We stayed at Skanes Serail as a family of seven, and while there were definitely some positives to our holiday, unfortunately I don’t feel this hotel lives up to its advertised 4-star rating. From my own experience of other 4-star all-inclusive hotels, I would personally rate this closer to a 3-star, basic all-inclusive. Firstly, I want to give credit where it is due. The hotel itself is in a lovely location, situated between Monastir and Sousse, with its own private beach. The cleaners, entertainment team and other hotel staff work tirelessly and were consistently friendly throughout our stay. Our rooms were cleaned to a good standard and, overall, I found the hotel itself to be clean. The entertainment team also deserve recognition. They work incredibly hard, particularly with the children. There is a kids’ club, daytime activities, their own hotel songs and dances that get everyone involved, children’s entertainment in the evening and then entertainment for adults later on, including comedy and other shows. We also had a foam party during our stay, which was great fun. The private beach is one of the better aspects of the hotel. There are additional activities available including jet skis, banana boats, sofa rides and other water sports. These are chargeable, but we really enjoyed them. We also purchased photographs from our water-sports experience, which were transferred directly to our phones and were surprisingly inexpensive — around £9 for ours — and the quality was really good. I am also a runner and felt very safe going out early in the morning for my 5K runs. I could run straight from the hotel onto the beach and along the coastline before turning around and coming back. I never felt unsafe doing this, which was a big positive for me. Unfortunately, the biggest disappointment was the food and the dining experience. The food is extremely repetitive. I appreciate that some repetition is normal with all-inclusive holidays, but this was more repetitive than anything I have personally experienced before. There are live stations where they cook things such as spaghetti, doughnuts and other items in front of you, but the queues can be extremely long. The restaurant at busy times was honestly chaotic. The queues were horrendous and at times it felt like a cattle market, with people pushing in, grabbing food and jumping queues. Eventually we became completely fed up with queuing. I am normally a big meat eater, but after checking some of the meat during our first few days, particularly chicken, and finding it still pink inside, I chose not to eat the meat for the remainder of the holiday. That was disappointing and meant my options became even more limited. We actually went off-site on a couple of occasions simply because we wanted something different to eat. Meal times were roughly breakfast from 7am until 10am, daytime food/snacks around 12pm–3pm, another snack period later in the afternoon and evening meal from approximately 7pm–9pm
