I'm a little confused. Do you mean you will be staying at the Iberostar Diar el Andalous in Port el Kantaoui and want to do a trip to an amphitheatre with Thomas Cook? If so I think the amphitheatre you are referring to is at El Djem and if you are doing a 2-day trip it will probably include several other places such as Matmata and the desert.

I've been out there a couple of times, once by car with Tunisian friends and the second time on an organised trip with Saphir Voyages which I booked myself by phone from Sousse. It is a fascinating experience but you do spend quite a lot of time sitting on the coach so it can be tiring. If you search Safari Trip on here you will find quite a lot of info.

Personally, I wouldn't do the Sahara trip if you are only going for a week as it is pretty tiring and wipes out 2 days of your holiday - we did it from Hammamet and covered 1300km in those 2 days so spent hours on the coach. We'll probably go back and do a week long tour sometime to give us a chance to properly appreciate it all! A day trip to El Jem would be good fun though - it's very impressive!

If you simply want to visit El Jem you can do it independently and very cheaply on the train. You can get the 08.10 from Sousse arriving at El Jem at 10.13 and return either on the 19.16 to Sousse arriving at 20.10 or, if you want to leave earlier, catch the 16.49 from El Jem to Kalaa Seghira, the station before Sousse, arriving at 17.29

I do sometimes wonder why we bother to answer questions from some posters, since they often don't bother to reply saying whether our information has been helpful or if they need any further advice. Oh, I forgot, we do it because we like to help whenever possible, even though it sometimes seems a thankless task.

I fear yet another newbie that has been abducted by aliens not logged in since 19th of October.

I think you may be right Graham. As he logged in on 19th October he obviously found the information which had been posted but didn't consider it worth responding. I've just had a quick look and that particular poster did exactly the same on the Egyptian forum: asked for advice about a trip, to which you responded, then no more was heard from him. As far as I'm concerned the aliens can keep him, and any more with the same lack of manners.