Villa Noria

I was supposed to stay with this hotel and they promised me day activities. When I wanted to book the activities with them, they said the activities are not provided. More like a one star hotel! Definitely not a 4 star hotel class!

I found it very stressful staying at this hotel with four children. In addition to the usual worries of safety by the pool, burning etc. U have the extra stress of an unsafe pool area, tiles coming off by the deep end of the pool where a child could easily fall through, park area rusty and falling apart. In general the place is just dirty. Yes Tunisia is dirty, but you expect better from a 'four star' hotel. I fully believe they bribed someone for this rating. It is 2 at best. Breakfast was disgusting, the hygiene, flies all around the place. Table cloths dirty every day. We didn't pay for evening meal, thankfully, but by all accounts it was cold pasta, cold rice and cold fish head soup. Really that bad. I can verify from breakfast that nothing was ever heated it was all served cold. Eggs and everything. Poor hygiene. People lacking in sense. Staff don't care to help with these problems or make the place any better. They are robbing people blind and the place should be closed. Even the Algerian people staying there thought it was awful

We arrived in tunisia on the 10th of august 2014. Going from the airport to the hotel was pretty scarry. Tunisia is very dirty. But we thought it might be only the villages. Finally we arrived at our hotel all excited to go to the apartment and pool. Our apartments were not ready but we were allowed to leave our bags in the rooms so we could enjoy the pool in the meantime. Our friends apartment was still not free but they left their stuff in our appartment. Pool is not too big but still fun. The tiles are very sharp. My kids had constantly scratches (so aqua shoes are recommended) the lifguard was hidding in the shade having a nap. The other lifeguard threw our 5 year old daughter in the deep water (for fun i guess) now my daughter cant swim luckily my husband was there to help her. The other staff cant speak very well english. The only person who speaks very well english was sonia the hotel manager and shes very helpful too. Sun loungers r even brocken or occupied by towels. The tunisian people are worse than the germans for hovering sunloungers. But if u tell sonia she removes all the towels for u. Food in the hotel is horrible. What ever they have left from dinner they serve for breakfast and vise versa. The restaurant is very dirty i thing they have not changed the table clothes for the whole two weeks we were there. Cutterly and plates dirty. Never enough cups. Coffee... acutally not sure if it was coffee. Ants nest in the restaurant. Waiters shirt dirty. So on so on. The worst thing for us was a half dead cockroch on the stair which we pointed out but they were not intersted. We also had two of them in our appartment. Even though we booked half board we decided to eat out. Rovers returns was nice for breakfast. Voilas was lovely for dinner (which is at the marina) tunisia in general is very dirty and smelly. As soon u hit the town bit with the medina or marina you get slapped in the face with horse wee or sewage smell. Tunisian people can be very rude and they all seem very miserable. Villa noiras beach is nice but again dirty. Fag buds everywhere. Brocken glass. Beer bottle caps etc etc. But the staff at the beach bar are very nice. Specially moo moo. We went wiv 2 families. We did had a good time. We enjoyed the weather. We met some nice people but one thing is for sure we will never ever return. Not even in a other hotel. As apparently all above is very common in tunisia. ( we have been told by a tunisian)

I have stayed in many hotels over the years and this is by far the worst I have ever had the misfortune of staying in. On arrival we had to wait in reception as our room wasn't ready even though our flight had been delayed by two hours. When we were eventually taken to a room the maid was still in it trying to make it habitable but she soon left, giving up on cleaning it for us. It was dirty, no toilet roll or soap and two towels between the five of us. You will need a lot more towels than you think in this hotel as there is no shower curtain in the bathroom so it gets flooded. All light fittings are just hanging by the electrical wiring and in our room sockets were missing with exposed wiring. Needing food we asked to change money at reception which they were unable to do, this became a recurring theme. Our first experience of the hotel restaurant was awful and did not change for the duration of our stay. Dirty plates, cups, tables and a distinct lack of cutlery. The food is disgusting. There was a slight variation on offer each night we ate there but the food was guaranteed to be cold and of very poor quality. They use the poorest cuts of meat and fish you could ever imagine, one example being what I thought to be a piece of lamb only to find when I cut it in half was just a ball of fat. Breakfast is pretty much the same but no variation whatsoever. Same old cold rubbish day after day. We gave up in the end even though we'd paid half board we ate out ( I would recommend Rovers Return Inn ). The staff lack any kind of customer service skills, constantly smoking or in the case of the lifeguard on duty, having a sleep. If you need any help with anything you have to wait for Sonia the manager to be on duty as she is the only one who can understand English and the only who seems to be authorised to do anything. The pool is the only thing half decent at this hotel but even then there is a serious lack of sun loungers and the ones they do have are just like the rest of the hotel, tired and run down During our stay a single mum with four children was threatened with eviction as she had made so many complaints about the hotels poor hygiene and health & safety. She was forced to sign an agreement not to make any further complaints or to mention them to other guests to enable her to stay. You may look at this as a cheap holiday but please don't do it to yourself, spend a little more and go to one of the many nice hotels in resort or don't go at all.

This sums up our New Year stay at the Villa Noria completely. For less than 10 pounds sterling per person, per night for B & B, we shouldn't have expected any better really. We arrived very late at night, the only thing that kept our spirits up was the thought of a cup of tea on our arrival, but this was not to be! The apartment was clean-ish and spacious but there wasn't even a saucepan for boiling water, let alone a kettle. No cups, no glasses, not even a spoon! The night porter didn't understand my efforts to request a method of boiling water so we just sipped the tap water all night - luckily with no ill effects. Our tour guide discovered the next day that the self catering apartments had to pay a 20 dinar refundable deposit for crockery, which we would have done sooner if there had been a notice at reception or in our apartment. There was a distinct lack of information around the hotel, no info pack in our room, no fire evacuation information, breakfast times, phone numbers for reception (we guessed to dial "0"!). At least the room had very hot water and excellent air conditioning / heating, so we weren't cold despite the torrential rainstorm outside. And it was very quiet at night being a little distance from the main hotels and town centre. Unfortunately the fridge didn't work, just hummed very loudly all the time. Luckily we didn't try and keep any food in it. We tried their breakfast the first morning which was disappointing but typically Tunisian apparently. We tried the buffet dinner that night which was, again, typically Tunisian. For 15 dinars per person it was pretty poor, mostly cold and the dessert table consisted purely of some bruised apples and a few oranges, I complained to the management and was told that they only catered for Tunisians as these were their main clientelle. And their printer wasn't working which was why there was no written information anywhere. The staff were all lovely and very friendly and helpful. They all spoke a little English but mainly the French/Arabic native tongue. I would only recommend this residence if you are looking for a very cheap place to stay when you visit Yasmine. The pool area and hotel grounds were well kept and we would have enjoyed them more during the summer months. They also have a small indoor pool. Our balcony was in full sunshine from 10am to 4pm. Another drawback was there only being one key for our apartment which meant that we had to hand it to the cleaners so they could clean our room and then pick it up from reception when we returned, a small inconvenience, but I hate to think what would have happened if we'd lost that only key!!! Basic Tunisian TV - no SKY Take your own plug! Although the bath water drains so slowly you might not need one.