Skanes Serail

The Skanes Serail Hotel seems like a place lost in time. You'll notice this in the lovely lobby when you notice the phone booths nestled in the corner next to the lift.

There are few pros with this hotel which I will mention first:
- The staff are fantastic. In all sectors. The receptionists are extremely helpful and informative. The maids go above and beyond and the entertainers are incredibly friendly, learn names quickly and do their absolute best to make your holiday as pleasant as possible.
- It's in a good location if you would like to get into Monastir quickly, it takes maybe less than 10 minutes by taxi.
- The rooms are very clean, as I said above the maids are fantastic.
- There is a convenient shop in the hotel which sells essentials such as sun cream, range of snacks could be better however.

The cons however, some light others quite important are numerous:
- In our room there were multiple faults. The safe didn't work, the lock on the bathroom door was broken. There weren't any simple amenities.
- Our card key didn't work when we first arrived.
- On some nights we heard construction work at odd hours.
- The food is not great. I understand the need to eat food from Tunisia when staying in Tunisia, I am not particularly picky and I personally found something I could eat every night. But this is a family hotel and children are notorious picky eaters. If you are a family hotel and you know there will be kids staying, you should try and offer some more simple dishes that are more palatable to them. Almost every meal my fiance's family struggled to find something to eat.
- Even though the hotel is 'all inclusive' there are still things that we had to pay for. Some drinks for example.
- At the bar, there is a shelf full of more expensive alcohol that actually isn't for sale, it's just for show. That doesn't make any sense to me.
- You can't walk along the beach and feel safe at night because there are many stray dogs.
- My future father in law likes an early morning coffee and I know many others do too, there was no way to achieve this. No kettle in your room for example or machine downstairs.
- No ATM to take out money, which is essential in this country, you had to take a 20 minute walk to the airport nearby.
- You have to put a 20 Danir deposit down for poolside towels and they weren't available until 10am, which is extremely inconvenient.
- The slides are only open for two hours a day despite this hotel being advertised as an Aqua park.
- In terms of kids entertainment during the off season it is limited. Only a ping pong table and air hockey. The entertainers provide games throughout the day at intermittent periods however.

I personally wouldn't visit this hotel again despite the staff's best efforts to make our stay great. There are just too many improvements needed.

I'm at the Serail now. The hotels very clean, the rooms are lovely. Food is a bit samey. My problem is the so called music played at the pool. When I say loud...I mean ear splitting. Definitely won't stay here again, for the sake of my sanity