We stayed in the Le Saphir part of the hotel. The pool area was brilliant, lots of space, not enough sunbeds for the number of guests but as long as you were an early bird you would get one.

The hotel was very clean, our room had a double bed and a single bed, we overlooked the pool but didn't have a balcony.

Reception staff weren't the best but the bar staff, waiters and cleaners were great.

The food was dreadful, no menu's so you had no idea what food you were choosing and it was always luke warm.

Unfortunately for us, we upgraded to fully inclusive 3 weeks prior to departure. This was a complete waste of money as there were very little choice in drinks, no ice-cream and dreadful food. We ended up eating out for most of the holiday.

During our second week at the hotel, a frenchman arrived who rumour has it is a troubleshooter for the hotel and as we left the hotel, microwave ovens were being put in to the restaurant because so many people were complaining about the cold food.

The entertainers were great, my 10 year old son had a great time with them. I feel that the 'frenchman' will be on the case regarding the food and if that's sorted I would recommend the hotel to anyone.

The hotel is a bit out of the way, but its only a 10 minute walk to a good few bars and restaruants. I highly recommend Latino's for a meal.

All in all we had a great holiday except for the food. And I would not recommend an upgrade to fully inclusive as it is just not worth it.

We arrived at the hotel around 1.30am and were directed to the Le Saphir part of the complex.
The rooms are a little on the small side, but adequate for the 3 of us and were very clean. We had a ground floor room facing the pool which was nice as we could sunbathe right outside of our patio doors without having to lock our room and walk round (well a holiday is for being lazy).
Breakfast is from 6.30 - 10am. Take your own cereal for the kids as the cereal provided is strange in shape and taste! Tea, coffee & juice, croissants, eggs, tomatoes, potato's and cold salad type food avaialble as well as toast.
Lunch: we were half board so ate snacks from the Penelope snack bar.
Dinner is from 7pm - 9pm. Cold sald type starters. Vegetables: carrots, cabbage in cream, turnips in cream, lasagne (once a week), mashed potato, spaghetti, chips, barbeque chicken & fish etc. Little cakes for dessert. Big queues from 7 - 7.45, but not much left in the barbeque or meat section after 8pm as you find if something tastes better it is the first to go. Food is warm although microwaves were being provided to heat up food if required.
Drinks are purchased seperately from the waiters at Dinner.

There is a small shop outside of the hotel that sells crisps, biscuits etc & bottles of water for around 3 dinar for 6 large bottles. It is 2 dinar for 1 bottle in the hotel. Turn left at the hotel gates and go past the Hacienda and Safari bars - look to your left it is set a little back.
The staff at the hotel work hard at their job.
The Hotel has recently been taken over and is now the Thalassa Hammamet Village. The staff that we talked to were all edgy about losing their jobs with the new mamgement if they didnt look busy. Unfortunately this meant that they couldnt make good friends with the holidayers and I missed the cameraderie and fun of all that.
The UK animation team has been replaced with the hotel based team, they work extremely hard to entertain everyone but struggle a little with the English language - especially if you have a strong accent like us Geordies! If you speak any french then its a great bonus. The animation team entertainment was usually around 9.30pm - 10pm.
We didnt see much of our Rep when we were there, she was held up on two nights because of the bad weather, (thunder storm!) on 1 night of the first week there and on our last day!
We wouldnt go back there again as in our opinion the food wasnt up to much, the beakers for your water/juice etc were badly cracked and some cutlery was dirty. There are flies around you when you eat, which is to be expected with all the doors and windows open, but it puts you off when there are flies on the food waiting to be served as it isnt covered up.
We had a few occasions when meat we had was either not cooked properly or was mostly fatty.
A lot of other guests complained about the food, and people were downgrading from All Inclusive to Half board as AI guests seemed very limited and had to get there own drinks while watching the entertainment as the HB guests could leave tips!
We also had to pay for our sunloungers as HB guests - not mentioned in the brochures. 2 dinars if you used a matress and 1.5 if you just used the lounger.
We were told at the time of booking that the Hotel was all British - but many people were there from Germany, Poland, France and Algeria.
Guests that had been to Le Saphir for many years said they wouldnt be returning - neither will we.
We loved Tunisia, we loved Hammamet, we have been told that we would have loved this Hotel 9 months ago!

Our advice would be to tip the waiter generously at the end of your holiday and let him know that you would like him to be your waiter for your time there. He will keep you a table every night and its nice to see a familiar face. We tipped every night and other guests told us about this method and got first class waitering! We also tipped the maid well as she does an excellent job. Beds & towels fresh & clean, nothing personal moved etc. We tipped 10 dinars and thought she was going to cry!
Any questions please post them in the forum.

We travelled throughout the night and on first arrival we wanted our keys so that we could simply get into our rooms and have some sleep without the hastle of the porters! With so many of us as a family we were fine on our own with our luggage but the porters demanded to be allowed to take our suitcases up for us, in our rooms then the porters also demamnded thatwe pay them and refused to move unless we did so. BEWARE of the porters hold on tight!

The food was absoloutly revolting covered in flies, plus it was also a guessing game as none of it was labelled. There were many other people there...(not so many British) who always inisted in piling there plates up high then wasting it!

The drink issue was the worst though, they served beer in tiny plastic cups which were mainly froth, when queuing up for his beer my dad asked the waiter to fill it up a bit more and the waiter replied "In your dreams". I mean thousands of pounds were paid for this holiday and it seemed that they no longer cared as they already had our money!
The only decent food was what they were cooking on the Bbq and even then you had to make sure it was cooked properly! One night A member of my family asked the chef for a piece of chiken only to be told that there was none there, seeing that there was a tray hidden under the Bbq the member pulled it out only to discover it was full of chicken! After all this we were pretty fed up and complained to the manager and he moved us up to the ale cart restaraunt! ( customers who pay) for free, here the difference in the food was remarkable! It was so much nicer yet what we didn't find fair was that we had already paid so they didn't fink we mattered!

Tunisia in general is nice.... though people are constantly on the look out to con! so be aware of that!

Overall The hotel was Clean, basic everything we ask for. Though there was no light in the corridor which was rather scary not being able to see what was around the corner. The Maids were lovely and really friendly, the reception staff weren't all that nice and not very welcomin!

I would never visit Tunisia or this hotel again!

The cleanliness of the hotel was brilliant. sparkling clean wherever you looked.

The food was disgusting, maybe due to flies or being made from tap water. There was no menu which was really hard for me bein a vegetarian. I didn't know what was what. I had to have the same breakfast every morning, egg, tomatoes and little potatoes. However for lunch and tea we went out to restaurants. British latino is lovely by the way!!

The hotel wasn't too far from bars and restaurants and close to the beach too.

Quite far from the town centre, if you plan to go there get a taxi but dont accept more than 4 dinahs.

The hotel staff were really friendly towards us. The entertainment staff especially Rio - god am going to miss him he's fab. All the staff were really kind and they know how to have a laugh.

The entertainment was quite good although most of the activities were involved with water and I can't swim. There was darts and minigolf which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I would visit this hotel again. I would most definately reccomend this hotel to everyone just be careful what you eat because my mam had a few upset stomaches that lasted more than 24 hours.

I would just like to say if your going to visit this hotel you will have a proper laugh with the entertainers. Especially Shu Shu and Rio they will really get you laughing.

We stayed at the hotel Le Sapphire which was basic but clean, our room overlooked the pool which was nice.

The staff were friendly and gave good service.

The entertainment team created a holiday atmosphere by providing a selection of activities throughout the morning and evening.

There was not enough sun beds to cater for the hotel holiday makers, making it a stressful holiday as it was too hot to do any other activity.

Although the food looked well presented, it was open to flies, and there were plenty of them, and it was luke warm. It wasn't labelled so you had no idea what you were eating. This was a shame as the waiters worked hard to please the holiday makers.

Hotel was clean,waiters very friendly rely on tips to make their measley wages up.

Food was rank and a free for all, we didnt bother ate out it was cheap enough. The harbour restaurants are lovely and taxis to anywhere are plentiful and cheap.

Safety was fine although the beggars got on our wicks. There was never a quiet moment anywhere on the complex to simply read or go sleep,that was a down side. We went to the beach that was just as noisy from adjacent beach hotels entertainment. I like music as a rule but not 24 hours a day.

Weather was very hot. Beach was nice but better when theres more places to eat and drink. The security guard kept beggars away, there's not a lot of choice in the bar Ive got more in my cupboard, but alcohol is against the religion,so understandable. Odele the waiter taught me a few words in Tunisian he was lovely. I wanted to take him home.

We wont go back to Tunisia we didnt like the culture, but at least we went. The reps show was brilliant really enjoyed that. The hotel was spotlessly clean, but the food which was suppose to be british style was awful,and people stuffed their bags with fruit and stuff which wasnt very fair.

The staff should take people to their seats as a table becomes available to avoid the awful congestion.

We were informed that the hotel had just been taken over by a new consortium & had been renamed Thalassa Village-Le Saphire.

The hotel was spotless, though the rooms were a little sparse with no tea & coffee facilities, no T.V. & no fridge, so if you're half board, (you have the choice to upgrade to all inclusive on your arrival though it'll cost you

We stayed in the Le Saphir part of the resort and our rooms were clean and spacious. The maids were very friendly and would always ask how you were or say good morning

The food was the biggest disappointment of the holiday. Most days the food was the same and not at all appealing. The food was set out in a buffet style and there were no menus telling you what any of the food was so you just had to find out for yourself. Most of the time this was not a good experience.

The location of the hotel was good. The beach, which is very nice, is just a few minutes walk away and there is a wide selection of restaurants and bars around the resort. A good one is Las Palmas which is run by a British women and they do good British food (thats where we went to get a good meal). If you want to venture further away from the hotel the taxis are very cheap and you never need to wait more than two minutes for one. Another good way to get around are the Noddy trains. They are a little dearer than the taxis but if you are a thrill seeker sit at the very back and hold on (tightly) when you go around round-a-bouts.

The hotel staff were fantastic. The waiters and the restaurant staff were very friendly and were happy to help with anything you asked them.

The animation team were great, especially Emma and Rio, we miss them loads. They are what made our holiday, we got to know them really well and they were a great laugh. During the day there are loads of activities to get involved in. They do water aerobics, Rio's is the funniest and if you really want a workout then I'd suggest doing Zeco's (at the end of his session you will be exhausted). They also have mini golf, table tennis, darts, gymnastics and water polo. If you want to do an activity on your own (without the threat of being pushed in the pool for losing or winning! thanks Rio) then you can hire tennis rackets, footballs etc from the animation team for a small deposit.

The entertainment at night was not half as good as during the day. I think that it could have been greatly improved but the team were good a what little they did.

I would recommend this hotel and I would go back. The only thing that would make me think twice would be the food. We spoke to our Rep, Mandy, about this and she said that the hotel was working on how to improve the food so hopefully by next year this problem will be solved.

The hotel itself is spotless, you can not fault it in that area! We met some really loveley people out there that made the holiday - if we hadn't it would of been the worst holiday I've had.

Don't get me wrong, I can't fault the food or the rep Bev but the problem we had with two small children is that the Childrens Club had shut down for the season and so did the entertainment, plus we were not made aware that it was rammadam.

None of this was made known when we had booked. The bar and snack bar staff were rude beyond belief, they seemed to begrudge anything you asked for - even though it was there job! No matter how cheerful we tried to be to them we hardly got a smile.

The would talk to their mates while you were ordering and turn thier backs on you and I don't think I ever got a reponse to what I asked for. We came to the conclusion that they treated people like this if they were not tipped what they wanted.

Be aware that EVERYONE expects money for things that they do. If you do not tip you will not get a good service the next time or no service at all. The reception staff were scaming people out of thier money when guests were changing sterling to dinars. It was a sham!

We bought hardly anything while out there as the shop/stall holders bombard you beyond belief. You get put off looking because they hassle you and you find yourself with you eyes glued to the floor to avoid being hassled.

Be very aware if you are blonde with blue eyes and female - you have been warned!

One good point that I have are that the waiters were wonderful in the Restaurant, that was a high point. My advice is aviod this hotel!