КАК Я ПРОВЕЛА ЭТИМ ЛЕТОМ (воспоминания одной путешественницы)… ОТСТОЙ. HOW I SPENT THIS SUMMER (reminiscences of one traveler)… SUCKS.

HOW I SPENT THIS SUMMER (reminiscences of one traveler)…
TUNISIA. HAMMAMET AZUR PLAZA HOTEL
(EX. "DELPHIN PLAZA HAMMAMET")

And so: the long-awaited vacation has come. Rather to the sea, to the beach, under the gentle sun. Sunbathe and swim. There are so many places in the world where they are waiting for me ...Why not Tunisia? Still, Africa, although northern, should have a warm sea. Voucher from 10 to 18 June 2012 - 10 days (network of travel agencies "GLOBAL TRAVEL" Pskov).
Arrived. Sleepless night - departure and Pulkovo-1 at 05.50. Arrival at 10.15 Moscow time and at 07.00. in Tunisia (in Tunisia, the time is 3 hours ago from Moscow) The representative of the tour operator "PEGAS" met, took to the hotels, promising a hassle-free vacation, currency exchange at the reception (dinars used $ 1 - 1.59 dinars), etc. Vacationers were taken to five hotels - mine was the fourth - I'm the only one who visits.

The facade and visible area of ​ ​ the hotel impressed, unlike others. I also liked the hotel itself: interesting architecture, a lot of greenery inside and recreation areas, large, spacious rooms with a balcony.
Hooray! - the balcony does not overlook the pool (there is animation behind it), which means that if you want to sleep, read or just relax, the noise will not hurt.
The magic words "ALL INCLUSIVE" and, as an addition to them, a bright red bracelet on the arm, which peeled off after the first dive into the sea (with the risk of permanently staining clothes) becoming white with traces of the former redness.
Having examined the territory of the hotel, I waited for the guide in order to get information about the rest. The news was not long in coming: there is no currency exchange, there is no information board, there are no promised beach towels at the reception on a deposit of 15 dinars. The guide tiredly said that the hotel employees do not understand anything or do not want to understand both in Russian and in the sense of the need for an information corner for tourists, and therefore, if you need anything, for example, to clarify the time of departure to your homeland, you should call him from the reception at the time specified by them, because
if you do not call, then you will bear the responsibility for not knowing the time of departure and collection on the bus yourself, as well as pay for your flight, unless, of course, you fly away on your own flight. He recommended taking the safe that is in the room, although the day before our tourist from Kaliningrad lost $ 900 from the safe, while the manager did not solve the problem, the police were not called, only the victim wrote a claim and, looking ahead, I’ll say that before leaving, I did get a visit from the police site, in order to fix this claim (having spent on finding out who will do this from end to end, on telephone conversations N-th amount of money, your money, mind you).
By the way, do not forget to take a check for paying for a safe or a refrigerator so that you do not have to pay a second time at the time of departure.

4 Russian tourists, including me, were not given checks, and when, at the suggestion of one of the vacationers, we demanded them through a guide, we were issued checks, but after that we did not see one of the receptionists again (which suggests that re-payment option was more than possible).
There is a road to the sea - it really is and runs along an uncleaned street, past the construction of a hotel. The construction site goes directly to the beach, from where, if the wind rises, construction debris falls on your head, because the construction site is not separated from the beach even by a frail fence. The beach is dirty (bottles, cigarette butts, construction debris, including plastic bags flying through the air like balloons), mattresses have not seen washing since last year, at least. We sunbathe with dogs - at least four of them, because they regularly bark, strive to lie under your sunbed, sniff, or lick you in the face, you feel like in a kennel.
As you understand, dogs are also dirty and flea-ridden, periodically shake off all their goodness on sunbathers. The beds are filled with sand. By the way, they bothered to wash some of the mattresses on June 15, when, as it turned out, the season begins in Tunisia. And the fact that before that the hotel has been working and accepting tourists for two months is a trifle, the costs of “business”, so to speak. The surprise of the attendants is huge: - “Why do you need the sea when the hotel has a pool and there is an ALL INCLUSIVE” nearby? ”(implying that we have never seen pools in our lives and have not splashed in the water with chemicals for centuries). By the way, on the beach for this very "ALL INCLUSIVE" you will only be poured a glass of water (they say, but I have not tried it), the rest of the "benefits" in the hotel.
Rest in this hotel mainly Slovaks, Czechs, Poles, very few Russians (there were 8-9 of us at the time of my arrival, and the same number at the time of departure), Lebanese and Tunisians. The latter come in large numbers for the weekend.

On June 9-10, students from some sports school arrived (I don’t know for sure) and left behind a pigsty: when we arrived at the dining room in the morning, we found uncleaned tables with the remains of dirty dishes, an unwashed floor on which olives were lying, peels from watermelons, chairs were soiled butter, sauce and Allah knows what else, because the dining room is open around the clock, and leaving in the morning for breakfast, and passing by the reception, you will find the hotel administrator sleeping on the sofa without hind legs in clothes like “I washed the floor, but didn’t wash it ". Until the moment of my departure, no one even thought to clean the chairs, so each visit to the dining room began with the choice of a chair, as well as a table. However, almost every breakfast was distinguished by such cleanliness, as, in fact, lunch and dinner.
In the morning, if you find a cook (and take him to his workplace from the sofa from the reception to the stove and he will weigh you your portion, as a favor), they will cook scrambled eggs or scrambled eggs, bake pancakes, and if you don’t find them, you will eat boiled eggs in cool, cheese (I don’t eat it, but those who eat it say it’s good), vegetables, croissants and buns from the same dough, often yesterday, and something else - that’s something like that. Eat not because it is tasty, but because it is necessary. Instead of butter - margarine. From fruits and berries: watermelon every day; sometimes: melon, apricots, peaches - that's all. Sweets were given 3 times, no more, in the form of cakes of one or two types, cream, obviously left after the manufacture of cakes, and some kind of oriental, we must pay tribute - edible sweetness. Soup only in the evening, I think it's like everywhere else.
To have the pleasure of drinking tea or coffee, you need to go or ask the "waiter" to bring this drink from the ALL INCLUSIVE bar.
In the mornings, boiling appliances for making coffee and tea were dragged from this very bar to the dining room, and after breakfast back (apparently, it is unprofitable for a hotel to have two electrical appliances each). Also "INCLUDED" were drinks such as fanta, sprite, cola, water. From alcoholic drinks: beer, vodka, gin (appeared later), buha - Tunisian fig vodka. Dry local wine: red, white and rose. Pink is pure vinegar. Disposable utensils for drinks were washed when there were not enough glasses, and they were not enough regularly. You come to drink something - there are no glasses, the Slovak-Poles will come for beer - the beer is over and so on endlessly - something is always missing. The “bartender or barwoman” wiping the floor and putting a mop on the mop will serve you without washing your hands between these procedures. Bottled water in the room bought themselves in a store across the street.

For example, in a 3-star hotel (if I'm not mistaken "CLUB BOUSTEN"), where our tourist from Omsk went to her friends, bottled water was given both to the room and to the beach, and everything was at a decent level of a normal 4-star hotel ( good kids animation. In the same hotel there were afternoon snacks for those who were late or overslept breakfast or dinner, which was not even expected in our hotel. Several times they saved boilers for coffee and tea from burning out, because they worked at idle - there was no time to pour water or no need. We arrive from the beach hours at 12.00. drink coffee, and coffee is over or cold, go, they say, to a paid bar - there is hot. They asked to bring tea for dinner - they bring everything as expected, only the water is cold, otherwise “everything is fine”.
The maids clean tolerably. The carpet in my room, as it was not cleaned or at least not vacuumed, so for 10 days it remained so - you will disdain to stand up barefoot. Please bring shampoo and shower gel with you as
they are not in the room. You've got a disposable soap and apparently the cheapest gel you can find. I had a hair dryer, but not in demand. The corridors of the hotel are carpeted with the latest freshness - a Klondike for asthmatics and those close to them.
In my memory, this is the first hotel where the attendants easily call your room or even come if you hang up, with unambiguous offers to "drink coffee with a continuation. "
Grabbing hands and groping in the market are in the order of things, if you don’t buy anything while walking and choosing, they can be frankly rude.
Sorry for the length and crumpled presentation, but I wanted to convey the maximum of delights (I’m afraid that I didn’t succeed, because while I connected the Internet and came to my senses, the anger subsided). I will say one thing: Russian people are a force when they are together.
I am grateful to people from different cities of the country whom I met: from Kaliningrad, Murmansk, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Novorossiysk, Rostov-on-Don. Thanks to our communication, inexhaustible optimism and sense of humor, we have something good to remember, in addition to excursions. We laughed endlessly, rested to the best of our ability, saw off those departing and celebrated the Day of Russia on June 12.2012. I will separately report on an unexpected scandal with the Slovaks because of football, when ours played with the Greeks and the Slovaks with the Poles, and the matches were broadcast in one and the same time. We won and watched the second half for 5 minutes in turn, and the last 10 minutes for a minute. If our team knew what it cost us, they would not dare to lose.

In short, gentlemen tourists, if you want to spoil your vacation with "excellent service" and the "ALL INCLUSIVE" formula at the HAMMAMET AZUR PLAZA hotel - welcome.
Think about the consequences and what exactly do you have included? The impression is that the owner does not care about the hotel and its manager, the manager of the hired (obviously untrained, from the street) staff. I once showed a girl in a bar, or rather, I myself served a Pole who wanted to drink vodka, which was not there, with cola. She showed from which tap the cola was pouring, offered the Pole booze instead of vodka - the man was satisfied with my service.
There are no complaints about the sea itself - it is clean and different every day.
Do not in any way transfer my negativity to the HAMMAMET AZUR PLAZA hotel to the whole country. It will be inappropriate. Go to rest in Tunisia, but, I beg you, not in this hotel and read the reviews of tourists. Many write the truth. And the Pegas tour operator, cooperating with a similar hotel and doing nothing to change the situation, simply lowers its reputation below the baseboard. Be healthy!