My Thomson trip to Tunisia Review

Thomson trip to Tunisia, staying in Marhaba Palace Review

Monday, 29 June 2009 07:30

As many of you know I have been back from holiday in Tunisia with Thomson a little over a week now, and the reason for a lack of posts and updates is because I spent about half of last week writing a complaint letter. I just want to say to everyone out there that may be Googling this place to go onto holiday there, that, Tunisia is a really nice place providing you are told real facts about it when you purchase the holiday, and that the hotel is of a good quality. Here is a much much shortened version of the issues we had whilst there, and the lies we were fed during the Thomson trip to Tunisia.

First I will start with the pure amount of crap we were told in the store by the untrained, and quite frankly lying woman in the Thomson store in Leicester city centre, BE WARNED she will tell you anything in order to make the sale to you, no matter how much she infringes upon on trade and sales laws doing so:

1. Promised a double bed despite the hotel she sent us to not having ANY rooms with double beds.
2. Said the hotel we were going to was lively and popular with our age, if she checked online reviews she would know old people love the hotel and young hate it.
3. Promised us quality scuba opportunities - this was important to us as we were looking for a cheaper replacement of Egypt, there is nothing off the cost of Tunisia.
4. Said we could take a day trip to the Sahara as we were close, and the hotel would pack food if we would miss a meal as we were full board, the truth is the marhaba palace staff actually laughed when we requested this and the Sahara desert was 8 hours drive away, I don't see how that would ever happen.
5. She said the average price of a pint was about £1-£1.50 it was a minimum £3.00, naive maybe but we put our trust in a Thomson service representative who is supposed to be trained about these things.
6. Promised a free drink with every meal on full board, this was a lie, and as above the drinks were twice as expensive as expected so this was a huge blow to our spending money.

Other dissapointing facts about our horrible holiday to Thomson holiday to The Marhaba Palace, Port El Kantaoui, Tunisia:

1. All excursions are mis-sold, poor quality, not as the brochure says and massively over-priced.
2. If you go on any excursions which are not a few hours then the food you will be given will be: Undercooked rice with a bit of veg in, "Brick" (a Tunisian delicacy), and probably water melon. As we did a 2 day trip we had this meal 5 times. It is not nutritious, and considering we paid more than we did for the hotel for the excursion the food quality was lacking and unvaried.
3. The beach was filthy, no attempt has been made to clean it.
4. The hotel is run-down and dirty, to give comparison it is like going to an old 80's travelodge with the floral patterns, broken chairs and equipment.
5. Our room was disgusting, un cleaned and had no main light (apparently this was standard for the hotel) and was 2 single beds.

If you are going to or have gone to either the hotel or the Thomson shop in Leicester then please feel free to leave a comment or contact me

She even insisted all this was true because "her sister had been to Tunisia recently" I hope this opens peoples eyes to what can really happen even when paying for something thats supposed to be a reputable product from a reputable company such as Thomson Holidays.

I have recently posted more on my horrible Thomson holiday to Tunisia - The excursions.

Additionally I would love to hear more about how people think Thomson can improve their customer services more.