El Ksar Resort & Spa- Family Hotel

Travelling to and from the hotel wasn’t bad at all — transport was smooth and easy to manage. However, once you’re at the hotel, don’t expect too much. If you’re after a relaxing beach-and-pool holiday, this place is fine. The beach views are lovely, and the pool area is great for unwinding. But if you’re someone who likes to do activities and explore, I wouldn’t recommend it. One thing that really stood out was the tipping culture. The staff generally ignore your needs unless you tip — it feels like everything runs on tips. It’s a shame because you should tip for good service, not because you’re pressured to. We spoke to several people about local activities, and almost everyone warned us not to go on the pirate ship excursion. They said it was unhygienic, you don’t actually see dolphins, and the crew constantly push for tips — making the whole experience awkward. We also booked a quad biking tour, which was supposed to be in the desert. Instead, we ended up at what looked like a dump site — surrounded by broken houses, rubbish, and a strong sewage smell. Really disappointing. The country itself is beautiful, but sadly the experience was spoiled by how rude some people were when we didn’t tip. It feels like they expect it for everything, which makes it uncomfortable for tourists. Tip if you’re genuinely happy with the service, but don’t let anyone force you into it. As for Sousse Medina, I’d say stay clear unless you’re visiting the old town area. People will try to grab you, claim they work at your hotel, and there are a lot of pickpockets around. We saw it ourselves. We ended up spending most of our time at the hotel — between the beach, pool, and our room — because it was too stressful to go out with all the begging and hassle. The hotel room itself was nice, with a lovely balcony view. But don’t expect everything to work — not all lights or plug sockets did. I’d recommend bringing a power bank to keep your devices charged during the day. Overall, it’s a decent spot if you just want to relax by the water and not do much else, but if you’re looking for activities, great service, or a lively experience, this isn’t the place. I recommend going anywhere else but sousse if you come to Tunisia, gabe or djerba island as we were told there more things to see and do there.

Girl's reception very good! 🥰 Thank you!!! VERY MUCH!!! Hotel 10/10 Eat 10/10 I come back here. 🥰🥰 Thank you Family From Poland

The food in the buffet restaurant is outstanding! There are 4 'cook it fresh' stands where I've discovered stenj for breakfast and enjoyed freshly cooked eggs, prawns and sausages. There is a fresh roast every night and a variety of pre prepared veg, rice, cous cous, pasta and potatoes.... something for everyone and it's all delicious! But don't be shy of the puddings, cakes and biscuits - some of the most tasty I've ever had and the chocolate mousse is to die for!

## Time We were in the hotel for 31.08 - 11.9. We hoped it would be already out of season and it will be quite calm, but it turns out that in Tunisia the "high season" end at 15.09 and that is also the date that school starts (in Tunisia and Algeria) - so there was a lot of people in the hotel. Having lot of people is not an issue at all by itself, but the hotel definitely seemed totally not prepared for so many people. ## Restaurant The food was decent - if you were able to get it. The restaurant was the main issue for us - there were several "live cooking" stations and every single one of them was getting a queue, because a lot of people wanted to get the food, but the cook throughput was fairly low. Like cooking for 5-10 minutes to make food for 5 people. Due to that I actually used a stopwatch and one day it took me about 25 minutes to get the food I wanted + about 8 minutes to find an empty table due to lots of people, especially the ones "reserving" the table with simple drink, phone etc and then going to gather food for 20 minutes. Additionally the waiters also weren't keeping it up. There was a lot a gastros with hot/cold food. Once waiters brought the full box - it was getting empty in a few minutes and then it was standing empty for up to 20 minutes before anyone noticed and replaced empty food boxes. Another issue was not being able to get a drink or cutlery for the table. You could not just go and grab some for yourself - you could only ask the few waiters around the room, who were very busy and didn't have time. It resulted in waiting 10 minutes to get cutlery and not being able to get anything to drink at all. ## Snacks They were almost not available. Just some very simple ones on the beach bar with poor quality a few hours per day. It's not like in some hotels where you will never be hungry. You missed the meal? You have to wait a couple of hours for the next "feeding window". ## Bars Fairy low choice of alcohols and softs to mix them with. Drinks were served in very small, like 150-200ml plastic cups. They were done carelessly, just brutally poured over, which usually resulted in de-carbonated drinks, especially when each bottle was opened/closed like 20-30 times due to very now cup capacity. It was very annoying and we ended up just buying ourselves some softs and local alcohol into the room to avoid it. ## Animation / entertainment Was decent. We saw better in different countries/hotels, but it was pretty fun, engaging, lots of small activities like volleyball, water polo, some mini games in the pools. ## Surroundings The hotel has a nice placement, some small shops nearby, ability to have a beach walk into the city center, some local street foods available nearby. The only issue was not having any decent souvenir shop with known prices around, but they seem to be rare in the country. ## Rooms Pretty standard. Not the cleanest when it comes to european standards, but I think that messiness is just the thing in the country. The same way people treat public spaces where everything is full or trash laying around the streets etc. I don't think they didn't clean it well on purpose, I guess that is Tunisian lower cleanliness standards. ## Some possible reasons I guess a lot of issues were due to a lot of people present in the hotel, while the hotel is totally not prepared for such an amount. The other one might be overworked stuff that doesn't care anymore, they just want the high season to finish. We saw a lot of good opinions from trips outside the high season, so maybe that's a better time to visit.

I don't know where to start. The only good thing about this hotel is the beach and the animation Team. It is NOT a 4* hotel...3* would be pushing it. Check in miserable staff, didn't give any information on hotel like where things are and time of Breakfast , Lunch or Dinner just asked to come back at 2.30pm for keys. We had an ant infestation in room, reception tried to ignore me when i asked if it could be looked at even using google translate they pleaded ignorance. Restaurant is like a living hell, tables dirty and not re laid for next people, so you are waiting for cutlery and have dirty table cloths, the seats were filthy, the wait at the main grill station was sometimes a 20 min wait so the food you already have on your plate is cold. I gave up in the end and we ate out a good few times. I am not a fussy eater abroad at all, but i struggled here. The drinks at dinner were bottles of coke, sprite, fanta etc but warm as not in fridges just out on a serving table and the waiters poured them for you. For the love of god get rid of the carpet in the corridors it looks disease ridden, the second floor was not hoovered in 10 days, the same nut shells outside our room were there when we arrived and still there when we left. No issues with the cleaner she changed towels everyday and made up the room. They only need to do some small thing to bring run down areas up to a better standard. The on site nightclub has no air con so was like a sauna in there, the bar closed at midnight but club was open til 1.30 and no drinks available . The BEST thing about this hotel was the animation team. They made our entire holiday. Thank you to Chico, Zico, Zizou, Momo, Aladeen, Sky, Ziggy, Syfan these guys honestly were just so funny, without them things would have been a lot more drab. They are an assest to this hotel. The hotel has the potential to be good, but they really need to sort out things to bring it up to a 3*. Having holidayed multiple times in Morocco and Egypt at 4* star hotels, this one just did not make the grade. Will i return to Tunisia, YES, this hotel, not if you paid me.

Our Family of 9 had an absolutely amazing time here...animation team where top notch so much fun games...room was always clean the maid came everyday with towels and water ect..and decorated our room special when she found out it was my daughters birthday...the pool waiter was also fabulous couldn't do enough for us and was never without a drink...food was fine always something to eat as is any all inclusive,we also had some takeaways delivered for dirt cheap to mix it up...Ali the excursion guy was absolutely lovely aswell as was all staff we engaged with no negatives at all and will defo return xx

I need to start this off by saying I’ve never written a review in my life but I cannot let innocent people suffer like we did. We arrived at the hotel to check in to be served by the rudest receptionist who didn’t greet us at all and just stared. Then asked for a voucher to which I kept saying I don’t understand what you mean I have a booking and then he took 30 minutes still not talking to us so we had no idea what was going on. We were tired and hungry as it was about 1:30pm by that point and we had been travelling a few hours. He then told us to go for lunch but at no point did he explain where lunch was or where anything was for that matter. We had lunch then came back to pay the city tax fee from another receptionist who was equally as unpleasant and then threw the key at us and didn’t thank us for paying. We got taken to our room by a nice man and the room did have a nice view of the sea, however the room itself had appalling hygiene, ants on the dressing table, suspicious stains on the bedding and towels, mould on the tiles in the bathroom and hair on the flooring. Very old decor in the room and over the whole hotel, the communal carpet is absolutely disgusting. The hotel is completely outdated by at least 40 years. Also I think there is supposed to be a spa at this hotel but there was no mention of it and we could not find it anywhere when looking around. Going back to the food, it is not great quality, there is no signage to explain what half the stuff is and no allergy information so if you have an allergy like my husband who is allergic to peanuts you have no idea what you can actually eat safely. There was an evening where he chose a cake which had crushed peanuts on and if I didn’t try it first we would have had to go to the hospital. Another thing is the chefs cooking, they handle the raw meat and cooked meat with the same gloves so no wonder people are getting bad stomachs whilst staying here, again unfortunately my husband suffered with this from the 2nd day onwards. The buffet is chaos and there is no order to anything, no one seems to understand what a queue is or what basic manners are. The waiters and staff around the hotel are also extremely rude and constantly stared at my breasts. I have a large chest but they made me extremely uncomfortable due to constantly staring and clearly speaking about me and my husband even tho we didn’t speak the language it was obvious. At dinner the waiters didn’t clear our plates and again would just stand and stare, and talk about us and not offer any drinks etc. They prefer to just stand and chat and stare at all the female guests. If you are English they do not serve you with the same respect as other nationalities and make that extremely clear. The beverages are awful as well, you can only order 3 “cocktails” from the menu and beer and if you want anything else you have to pay extra which makes no sense as it’s supposed to be all inclusive? Also the only bar you can get the “cocktails” at is inside near reception which is quite far from the pool and beach. The other bars only have beer and wine so if you don’t like wine or beer you can’t drink. If you want to leave the hotel even the public stare and beep and constantly harass you to buy things from there stores even after you politely decline. When relaxing at the pool or beach you get constantly harassed as well by the excursion team and the animation team about doing quad biking, camel riding etc and joining in on activities such as aqua gym, volleyball etc. Even when you are asleep they will wake you up and talk to you but only if you are male, if you are a female they will ignore you but stare at your breasts. One of the excursion men asked my husband “is this one yours?” Referring to me as if I’m an object. Another thing is the wifi and 4G/5G when landing we ended up spending about £50 each for about 3 hours worth of 4G which didn’t really work anyway. For some reason it doesn’t work over here if you are from Europe so you need a special sim so make sure you do your research. But it’s okay because they have WiFi…. Which didn’t work at all!!!! Me and my husband could hardly use our phones even at the bar and in our room the WiFi would constantly cut out so it made it impossible to send messages or even go on social media. There is so much more to say about this place but I’m hoping it’s enough to make people realise this hotel is definitely not 4 stars, let alone 1 star. It was so bad me and my husband looked at cutting the holiday short and flying home as we had such a bad experience here. But after paying £1500 already we refused to pay the extra amount for the flights and had to endure the rest of the holiday. I am appalled that our holiday cost us that much as we had a really horrible time and have written the review to educate other people from making the same mistake. I will never be returning to Tunisia due to this hotel and the staff.

Worst experience of my life. Entertainment nothing like advertised. Food shocking. Security staff very rude and wanted me to walk down to hotel on my own at 1am as they didnt want to let taxi drive me to door. Please avoid at all costs

This hotel was a major disappointment and does not meet the standards it advertises. The reception staff were unhelpful and impolite from the start. They did not assist with our luggage and simply handed us the keys without even showing us the location of our room. This lack of basic hospitality created a very poor first impression, and unfortunately, the rest of the stay matched that same low standard, which immediately set a negative tone for the stay. The rooms are extremely outdated, poorly maintained, and equipped with broken furniture. Cleanliness and attention to detail are seriously lacking. Facilities are also misrepresented: there is no gym, no indoor pool, despite being advertised as a resort, which was very disappointing. What should be a relaxing environment feels neglected and run down. While the beach location and sea view are objectively beautiful, they do not compensate for the hotel’s overall poor quality. Service, maintenance, and hospitality are far below what guests expect when booking a resort. This property requires urgent renovation and staff training before it can be recommended. Until then, I strongly advise travelers to look elsewhere.

Great hotel excellent service..He enjoyed the holiday and the variety of food... everything was delicious.Excellent vacation