Monarque El Fatimi Mahdia — Hotel in Maghreb

Unfortunately, this was the worst all-inclusive hotel we’ve ever stayed at.

The location is quite poor - there’s nowhere nearby to go out or explore, so you’re essentially stuck within the hotel grounds.

The food quality was very disappointing. Many salads looked old, there were flies around the buffet, and some meats were undercooked. Nothing was labeled, so it was hard to tell what you were eating. Getting basic items like glasses, plates, or cutlery often felt like a challenge, and there were only a few salt shakers available for the entire restaurant.

Our room experience wasn’t much better. The air conditioning didn’t work, and when we had a power outage, it took around six hours for the staff to fix it. Despite having a TV in the room, we couldn’t even use it because the channel signal was terrible and kept cutting out.

Safety and cleanliness were also a concern. There was broken glass on the restaurant terrace next to the kids’ playground. We reported it to multiple staff members during breakfast, but it was still there by dinner time, so we ended up warning parents ourselves.

The Wi-Fi barely worked - no signal in the room, and only a weak connection near reception. Both the alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks were poor quality: fake spirits and overly artificial soft drinks. The à la carte restaurant was also disappointing - essentially serving reheated buffet food and undercooked beef, with the same menu every time.

There was a horrible smell like sewage or a broken fridge that came from the lobby bar and you can smell it even outside. The snack bar wasn’t great either, though the freshly made pancakes were a nice touch.

On a positive note, some of the waiters and chefs were genuinely kind and hardworking, and the animation team tried their best to entertain guests. However, the program lacked variety - the same music and quizzes every night, mostly aimed at older Czech and Polish guests. The music volume around the main stage and pool area was unnecessarily loud, making it hard to relax during the day.

The beach and pool areas themselves were nice, but if you want a spot, be prepared to get up early - everything was taken by 10 a.m. And be prepared to get constantly harassed by the excursion guys, who won’t leave you alone no matter how many times you say no.

Overall, we left very disappointed and wouldn’t recommend this hotel until significant improvements are made to food hygiene, maintenance, and...

Pros:|The food was great, a lot of variety and tasty things to eat each day. My partner is a food snob and he was satisfied with what was available.||The communal areas were clean and light and the location of the hotel is fabulous on the beach with it's own private section you don't have to pay for a bed. (However, it was about a 3-4hour coach journey from the airport woth all the drop offs in between, so bear that in mind when booking).||The staff were okay, some were friendlier than others, I found that the waiters and bar staff were much more attentive to the Germans and Polish, and were not as inclined to give us a good service (presumably as we are British). ||Cons:|The hotel tax we were charged seemed extortionate in comparison to other hotels in Tunisia and I think we were overcharged as it was about £50 GBP hotel tax for 6 nights and I think it should have been around £37! ||Our room was very dated and disappointing with cracked tiles missing chunks out of them and older outdated facilities (the shower looked like it was from the 70s and was not moveable) and there was an ant infestation in our room and on our balcony so we were constantly having to get rid of ants and it just made me feel uncomfortable and psychologically itchy all the time when in the room! ||The cleaners also often forgot to give us a bath mat, and at one point left our room unlocked! (We think it may have even been left unlocked overnight as we went on a 2 day excursion).||The entertainment was far too loud and was the same every night, and it went on for about 4 hours a night so had to readjust our sleeping schedules to later as could not sleep until it wrapped up (around 11.15pm).||I think the hotel could do with spending more money on updating the rooms and the facilities in the rooms (I.e. the shower etc) but I understand (from one of the tour bus drivers) that the hotel had been closed for 20 years and has only been re-opened within the last year!||Overall, we enjoyed our stay, but feel there needs to be a bit more improvement to the rooms and some of the staff could be friendlier. I would not rate it as a 4 star hotel, more like a 2 or 3. And get rid...

Hotel for very, VERY undemanding people and never again anything from Monarque and 100% never again this hotel. This is more like a slightly better hostel and 4* doesn’t belong here at all. Nowhere is it written that the hotel is focused on Czechs and Poles, but in reality it’s 99% Czech and Polish seniors (with all the clichés that go with it), a few families with kids, and lost couples like us. If I had known, I would never have booked this place.

Everything in the hotel is extremely simple – rooms, equipment, food, entertainment. Food is plain, every day the same. Drinks… I wouldn’t even call them drinks, just cheap alcohol mixed with soda. Room location? Absolutely terrible. The hotel is shaped like a half-circle, all rooms face inside towards the pool, the sea… and a small stage. Every day until 22:00 the same children’s songs and the same playlist, a horrible mix of 90s pop, plus Czech stars like Lucie Bílá. Animators? They have one weekly program, repeated again and again. Very low quality, boring, and extremely simple.

Noise, noise, noise – nonstop from 9:00 until 23:00. In the morning you wake up from heat, at night you can’t sleep because of the noise. The beach and the sea were great though, plenty of sunbeds, we never had a problem finding a spot. The water was hot, the pool was big and warm. Staff was okay and liked to chat, but service was slow and there were lines for everything. Getting soap took two days. Animators were weak, with no real effort to involve people in games, overall boring and without energy. Last year in another hotel animators were like rocket mice, and we never got bored.

We traveled around the area so we made our own program, otherwise I would have died of boredom here. Some people might enjoy this place, but I am not one of them. For me it was...