Menara Hotel — Hotel in Maghreb

We booked this venue through Thomas Cook as we preferred to be very close to the beach and their online details showed a picture of what appeared to be a nice venue overlooking lovely beach/sea views. But as it happened the beach was a long walk from the hotel and the nice "on-the-beach-venue " wasn't there. However, when I queried it with the lady behind reception, she seemed to think that the "pop-up" beach venue was only there in the summer...Such a great shame !||The Hotel:|It's a nice looking venue and first impressions on entry was a definite "wow".. the little fountain area in the lobby is impressive and there was plenty of seating all around. We received a friendly welcome, and after the formalities we were given our room cards for our room on the second floor close to the lift as requested.||Bedroom and bathroom:|The room was a little on the small side, but impeccably clean. We needed to speak with reception about something, and luckily there was a phone on the bedside table... but dear readers, when, after pressing various buttons, the phone was just silent! So we moved the bedside table to see if it was actually plugged in... and all we saw was a bundle of wires sticking out of the wall and NONE into the phone. 😂🤣... no wonder it wasn't working!|So we went downstairs to mention it and the next thing we knew when we returned to our room, was that reception had sent up the maintenance guy who was only holding another phone in his hand, also without a lead ...which of course was of no use whatsoever... we showed him the wires hanging from the wall and I'm sure he must have understood as he seemed a little embarrassed by the whole silly situation! Think Faulty Towers! It was like a comedy sketch.... and we'd only just arrived! What would be next 😅|The bed was comfortable and came with lumpy pillows - which actually surprisingly enough were also comfy to sleep on.||Bathroom:|Immaculately clean! No nasty fingermarks on the mirror, and we had the usual bathroom condiments with lovely smelling shower gel and shampoo. There was a walk-in shower as opposed to a shower over a bath, which was great. It had good pressure and the water was always lovely and hot.. it was a pure joy to stand under especially seeing that it was cold.. (still low season) but I didn't expect it to be that cool! |The lovely lady who made the bed and cleaned our room each day was a darling! She said her name was Hazel (not sure if I heard her right but it sounded like it..) not particularly Arabic but nevertheless we were able to communicate with each other. And extra special hugs with many "Shukrans" when she decorated our bed with flower petals... such a kind gesture and so so appreciated. ||Restaurant:|Plenty room all round with a help-yourself-style buffet for breakfast, lunch and dinner. All the staff behind the buffet and waiters were incredibly helpful and courteous. One tall helpful lovely waiter in a white shirt, whose name I have completely forgotten I'm ashamed to say, decorated our table with gorgeous hibiscus flowers and bougainvillea flower petals. Again many appreciated Shukrans all round.||Wines: (🙀)|We ordered a bottle of red wine with dinner the first night which we didn't expect to be super good, but I have to admit that is was really nice and a lovely surprise - so much so that we ordered another bottle of the same quality the following night (the only choices were red, white or rose) On another night the waiter came back with a clear glass bottle the contents of which looked more like rose rather than deep red, and when we tried it it tasted like vinegar, it was truly awful. Not even remotely palatable, so it got sent back and subsequently replaced with a bottle exactly the same, which was also immediately sent back after tasting. We then asked if they had a bottle of what we had before we were told that this was all they had.. The ONLY red wine was the old vinegar tasting stuff.. So, the next available option was to go for a bottle of rose, which when it arrived had a darkish peachy colour and tasted quite nice also. |So far so good, or so we thought. The following night we asked for the same rose, but his time the colour was very pale, and in our opinion it very much tasted like it had been watered down.. Anyway.. this pale coloured non tasting liquid was, needless to say, also returned to where it came from.. and what they did with it behind the bar is anyone's guess...However, it was subsequently replaced with another bottle of the same label which luckily tasted completely different and more like the wine of the previous night - it also had a much better colour. So! Sadly to say... not great on the wine front.. seemed like they just wanted to get rid of some old wine that had been lying around to their all inclusive European clients.. Impressed?? ||Hammam:|In need of intense refurbishment, the toilet was broken in that it didn't flush, the inside of the steam room had black mould on the walls and ceilings with paint flaking off. The sauna with broken slats of wood on the floor. I have to say that the mould worried me.. hoping that I wouldn't become ill |Nala was lovely, she is clearly good at her job and we both enjoyed our pamper time - just such a shame the place was so run down.||Day trips:|Instead of going on a so-called organised activity trip (as hawked on an irritatingly daily basis by a person who has great difficulty in understanding what "No thank you" means ) you can have your own driver who will take you wherever you want, which is what we did|His name is; Chaaben khedira Gerant he's on FB and is a pleasant helpful guy and speaks good English ||Negative bits:|Outside by the pool/conference room area towards the entrance to the indoor pool and hammam, there are so many places that need to be deep cleaned, maintained, painted and refurbished, some of the sun beds need to be renewed as they were broken, and all of them can do with a good scrub. Basically attention to detail is needed ||Changing currency: Beware!!|We were advised on the bus that if anyone needed to change money to do so at a bank. However, on the day we arrived we were given a lift into to town by a member of the hotel staff, as we needed to find a bank to get some cash to buy some supplies (he actually very kindly paid for our little bit of shopping) and said that they could help with us with Dinars at reception.. Cut a long story short, we did exchange some Euros to Dinars with the lady at reception but when it came to changing our remaining Dinars back to Euros on the day of our departure, it seemed all of a sudden not to be at all possible for some reason only known to her. It would have been a simple exchange, nothing difficult about it but the lady at reception whose name begins with H was adamant and totally refused to help. Instead she assured us that our Dinars could be changed at the airport on presentation of a passport. When I mentioned about needing an official receipt - she said that this wasn't the case, but that showing a passport would suffice. WRONG!!|End of story - at the aiport the currency exchange refused any dealings |So the Dinars were spent in the touristy shop a few feet away ..what an excellent place to have a shop!!.|❗️So readers, please beware!! change money ONLY at a bank and obtain a receipt which you WILL need if you need to change Dinars back to your own currency!!||Would we come back to MENARA Hotel on a future occasion?|No, I don't think so, although we enjoyed our little break and a change of scenery there are other places to explore. But a big thank you to all restaurant and buffet staff especially Karima, Didi behind the bar and "Hazel" the lady who...

We liked this hotel at the start of our holiday however as the week went on our opinion slowly changed. The staff were helpful and done what they could to help however, the male staff would either talk down their nose to female guests or if there were women without a male with them then they would harrass them even when the guests clearly look uncomfortable. We witness one of the "entertainment" staff follow two young girls (around 16 years old) from the table tennis, to the crazy golf and back to their loungers when they clearly wanted him to leave them alone.

The WiFi is awful and only available in the reception lobby so there was always groups of people sitting in reception on their laptops/phones to watch movies etc which in my opinion, looks bad on the hotel when the lobby is packed with people sitting there with headphones in and screens right in front of them.

The "entertainment" was awful, we had the choice of bingo 3/6 nights or darts. The music for the disco was horrendous and very dated, we've never witnessed a disco empty so fast. The drink selection behind the bar was very limited and to be honest, we weren't sure what we were even drinking most of the time. We witnessed the bar manager on several occasions pouring liquid from a unlabeled bottle into the "vodka" or "gin" which definitely didn't taste like vodka or gin. The beers were poured into plastic cups rather than pint or half pint glasses so it would just go flat.

The hotel didn't have half of the stuff advertised online. No heated pool, no pool bar, no beach bar and when we asked about the activities there was only 2 which was crazy golf or tennis. The grass was overgrown around the golf and the tennis court is very poorly maintained. The fact that there was no beach bar was very disappointing, the season starts in March and all the other beach bars were open however we weren't allowed to access them because they were linked to other hotels.

All the local bars we were told about by staff looked like they hadn't been open once this year which to us shows that that have no knowledge of the entertainment/nightlife outside of the hotel. We couldn't fault the food at the hotel, my boyfriend who's fussy found something at every meal to eat, until he got food poisoning the last 3 days of our holiday.

There were ants and cockroaches everywhere, which I understand can be hard to deal with but it's not pleasant to wake up and have ants all over the bed or all over the dining tables as you eat. The waiters would bring flowers in from outside to decorate the dining tables which would bring in insects.

The curtains in our room were stained and holed, the balcony hadn't been cleaned when we first arrived and was filthy. The pillows were lumpy and there was no duvet covers. There was only one plug socket in the room. The air-conditioning was very poor so the room was often very warm.

We definitely will not be staying at this hotel again. It's not worth the...

I visited Hotel Menara from 14th-24th June as an English traveller. Most people speak French and arabic however they did speak English to a good standard. They try very hard! Met lots of lovely people the general vibe in the hotel is very relaxed and friendly. ||The animation team are amazing, there are activities to do in the morning, afternoon and evening for people all ages. They are very friendly and make your stay very enjoyable. Some examples include, aqua gym/aerobics, water polo, stretching/yoga, darts, bowls, bingo, disco and more.||The food in the hotel is really good. They serve pizza, pasta, chips, potatoes, beef, chicken with a range of different flavourings. They also offer snacks throughout the day such as chicken nuggets, pizza, crepes, mini sandwiches and more. The servers are lovely also||All inclusive drinks are good, I do not drink alcohol however I noticed you can get cocktails, lager, gin, whisky, soft drinks (however sugar free are limited or non-existent) 500ml and 1.5L bottles of water.||The hotel wifi is great, no issues throughout the whole stay and it reached our room on the second floor. We purchased a Tunisian sim card from the airport upon arrival so we could get mobile data signal outside of the hotel however if you are staying in the hotel most of the time this is not essential.||There is a shop right outside the hotel and there are also taxis always parked outside the hotel to take you to places for days out. The shopkeepers take card also. There is an ATM nearby to withdraw Dinar from if you don’t manage to exchange in the airport. The shopkeepers were very helpful in showing us where this ATM was.||The swimming pool is great and is open all day, a lifeguard is present between 10 and 6pm which is reassuring.||There is also a activités representative in the hotel that you can book things to do such as camel rides, pirate ship boat ride, quad bikes and more. You need dinar to pay for this and It was roughly 100 dinar per person for an activity.||There is a lift in this hotel and ramps for anyone with accessibility requirements.||||I Travelled with my cousin for 10 days- But when we arrived we were given a double room which we didn’t realise we had booked so we asked reception so swap to a twin room and they were very helpful. However I am only giving it 4 starts because the second room had no aircon, we could’ve asked for it to be fixed but didn’t see the point as it was not in the peak of summer yet. Also the keycards stop working easily so we had to go to reception a lot to get it fixed. This is a very good standard 4 star hotel and I would recommend to anyone wanting a relaxing simple 4 star...