Houda Yasmine Marina & Spa — Hotel in Maghreb

Ok first off I should warn you that staff here encourage you to write good reviews and on occasion take your phone and try and write reviews for you, so be wary of glowing reviews. This place isn't particularly bad, but you'd find it hard to find anything good about it.

If you are coming planning on playing tennis/basketball at anytime, be aware the court is now a car park. Volleyball court has seen better days When I was here there was no Gym or Pool bar, the place was being refurbished but by the sounds of it the gym closed years ago. Lots of lights don't work and those that do flicker. WiFi kept going down and was very slow, I'd advise going to the shop and getting a local SIM, 10gb for about £10 or 25gb for about £15

Evening entertainment was ok but nothing to write home about I upgraded my room prior to coming and the room didn't seem like an upgrade, toilet constantly flushing, shower was cold for a good couple mins before warming up and is set at such a low hight it was pretty much aiming at my bellybutton. I had two days without towels and after many complaints to reception over the two days I ended up just standing at reception until they actually brought me some. Putting a do not disturb sign on the door and locking it also doesn't seem to work, they still try and come in while you're sleeping, just kept knock on my door and trying to enter

The food was very samey and I'm quoting here, one person turned to their friend look in there it's traumatizing, given I had looked in the pot the day before, I can agree with that statement. I'm a picky eater, there was a couple days where it was all fish, so I ended up having a cheese salad sandwich.

One thing for the management to think about, get atleast another coffee machine in the restaurant, one for potentially 300 people isn't going to cut it when the season kicks off. The waiters worked hard and did the hotel proud, however the guys outside at lunchtime did you a disservice, they bad mouthed guests and openly mocked me at one point

There seemed to be a lot of staff and most slacked off, your be stood by the counter and they'd either be talking, on their phones or just walk off. Fabio was a shining star, I was a solo travelers and if he saw me dining alone, he'd come over a join me, he came and had a chat every day around the pool

Pool was nice, I was the only one in it for most of the holiday, but you're going to need a lot more sunbeds soon, people struggled to get one now and there's hardly anyone here.

The animation team did ok, wasn't many people to join in but the program seemed to be french bowls (the French really hate it when you try and cheat, in a fun way) archery and that's about it every day, even with a "full program" posted of what is going to happen each day.

I came in may before the season really starts and the hotel seemed to struggle with the few people here, if you've booked this hotel already, I'm sorry, hopefully you'll have a nice time but if you haven't already booked, heed my warning, this place is not for a good time, spend a bit more and go somewhere else. I came here as I liked the name, I've been to Tunisia lots of times over the years and this is my second least favourite hotel here.

If I can think of anything else, I'll come back and edit this later to add it in

Hints for management Extra coffee machines Extra salt and pepper shakers for ever table Fix the soft drink dispenser or allow people to get their own soft drinks Allow people to get their own coffee in the evenings As part of the poolside food options include a crêpe and Tunisian donut bit More seats in the bar area at night or better yet, weather permitting, have the entertainment outside where the ping pong table is Fix the netting on the goals and volleyball court, looks tacky Crêpes and donuts should be continuously cooked at breakfast, better to waste a few then have people queuing for 10mins waiting for food Do your maintenance before people start turnimg up, was very bad the few couple days watching people fix...

I don't normally leave long reviews but having seen some negative reviews here which nearly put us off I wanted to share my overwhelmingly positive experience.

The hotel is well presented, all of the staff we dealt with were polite, professional and mostly pretty cheerful - some of the waiting staff were very busy so maybe could have come across less cheerful, but understandable and never rude, always attentive getting drinks and clearing tables etc. The bar staff were absolutely brilliant.

The food seems to be the most contentious issue - we absolutely loved it, but when I go abroad I want to eat local cuisine, that's why I travel. The all inclusive buffet had mostly local dishes, so rice, couscous, tagine etc. Lots of stew type dishes along with things like eggplant / augergine fritters, dauphinoise potatoes, fish, harrissa etc etc etc. A huge amount of selection. There was also a pasta station with a chef on hand to customise your pasta dish, along with a pizza station / baker and a bbq grill with something different every day. Breakfast is a continental style buffet also with pastries / croissants, freshly made flatbread which I'm already missing, and freshly made omlettes & eggs (no western type cereals that I saw and no full English!). I think I may have had 2 meals during my whole visit (1 week) where I came away maybe slightly disappointed, but not enough to complain or come away hungry. Fresh donuts at 4 became a bit of a routine that I'm missing already!!

If you want UK style food such as big cuts of meat, chips, roast dinner, full English breakfast, this is definitely not for you.

All inclusive alcohol: Beer was cold, refreshing, maybe a bit weak but I really liked it and never felt the need to upgrade to Becks which was sold separately. Red wine was good, white was ok if cold, the rose was awful. Gin and tonic - the tonic was Schwepps but it didn't make up for the really bad gin, but the vodka was ok, although very very weak. We mainly stuck to the beer and drank lots of it...

Food & drink aside, the pool was lovely, pool area was clean, we never had a problem finding a sun bed. The animation team (it's not my thing) are all so enthusiastic and friendly it's impossible not to like them, no pressure to join in but those who did seemed to have a great time. Sometimes the music got loud when the animation team were really going for it, but never for long and always at the same times so if you really didn't like it you could just go do something else for 20 min.

The room was great, clean, minimalist but comfortable and quite large. The walk in shower was absolutely brilliant. The only complaints would be some of the lights in the main room didn't work and the bed was 2 twins pushed together instead of a double. The mattresses were on the firm side - I prefer this so I found the bed extremely comfortable.

Location was great, 10 minute walk from the marina or the hotel's section of beach. I've seen people complain about the state of the beach but it was nice when we were there and clean, although the approach to it is through a bit of a scruffy area, but the beach and sea were gorgeous once there. Nice view along to Hammamet.

Hammamet is a 15 Dinar (£4 each way) 20 minute taxi ride away, lovely morning spent in the medina there, definitely recommended.

Enfidha airport transfer took about 40mins.

All in all we really enjoyed our stay and wouldn't hesitate to recommend to others. If anyone reading this has got this far and was staying there at the same time as us and knows Shauna and Steve, and is in touch with them, please point them in the direction of this message - sorry we missed you at the airport, we had to dash to hit the road, but it was lovely meeting you, thanks for making the last day there a lot easier and hope you got back safe,...

In the nicest possible way, you get what you pay for - and it's certainly not a 4 star hotel. FYI I don't understand why others love the animation team as they are a marmite group - I'll explain below.

TLDR: Let's be honest, it's a cheap holiday to a sunny location - and that's what you get. Don't come here if you want a rest, as its not built for that. The reason it got a couple of stars from me is because some of the staff were friendly, it was relatively clean, the Brits we met were lovely, and the animation team (entertainment people) were good at organising events.

Other than that, it's mostly negatives, sadly: The animation team loudly play music during the day round the pool (which isn't great if you want to read a book - even my Bose noise cancelling headphones couldn't handle it) and blast it out in the evening till 11/11.30pm. You won't get an early night and we were very tired some days. We wanted to move rooms as we don't always want the bass thumping at 11pm every night even in our room - the receptionist we spoke to in the evening was lovely and understanding, and requested it for us, but the receptionist in the next morning flatly refused for 2 days in a row until we essentially told them we were moving. The new room wasn't much quieter at all so I can only assume something got lost in translation. Some of animation team are creepy and weirdly flirty - the lowlights include them getting people in swimwear to massage each other's earlobes (!?!) during "water aerobics" and one of them swimming underwater to grab my wife's ankles and then sheepishly leave. Pretty sure that's unacceptable anywhere in the world. The food is okay but very samey, which is okay for a week but any longer and you'll be bored of it. My wife also got food poisoning on one of our final days which was rough. The beach is lovely but this hotel's section is very poorly maintained, with most sun loungers being broken or really bad. It's sad because although some locals are really nice, others are super pushy. We were pestered by various vendors every 10 mins on the beach (no exaggeration), and we basically couldn't walk past a shop without being pestered to go in. Other vendors will jack the price up by 50% or more to try and extract money from you and then claim their price list is outdated. There's 2 or 3 vendors inside the hotel that prowl round the communal areas and pool trying to convince you to spend £100pp for various excursions. It's a bit intense as they try and find you in your first day while you're still finding your feet, and they make a bunch of commission from it. You'll then have to walk past them awkwardly for the rest of your stay and then notice them try and convince others to do it. It's a shame you don't feel 100% relaxed at the hotel even at the pool. The "all inclusive drinks" is a bit of a scam as the drinks are almost flat and the spirits are watered down (didn't have it myself but had multiple people tell me). The soft drinks come in a tiny plastic cup, so you have to keep going up to get more - I can only hope they recycle the cups. The WiFi is very poor so make sure you've downloaded whatever you want before you come

In summary there's some nice people, but only come here if you want a cheap holiday and need to be entertained all hours of the day. Don't come here for a rest.

P.s. There's various scams where a stranger sees your wristband and claims to be the chef at the hotel - avoid it, and probably remove the band you're given on arrival as its an advert...