We arrived at the hotel, to be given our room which upon entering was not cleaned and had dirty bed linen after complaining this was changed within 2 hours.

Poor living accommodation was 1 wardrobe between 5 of us, 2 towels and a bath tap that did not work, We were on the first floor and it rained, the rain left a very large wet puddle on the tiled floor, we had a cow living in a building (on the grounds) outside our hotel window, (very noisy).

We looked at 10 other rooms, thought ours was bad, but in fact it was good up to the others, so we put up with it for 2 weeks. Day 3-Day 5 all 5 of us suffered constant stomach cramps and severe diarrhea, tablets from the doctor did not clear this up, we ate crisps, bread and biscuits which we bought from the shop for the rest of our holiday.

The food was uncooked, raw meat, and cold.

Staff was friendly as could be in general under the circumstances and everyone we spoke to in the hotel had or was ill during their stay.

Entertainment was poor and boring, there was nothing to do on the evening the club was often flooded and raw sewerage smells lingered in there which was awful. The all inclusive package was very limited only 2 drinks at the bar at one time, in small plastic cups.

Outside the hotel was a shop, a bar and a pizzeria restaurant. The hotel itself was bad enough, but the illness we suffered was something beyond which I have ever experienced before (pains were worse than labour pains).

The tour operator, have offered us

Hotel clean, rooms basic. More rooms than advertised.
Hotel very big. Food ok but sometimes things were cold and not too well organised, would imagine in July/August would be terrible. Allocated a table and sitting for lunch and dinner but breakfast you could sit anywhere. We had been concerned with comments regarding upset stomaches but kept an open mind as somethimes this is expected, but we were both ill on our last day and had to sleep for the whole day with no food and just a little water before making the flight home.We have not felt right for a few days back home.

Location:Only one shop and bar up the road. Near Monastir worth a visit, 10 dinar by taxi each way. Taxis everywhere no problem to get one just agree price before getting in but it always seemed to be the same. Was told Skanes is situated between the Sea and Salt Lakes as we experienced rather a lot of flies at this resort. Have been to Port El Kantoui twice before and did not have this problem.

Hotel staff are very friendly and will help you as much as possible. The Tunisian people are very nice.
There is not a lot of entertainment, but the Tunisian
animation team do work very hard and make everyone feel welcome.

We would not revisit this hotel as we feel it was far too big and we did not find it as nice as Port El Kantoui which we have visited twice before, at a smaller hotel.

We booked this holiday to the houda back in February 2007. Looking forward to it because it was our 15 month old daughters first holiday.

The day we arrived you had to wait around for ages because the rooms weren

I have just came back from a 2 week stay at the Houda Beach club. I had worried feelings about this hotel as i read all the horrible reviews before i went.

Well we all arrived at about 8.30pm so we had to dump our cases in reception and got rushed into the restaurant as it was closing. Our family had such a carry on with room situation. There was 13 of us all together. Well the reception had totally mucked our rooms up as they stuck me,my fiance,my mam & dad,auntie and uncle in a family room. One bedroom didnt even have a door on so no one had privacy. Everyone else in the party was fine with their rooms but for some reason 6 of us got stuck together. So we complained and the next day me and my fiance got moved. My mam stil wasnt happy so complained and they got moved aswell. From all the stress my mam and auntie got a free massage at end of holiday. That wasn't a very good start of the holiday.

The rooms were very basic. There are a lot of mosquitos about. We had the mosqito ball and spray and stil got bitten loads. Watch out for cockroches aswell as i nearly died when one was in our bathroom one day.

The restaurant was appauling. It was all catered for french and german. I think we have all lost a stone as we ate hardly anything. That really spoilt our holiday. The soft drinks didnt come from a drink machine either. There were two waiters at a table and poured you the drink you wanted. Baring in mind that the drinks aint cold so on a hot day you want something cold. There was a snack bar near the pool area. They did do nice chicken kebabs but got sick of them after a few days.

We didnt watch much entertainment as it was by the slide pool and we prefered to stick by the other end. The animation team were brilliant though. I dont no where they get the energy from to be honest.Bunch of lovely lads though. Big hello to bobo,dido,jeo,two alex's,sam & the rest.

The pools were big. We normally stayed around the main pool by reception. The pool was quite dirty. I dont think they cleaned the pool that often cos every day there would be something floating about. We did go around the slide pool a few times which was very good.

The hotel has its own nightclub which is open till about 2am. There is also a place along the road called the safari which has a little supermarket, pizzeria and a bar which is open till 4am.

We found lots do to during the day. We went on jet ski's, paragliding, my fiance and friend went scubadiving which they loved. I had a full body massage which was very nice. I also got a pedicure the day before i came home.

The best part of the holiday was properly the weather and the company i was with. I do think the hotel was mostly for french and german. The germans were very rude in the airport with luggage. Found them very ignorant.

I dont think we will be visiting this hotel again. If we did ever go back we would stay in porta el katoui. It was very beautiful there.
Overall we stil had lots of fun. We made our own entertainment. Thank you to all the staff at Houda.

Although the staff worked very hard in this hotel there were far too many people (queues everywhere and not a lot to do at night) Food was repetitive and not good choice at all. This is our 8th all inclusive and has got to be the worst. The hotel needs entertainment in the main square even if its only bingo and quizzes. We spent every night playing cards cos there was nothing to do. There is nowhere to go unless you get a taxi ride into Port el Kantaoui which is about half an hour away but worth a visit.We spent 2 nights sharing an appartment before we got our own room due to a mix up with the hotel, even though we had booked up 15 months beforehand.I caught a water infection and had to see the doctor who gave me 3 injections and a course of anti biotics which was quite scary. Got bit to bits by mosquitoes and out of 13 of us 10 got stomach bugs but this was common around the hotel cos loads had the same. Thats the moaning out of the way. Now for the good things. The pools were great, staff were helpful and hard working especially Mira Bouzid, the lovely restaurant waiter and the cleaners work so hard, Sam behind the bar, the reps Jan and Jo, and of course the wonderful animation team who we loved so much.The weather was spot on, the hotel was very clean and Tunisia is very cheap. The Tunisian people are friendly. It just would have been better if there were more shops etc outside the complex, the food was a bit more edible and more entertainment at night.

We stopped at the Houda Golf and Beach club.
Firstly I would like to stress that I have never had a reason to complain about a hotel before until now.
When we first arrived at the hotel it looked beautiful but thats were it ended.

Rooms:-
Firstly like every other British family we got put into a squat. It had no daylight, no balcony with views out of the window of the dark hallway. There were wires coming out of the walls were the plug sockets, wall lights, and air con used to be. The room hadn't even been cleaned. Dirty wet towels on the bathroom floor, dirt all over the bed covers and a nice huge damp patch on the ceiling. This was 2am at night.

The day after we waited all day at reception for 2 rooms with balcony the we had booked a year ago.(a handy tip) whilst your new room is being cleaned. Make sure you don't move out of reception till its ready or they will give it to someone else.

When we were given what we had paid for the aircon in the rooms gave out a smell of raw sewerage so you couldnt use it. A complaint made by many guests.

The pool area:-
The pool area doesn't get cleaned very often. We were there 2 weeks and only seen it being cleaned twice. They let people use the pool at night hence, the ashtrays, glasses and chair we found on occasions in the pool the next day.

If you look at the palm tree islands in the pool, you will see peoples names scratched into the scum marks around them, hence ear infections are rife.

The restaurant:-
Not a very nice place to be. It is extremely crowded with people and flies. We actually stopped using it for tea because of the extreme heat(no air con) flies and undercooked food.

The food:-
Be very careful, as when we were there 90% of the hotel were throwing up and had diarrhoea, all 4 of us were ill.
You could guarntee that everyone we spoke to, 3 out of 4 of the family was or had been ill.

When we actually looked at the meat, it was undercooked and the chicken was pink.

The rep:-
Dont listen to her, she is useless. Especially dont believe that her trips are any good. We managed to go on a boat trip booked through her 3 days before we were going home. This was the first time out of the hotel through sickness. The trip is from monistir. We got on the boat, went really far out to sea, and cruised the monastir coastline from 5 miles away, and then it stopped, in deep water for about half hour to eat. Then it went back to the docking area. Trip over. This costs

When arriving at the hotel we were pleased, it seemed to match the brochure descriptions.
checking in was fine and straight forward.
a porter took us to our rooms .Me and my husband were in the room with our young children and our older children were next door,
the rooms were basic but clean we were a bed short to start with but the sorted that out straight away.
however our childrens room had a leak in the bathroom right above the toilet so when ever they sat on the loo they got dripped on.
then a few days into the holiday my daughter was straightening her hair and when she pulled out the plug she was given a nasty electric shock that went right through her arm. i went to the rep and complained and we were all moved into a three bedroom apartment which was lovely it didn't seem like the same hotel.
we all had diffrent views on the food my husband didn't mind it but was disappointed in the lack of choice a few times my 3 year old could not find anything at breakfast to eat but made up for it at night with the pizza and chips which is all he lived on all week, ( very healthy hey)
our older children are fussy eaters and are never satisfied wherever you go but they didn't mind the pasta and pizza. i found the choice of food ok a few meals were lovely but their idea of a english breakfast is not the same as ours.
the evenings were boring uuless you wanted to go to the slide pool and watch a load of blokes dress up as women and mime to songs, also the entertainment was right by the slide pool which was not lit up and i was forever on edge that my three year old would slip in.
we went into the city for dinner My biggest complaint of all was the men no matter where you went in or out of the hotel the waiters the bar men the lifegaurds they make you feel very uncomfortable costantly looking at you making moves on you making you feel generally uncomfortable. even when i was with my husband they would make coments to me my husband was not happy and made his point clear in a questionaire at the end of the holiday.
This hotel wasn't great but it wasn't the worst either the kids loved the pool and arcade it was boring at night but because we were in a group we made our own entertainment. i don't think i would go back.

read reports on this hotel so we were abit cautious on arrival. hotel is very nice but that is the best part i can say about this holiday
when got in to hotel we were told you could not check in till 2oclock we arrived at 12oclock sat in lobby bar while reception staff checked our names on list we were told our names were not on list. so informed our rep who sorted room out which was in a new block which is a family block which was very noisy.
the same food is the same everyday and expect long queues and pushing in,waited half an hour to get an omelette very slow service the restuarant can not cope with the amount of people in this hotel. spag bol,lasagne,cottage pie,tunisian pasta,chicken and veg pie and chips some of these items were served twice a day 7 days a week.
drinks were shocking cheap gin, vodka, wine and lager that was it, soft drinks included cheap cola and very limted on diet coke ended up having to buy diet coke from shop.
entertainment was poor was ok for kids but not enough for adults.
we will not be returning to this hotel again.
one tip we have get up very early to get a sun lounger other wise come 8am they have all gone and they is no more.

We chose this hotel for a number of reasons, mainly as we were taking my wife's parents who are 70+ and not in the best of health.

So we needed a destination with short flight times, short transfer times, low rise buildings and on a level (not hilly) site but with some where to lounge out in the sun and shade with somewhere nearby for short trips out.

Having been to Tunisia several years ago, we knew what to expect & based our booking on our knowledge and what I found on this website (& others).

For the (reasonable) price we paid, the holiday more than met our expectations. The hotel staff were mostly very friendly and helpful with a couple of minor exceptions, it takes all sorts! The hotel is a little out of the way but is close enough for a cheap taxi ride if you want to veture further afield, taxi's area lways available oppposite the entrance of the hotel. We took a trip all the way up to El Kantaoui which cost

First impressions of this hotel were excellent, and were never changed. Booking in was easy, however it was slightly hard to find the room as we had no idea where to start looking!

Rooms were very clean, basic but had all the essentials we needed. Great views from the balcony overlooking the pool and out onto the beach, although we were above the reception area we could not hear anything.

Swimming pool was always clean and absolutely huge! we didn't go to the slide pool until our 2nd from last day and wished we had gone there sooner as they are good!

We did not spend a day on the beach as it was too hot, however waled down there one evening, the each was lovely, very romantic if it was not for the locals selling things down there, the ones on the beach find it harder to take no for an answer, if you don't want to buy then you are best to keep walking away!

Food was good, always available, although for the picky eater there may not be too much, but there are always chips available! Dinner and Lunch was also made so much easier for the fact you did not have to look for a free table, you had your own assigned table.

The location was not excellent, the only things in walking distance appeared to be a souvenir shop and bar, as we were all inclusive at the hotel we never tried it out. However there are always taxis parked outside the gates for cheap prices and the bus stops right outside as well.

All the staff were polite, the entertainments team were always up for a giggle, and kept provided us with something to throughout the day, but did not pester you to get up if you preferred to laze about.

The only down side to the holiday was the day we left, we were unable to get a late check out room as it was Sunday, the only day that English arrive in the hotel. Our check out time was 12 however the porter arrived at the door about 11.15 and almost dragged the cases out even though we were not ready.

When we then arrived for lunch we discovered that our allocated table had been taken away and we ate outside (the tables outside were not allocated to a certain room).
Despite the last day we had a very enjoyable day and would certainly consider returning there.