friendly and welcoming. We loved it, as will...

This is not a 5* hotel. Visited May 2023. Start of the summer/high season.

The hotel is obviously trying to cut costs and in doing so, makes it a 3* hotel at best.

Facilities it claims to have, it doesn't...

There aren't 4 restaurants and 4 bars, there's no bar around the pool or at the beach as advertised, no sky bar either, just seating but the area does have a lovely sea view. We did not see a gym or golf that they advertise. Poor signage and no resort map, nor did reception mention any of these were available. Limited evening entertainment, however 2 evenings we had an excellent duo singing and playing guitar, we loved them! No air con in rooms!! Apparently it will be on next month though. Laughable when rooms are 26+°. No mini bar in rooms as advertised, it's just an empty fridge and if you enquire about this, you'll maybe receive one bottle of water if lucky. There is no snack bar or restaurant as advertised for all inclusive guests. Poor wifi in rooms.

There are no 'beach bungalows', these are standard rooms in a separate hotel block by the beach. Note there are a number of steps to this block. If on the second floor you will hear the constant banging, grinding and pumping of water from the indoor pool above. Broken light constantly flickering on stairs. My room door dragged along the floor and made a loud screeching noise each time it was opened and closed. Pros:Clean, good view, comfy bed and 2 USB charging ports.

Communal toilets are dirty, lack toilet paper and hand soap. Especially the pool side toilets, several days before this was cleaned. Pool lifeguards only provide towels to french speaking guests.

Reception staff are not welcoming or friendly and unhelpful. First impressions count, the reception staff really need some customer service training from the other staff in the hotel who are so friendly and work so hard!

Currency exchange staff don't give the rate stated on the screen and take extra for themselves!

Buffet restaurant food is ok, limited. Be aware often the chicken is raw, not fully cooked and is pink, there are bones in the fish too! Dishes are often missing cards to say what the dish is or wrongly labeled vegetarian dishes when they clearly contain meat. Not so good was a particular staff member, pizza oven area, made me feel uncomfortable. Also distasteful behaviour from a manager, shouting at and belittling staff in the middle of the restaurant. Horrible.

Most staff provide excellent service in the buffet restaurant and actually, the desserts are very good!

The Tunisian a la carte restaurant has to be booked a day ahead. The service here is terrible. Lady outside at the stand only shows french speaking guests to their tables. Food served here is also served in the buffet restaurant, nothing special. The room decor is lovely, everything else is not.

All inclusive states snacks are included, these aren't available. Also if you arrive outside of the buffet meal times, reception advise you have to pay for room service food!

Cocktails in the bar are hit and miss. No prosecco included in all inclusive. Soft drinks aren't on tap but in 1.5lt bottles and so when served, are not always cold.

No entertainment or activities for children.

Excellent staff are Yassine (the one who wears glasses) he's very professional and friendly, Hela is lovely, Lotfi and Karim in the buffet restaurant. Bar men Rafiq and Adel. Lobna, perfectly made up room daily, she was so chatty and friendly.

The hotel needs to pay attention to detail, especially service from reception staff and available facilities. Although there are dirty toilet facilities, it is otherwise a clean hotel and has had a fresh coat of paint in most areas. Yes it has amazing views and decor, around the pool is beautiful especially at night but this can only take the hotel so far. The hotel can't claim it has x, y and z if they don't exist and aren't available!

A very...