Каникулы в Тунисе Holidays in Tunisia

Tunisian holidays 2011. Hotel Riu Bellevue Park 4 *, tour operator Grand (Express Tour), travel agency Alsace Tour (Moscow, Zelenograd). 12.06 - 25.06. 2011.
We decided for a long time whether it was worth going to Tunisia after their strikes, instability, etc. But, as they say, “Russo-tourists are not afraid of anything”!
The decisive factors in choosing this country were the price and the assurances of travel agents that it was calm there. For two for 2 weeks, we gave 73 thousand rubles.
In the end, we decided and now we are packing our bags. Swimwear, shorts are packed in a suitcase, positive and good mood are also not forgotten! ;

Day 1. The flight was Tunisian Airlines flight BJ 889 Domodedovo - Monastir. The plane is an Airbus A 320. I have never seen a more nightmarish plane. There are very few places. With my height of 176, I had a very hard time, I was only glad that the flight was not delayed, and there were no restless children in the cabin, which allowed me to at least somehow take a nap, because the flight was night.
As for feeding on board, we were given a rather impressive sandwich and a glass of cola. Dinner, apparently, is no longer allowed, but somehow I didn’t really want to eat at 4 in the morning, so I don’t consider it a minus. On board the plane, we were given emigration cards that could be filled out leisurely, thereby significantly reducing the time spent at the airport. Those who needed help were provided by the stewards. In general, they should be especially noted, they try to please everyone, they smile, they are very friendly! And it's also very nice that they try to speak Russian, and study with pleasure. What is strange, our citizens also showed their worthy side and there was no shame for our compatriots.
Entry for our citizens is now visa-free, so there were no problems at the border. Luggage was also received quickly and without problems. There were no people at the airport, except for our flight.
As we later learned, they are trying to redirect most of the flights to Efidna, the newest powerful airport built just 3 years ago. We will fly back through it, so I can write something about it.
At the exit from the airport, we were met by representatives of the tour operator Grand, they are also Express Tour, they were also distributed by buses. The buses are good, the air conditioner worked quite strongly, the driver was adequate, he didn’t scorch. The friendly girl Olga (our meeting and part-time hotel guide) fully told all the necessary information about the country, answered all questions. In general, the service is top notch! It is evident that they love their tourists, cherish and respect them.
In my review, I will describe every day spent in Tunisia. So, we arrived at the hotel (40 minutes drive from the airport at a snail's pace, with arrivals at all hotels).

Olga helps everyone to check in (fill out the necessary documents, negotiate with the hotel staff so that they give the rooms early, because the flight is night, and the check-in is only at 12, and the tourists are tired). We are experienced travelers, so I can say that the quality is rare for a tour operator!
The first thing that pleasantly surprised me was that the hotel is large, freshly renovated, and very comfortable. The hall is very beautifully decorated in the national style. The receptionist said that our room would be ready in 2 hours (we arrived at the hotel around 6 am! ) Agree, it's still not waiting until 12! We checked in, we were immediately put on bracelets (all inclusive) and offered to drink coffee and have breakfast in a cafe (there is a cafe on the ground floor that serves an early breakfast from 6 in the morning. They serve buns, cheese, butter, tea, coffee). In general, if you have an early check-in / check-out, an excursion, then you definitely will not stay hungry!
We had breakfast, walked a bit around the territory and returned to the reception, what was our surprise that our room was already ready! And it hasn't even been an hour yet!
Room 2206. The room is chic, very large and bright, the windows overlook the park, but the view is very pleasant, and most importantly, it is quiet, if you take the view of the sea, you can hear discos and animation shows there. The room has a separate bath and toilet, very large. The room is big too! There is a large European bed and a sofa, which, if desired, can be expanded and a separate sleeping place will turn out, as practice later showed, it is very comfortable and no worse than a bed, a mirror, a fairly large closet, in general, there is more than enough space for two! Central air conditioning, with personal control, but strong enough. The TV catches one Russian channel, ORT, although intermittently, it doesn’t work at all in the morning, but you don’t come here to watch TV, right?

There is Internet, but only paid, in the room it catches every other time. The hotel staff try to please in everything, they smile, but at the same time they are not unobtrusive, as, for example, in Turkey or Egypt. They speak Russian, but it's bad if you speak basic English, then there will be no problems! As a last resort, no one has yet canceled the explanation on the fingers, the main thing is that they want to hear and understand you! Of the minuses of the room, which we later discovered, a poorly functioning toilet flush tank. Fatigue took its toll and we decided not to change the number, but stupidly dismantled the tank so that it could be drained manually, and not from a button.
The territory of the hotel is not very large, but well-groomed, everywhere is clean and comfortable, beautiful flowers grow, trees and shrubs are neatly trimmed. There are enough sun loungers on the beach and near the pool, you do not need to borrow in advance.
Breakfasts and lunch.
We have all-inclusive meals, there are 2 early breakfasts: (takes place in a cafe) and late continental (in the main restaurant of the hotel from 7-30 to 10-00). Lunch takes place outside near the beach bar from 12:00 to 15:00. There was more than enough food for lunch! It is very tasty and varied. The fish and chicken were amazing! ! ! There is ice cream, desserts, fruits: peaches, grapefruits, plums and watermelons, everything is ripe, juicy and very tasty! In my opinion, everyone can find here something for themselves. You certainly won't leave hungry! Drinks (soda, water, juices) are all freely available, come and pour as much as you need. In my opinion, this is a huge plus! No need to stand in lines at the bar, only for alcohol, and then not for long. Drinks of local production, the taste is decent. At least better than in Cyprus! Between main meals, you can have a snack on the beach with pancakes, sandwiches.
In the afternoon we had a meeting with our guide, went to Olga, noted our return tickets, told us about the excursions, but didn’t “push” anything, clearly and quickly understood what we needed, gave a map of the immediate surroundings, where all local attractions were marked , shopping centers and how to get to all this.

Dinner was held in the main restaurant of the hotel (down and to the left). At the entrance you are met by the maî tre d' and assigned to you a certain table. Dinner takes place in 2 stages from 18-30 to 19-45 and 20-15 to 21-30. The food was a bit more modest than at lunch, but we didn't go hungry. We had a bite to eat, looked around the surroundings a bit and on this our strength ran out, we went to bed. But we didn’t really get to sleep, because somewhere in the region of 3-4 nights we began to be flooded with cold water, it turned out to be an air conditioner. Repaired immediately, at the first request, did not have to wait, everything was done very quickly. They apologized wildly. We never had such embarrassing misunderstandings.
Day 2
I didn’t particularly remember anything, except that we came to the room after dinner to relax, the room had already been cleaned, our toilet bowl had been repaired and assembled. Nobody was asked for anything. It's nice that they are smart.  They clean it cleanly, there are no complaints, no money was left.
Day 3. Today I saw a picture with merchants on the beach. There are a lot of them here, they sell fruits, pareos, beach clothes, cigarettes, dates, rugs and even palm sprouts! All sellers go only along the coast. They are strictly prohibited from approaching sunbeds. So, one seller with rugs began to frankly "push" him to a German tourist. It was clear that she did not know where to get away from him, apparently her upbringing did not allow her to just get up and leave. So the beach workers reacted very quickly to this situation and simply drove him away. It's nice that they take care of our good mood and even the wallet!
 In general, the staff here is very well-trained, they greet everyone, ask how the mood is, help if it is necessary even without asking! During the day, managers can come up and ask how you are doing, whether you like everything, what you would like or what is not right ...At dinner, questionnaires are distributed once a week, where you can indicate what you are satisfied with and what you are not. They really care about the quality of their employees!
Day 4. The first day when the sea became more or less warm. In general, the sea here is dirty. Worse, perhaps, only Black. A bunch of algae, human waste products. In order to swim properly, we go to the right to the beach of another Rio hotel, which is located nearby. There is a little less algae. The smell from the sea is also so-so, it smells like rotting algae.
Day 5. Decided to crawl out shopping. They changed money, only locals are accepted here - dinars, the exchange rate is the same everywhere, because.

supported by the state, so you can safely change to the reception. There are many shops here, there is where to roam. We reached the main road and turned left from there. The first shopping center is Miami. Quite expensive and useless. The next one was on the right hand - we bought a bunch of magnets there as souvenirs for friends. There are just a lot of them, only 1 TD each. We decided to walk further and wandered to a very large center with low prices. I don’t remember its name, but you can distinguish it by the plane! Very nicely decorated, regretted that I did not take the camera. I'll definitely take it next time. You can get lost inside! 4 floors intertwined at different levels, everything is arranged in such a way that it defies any logic, but this makes it even more interesting. You go out to the same halls, but from different sides, so you see new things every time. There are a lot of knitted things of very good quality, especially for children and men.
The evening was spoiled by only one fact. There are many children here who are beggars. 4-year-old babies run around with baskets of bunches of flowers and try to sell you too. You have to see their eyes! And mother (I saw only one all the way, and there are about 5 children) stands as if, as it should be! I concluded that it is better to travel around the city either by taxi or minibuses (yellow with a blue stripe, cost 1 TD per person), just don’t confuse it with white ones with a blue stripe - these are long-distance! ! You can take the yellow minibus to Port El Kantaouwe, where there is a medina (market) and many other shops. It is customary to bargain in the markets, while in the centers the prices are indicated on the price tags and are not subject to discussion.
Day 6. In the morning merchants arrived at the hotel and it was possible to buy local souvenirs without leaving the hotel. We bought 2 deep soup bowls. It turned out a little cheaper than in the mall. These are the wonders of commerce. He offered us 2 of them for 50 TD, and we took two of them for only 5.
So bargain, for them it's a ritual, and if you don't like to bargain, go to a shopping center. 
Day 7. In the evening we were waiting for a national Tunisian dinner, with costumes, national cuisine and other obligatory attributes. It was a lot of fun.

Day 8. It's been more than a week since we arrived here, and now, surprisingly, we are not a bit tired! Here every day is something new, fun, and always in a good mood! People who work and relax here, even though they speak different languages, treat each other with such attention and respect! What a pity that it is impossible to transfer all this into our daily life. I can say this about the attitude of people and attendants, or rather give an example. Today, I was nevertheless tempted by the offer of a beach seller and bought a national tunic. Someone uses them for going to the beach, but personally I took it for myself as a light summer home dress. I paid 25 TD for it.
So the hotel employee said that 25 is very expensive, and we didn’t call him in vain, he could have bargained for cheaper. Although, it would seem, he should not care about our money, but no, they do not remain indifferent. It may seem to someone that they are persistent here, sometimes it happens, but more often than not, they just want you to smile and have a good mood. Such a positive people - Tunisians!
Day 9. Today I did a photo session with a local photographer (from the hotel). The photos are very beautiful, bright, but I did not buy them. They ask 7 dinars for one photo on the disc! If you take more than 10 photos, then they give them away for 3.5 dinars. If you multiply by my 150 photos, you get a pretty impressive amount. As it turned out later, I did the right thing, the next day Marco approached me and offered to dump all my photos on a disk for only 50 dinars. It was clear in advance that they would give me them even cheaper.
I said that I bought a lot of gifts for my friends and I only had 20 dinars left. As a result, he gave me the disk for them.
Day 10. We went shopping, in the distant shopping center "Hawaii" we found cool LaCoste polo shirts, bought 4 pieces, the money came out only 30 dinars for everything. Factory quality, the seams are perfect.
Day 11. Cooperated with friends and took a taxi to Sousse for shopping, one way from the hotel is 8 dinars per car. It is better to take a taxi from the main road, it turns out cheaper. We arrived at the Marhaba shopping center, next to it is another one - the Slim Center. Shops with European clothes, shoes, La Coste, Lee Cooper, Benetton, etc. are represented. I didn’t find anything special for myself, but there is where to take a walk. Pay attention to the Crocodile bag store, you can find noble things there.
Day 12. This morning we came to the beach and were amazed. The beach itself and the sea were cleaned from algae and other debris! The smell is gone too. The water is warm, so good…. . the beauty
!

Day 13. Today we bought more butter, sweets and other souvenirs. Time to pack your bags and go home! ! ! ! It's amazing here, but I already want to go home. When we came to the room from the beach, we were pleasantly surprised, they left us a gift from the hotel - a small handmade candy bowl. Never before have gifts been given in hotels. Very nice!
Day 14. Date of departure home. We said goodbye to the sea, packed our things, checked in at 12-00, as expected, had lunch and are ready to leave. Moscow is waiting for us! We fly through Efidna airport. I will write about it when I get home.
Day 15. Here we are at home. I promised to write about the new airport, but I can’t, because we changed the airport and departure time. We flew again through Monastir. Checked in luggage, passed passport control, all without problems. Duty free acceptable. The plane was given a new one, an Airbus A320, fresh and clean, it cannot be compared with the one on which they flew there! The seats are leather, there are more places than in the old one, the feeding is the same as last time - a sandwich.
Moscow met us with rain, but how nice it is to be home again! ! !
In my review, I described every day of our trip and my emotions from the rest. And what to consider as pluses, and what for minuses everyone will decide for himself! If necessary, I can answer all questions! Hope my review helps you! Have a good rest, gentle sea, cloudless sky and soft landing!