We have been staying in this hotel for the last 6 years, this year (2006) will be our 7th. It is always extremely clean and the maids are have been friendly and helpful every year we've been.

The hotel location is great if you are after a relaxing holiday. There is entertainment every night ranging from karaoke, disco, bingo, Folklore, quiz night. They do have a kids club although not sure if it was there last year as my sisters are a bit old for it now.

The hotel staff are the BEST!!!! The waiters are excellent and soooo friendly. We are really good friends with most of them and always look forward to seeing them.

The food is very basic, but they do have different things each night. Breakfast is quite boring but it is a 2* hotel so can't complain really.

There is a snack bar by the beach which is open most of the day where you can buy food (pizza's, chips, sandwiches etc) and drinks. The kids prefer to eat here I think.

The Grand Kerkennah is set in a beautiful location with the hotel going straight onto a long sandy beach. The hotel itself could do with a bit of updating but was kept immacculately clean.

The breakfasts, unfortunately, lacked imagination being given a choice of cereal, boiled egg and french stick - every other day rice pudding was included. This is the only complaint about the food as when it came to the evening meal the choice was very wide and varied and in plentyful supply.

As this hotel is in a remote location not much in the way of outside entertainment could be offered but the Panorama Reps worked very hard every evening except Wednesday (transfer day) to keep us entertained and we always had a good night.

I will be visiting the resort again sometime in the future. If you want a quite relaxing peaceful holiday it is perfect.

We have stayed here for many years but this year will be the last, the reason being Panorama no longer fly to Sfax airport, they go to Monastir and that involves a 2 to 2.5 hour coach journey just to get to Sfax and the ferry.

If you have children don't give them any drinks once you leave the airport,the coach will make a toilet stop but the toilets are usually quite dirty and often no paper.

Even worse is the fact on return home you have to leave the hotel at approx 0330 in the morning !!! Who wants breakfast at that time of day.

If you don't mind long travelling times then you will find the Grand a lovely quiet and friendly hotel used by many returning guests, although nearly a total of 9 hrs travelling may put some of the regulars off now.

Food : could be better, not always hot, but you will always find something, breakfast very basic.

Drinks can be expensive during high season.

The hotel staff friendly and helpful, tourist English but not much more generally.

Location right by the beach(man made)but it could do with a good clean up, it has become littered and very dusty.(possible due to the many ownership changes)

The hotel is kept as clean as possible being next to the beach, it can be windy some days with the inevitable dust blown everywhere.

There are a few places of interest outside of the hotel within walking distance.There is a man called Saber with a horse and carriage outside of the hotel who is great fun and will take you most places at a reasonable price and speaks good English.

Entertaiment is basically your own.

We will sadly miss this hotel but the journey arrangements are too long for us now. Return ? not unless there is a return Sfax airport.

Just got married so decided to spend my honeymoon in the loverly Kerkenna island in Tunisia.

My daughter Holly loved the waiter whos nick name was radar. The hotel was clean and tidy the maids were friendly the food was superb at night the romantic view from my hotel balcony of the sea and the oil rig burning in the distant took your thoughts away from England and when morning broke the site of the local fishermen on their fishing trips made you feel at home.

Everybody loved it here, Tanya my wife didnt want to go back to Britain and when you visit Kerkenna you will see why it really is the island of dreams.

Have been going to the Grand twice a year for many years. This year we found the hotel looking very tired. Because the hotel is down in numbers to previous years, hoards of Tunisians from the mainland visit weekends - this creates very big problems in the dining room. Having said that, the location is superb, the staff absolutely charming and the maids do a fantastic job. Also, the Reps Marilyn and Rashid do their utmost to solve any problems. If you want a energetic holiday - this is not for you. No nightlife. If you want peace and quiet, friendly people and simple food - I would thoroughly recommend the Grand. Next year there will not be a direct flight into Sfax so you will have a three hour coach journey from Monastir - not for the feint hearted. To give you extra incentive - NOT a lager lout in sight !!

The hotel was very basic but very clean.

The staff were very friendly and very helpful.

The rooms were cleaned every day and towels were also changed every day.

It was the most relaxing and peaceful holiday I have ever had.

The food was also very basic but you have a varied choice at dinner.

Hotel Grand consists of 3 building housing guest rooms and few bungalows, all separate from the main building which houses Reception, Bar, Restaurant, Reps Office, "Bank" with safety deposit boxes (free of charge).

Each of the 3 buildings is only 2 floors high (ie ground and first floor) and all rooms have balconies with sea view. Blocks C and B have direct access to the beach, block A is situated by the pool (closest to the main building)but still has see views from all the rooms.

Dated and basic furnishing with fan in every room (no air con) which was sufficient in July/August. Very clean, excellent maid service, towels changed every day, bed sheets at least twice a week, floors cleaned every day.

Buffet style food in a large, air conditioned restaurant with a view onto the pool. Great selection of meat/fish/vegetables for dinners and lunches. Not so good with breakfasts uless you are an absolute croissaint/jam/boiled eggs lover :)

Lunches bought in the main restaurant on the on/off basis at 10 dinar per person (drinks extra) but if paid for a week in advance (you can upgrade from half to full board at the reception) - this brings the cost down to 6 dinar per person per day.

Indoor bar with a lovely outdoor terrace facing the pool and the beach with decent choice of drinks. Pool bar with waiter service around the pool - no waiter service on the beach.

Beach restaurant offering drinks, pizzas, sea food etc.

4pm pancakes by the pool :)

Excellent hotel location, right on the beach, shallow waters - ideal for kids. Swimmers have to venture far into the sea to have a swim though - unless the prefer the pool which is great too. For hire pedalos and kayaks at 10 dinar per hour. Sun beds at 6 dinar per day.

Absolutely ideal for people wanting real peace on holiday. Safe for the kids and quiet. Ideal relaxing holiday - sun, beach and nothing else :). Kids will love the horse and carriage rides, camel/horse rides, visit to the farm run by Sameer (can be found just outside the hotel, about 5 minutes walk), dolphin trip, sea picnic and for more adveturous - a 2 day Sahara Safari.

Not good at all for people liking night life/shopping/sightseeing as to go anywhere will have to travel by ferry to the mainland (Sfax 1 hour 15 minutes on the ferry).

Not much to do outside the hotel, "Residents Club" in another hotel with discos, taxi ride to the island capital Remla but nothing really there - apart from the bank with a cash machine.

Excellent, polite, always trying to please hotel staff. No hassle, no waiting for the tips - just great service all the time.

Very helpful Panorama Reps - Marylin and Rachid and Kids Reps Joanne and Jenna. Gold medals for all of them.

Limited entertainment in the evenings - bingo, raffle, folklore show, fakir show (snakes, fire, scorpios, broken glass etc), kids disco, music every night - bar closes at 1am. Fantastic for people that are not into this sort of thing on holiday.

I will definitely visit this hotel again as it offers exactly what I was looking for - peace and quiet with no hassle in excellent on the beach location, beautiful weather and totally safe for the kids.

Please note this is a 2 star hotel and you will not find satin bed sheets and silver service but a truly relaxing and extremly welcoming atmosphere and fantastic staff - plus people going there for years and years.

The Hotel Grand was probably my most memorable holidays I have ever been on, and my family also think likewise.
Panorama are the only holiday company that travle to Kerkennah, and in their brochure, they say how it is a wind swept paradise. Indeed it is very windswept, with our 4th night their being a minor tropical storm!
The weather is the main thing about the resort, burn time is 10 minutes, & most days it was about 46'c+, the shade was 35'c. It's very windy, and the water is like a bath being about 32'c. The tide everyday is different, one day it is deep and choppy, the next shallow and miles out, it could never be predicted. They say that the med sea has the tide, but Kerkennah in in the gulf of Gabes so it has a tide of it's own.
The food was OK, my little brother & I (12 & 14) where reasonably happy with food, at lunch there where always chips on the menu, but dinner was a little awkward some days as it mainly had Tunisian dishes and more suited for certain aquired tastes, not that good for young children. Breakfast was good, lots of lovely water melon =).
There is virtually nothing to do; Panorama offer excursions out, but do skip details about Samir, a very popular camel man who owns a little farm near the hotel. He does extremly entertaining trips around the island with sing-songs and tells stories all about the island. He is very friendly and learnt all his English from tourists, and he's practically fluent! Other than that and the Panorama excursions, there's nothing to do what so ever. It's just a laze about holiday really.
The entertainment was OK, there's bingo once a week, and everynight the entertainment's different. There was the "Fakir Show", this was a local performing very strange acts, such as eating Scorpians. The music is quite loud.
The beach is paradise if you just like dipping rather than swimming, because it's far too shallow. There are old smashed up pots scatterd around, so it can be awkward to run & walk on the beach, & the sand is scorching. The swimming pool is nice, quite cold, but it's a break from the intense heat. On Saturday's and Sunday's the place is swamped by locals, and Tunisian men do like ladies, especially young ones, so my mum & I preferd to be on the beach those days.
The rooms are 2 star, so extremly basic, the pillows are actually like bricks. There are beautiful veiws from the ground floor rooms, especially the magnificent sunset, as the rooms are on the beach. There is NO air conditioning, just a fan.
The maids and waiters are really friendly, they'll do their best to meet up to their guests desires. The maids to an excellent job of cleaning, they're so very discreet, and the waiters, as soon as you have eaten the last bite on your plate, they're there to collect it. We had some great laughs with our waiters. There is one souvinear shop which the shop keeper seems very miserable & almost agressive, we liked to call it the happy shopper. Definatly take a trip to Ali Baba's with Samir, it's absolutly amazing, a sjhop with uber difference.
I think generally Kerkennah is a place to visit to really understand different ways of life, you'll probably never go somewhere like that again as it is so different & almost surreal. It's really a desert island, but a magnificant one. The local's houses etc are very run down but it is the way they live so do not be put off. It is a 2* hotel so be prepared!