Ben and Claire booked two weeks all-inclusive in Djerba, Tunisia, before they’d even left the UK, mainly to solve a Schengen visa problem. Here, Claire writes honestly about a stay that didn’t give them what they needed, and the decision to cut it short.
We’re still not entirely sure why we chose Tunisia. When we were mapping out our route through Europe, we needed somewhere outside the Schengen zone to avoid overstaying the 90-day limit, and with France and Italy on our route, Tunisia sat right below, a short flight away. So we booked two weeks all-inclusive in Djerba, from Marseille, before we’d even left the UK. Convenience drove the decision more than anything else.
What we didn’t do was research it properly. A few people close to us who’d visited Tunisia before didn’t have glowing things to say, which planted some doubt before we’d even landed. And we’ve never booked a full two-week all-inclusive stay before, not once, in all our years travelling as a couple or as a family of four. Looking back, we’re not quite sure why we made an exception here, on a destination we knew the least about.
An uneasy start
The flight itself was smooth, and the airport was small and quick to get through. Without pre-booked transport, we joined the taxi queue for what we’d read would be a 40-minute journey, roughly €15-20. What we actually got was a four-seater that couldn’t fit our cases in the boot, so one large case ended up on the back seat with me and the children. No seatbelts, in a car with no visible fault of its own since every taxi in the queue looked identical, so there wasn’t really another option to compare it against.
The driver himself was lovely, trying his best in limited English to point out nearby sights and hotels worth knowing about. But the 40-minute drive itself was sobering, mile after mile of open land, rubble, and buildings that looked abandoned or never finished, barely any infrastructure beyond the odd hotel. We’d seen underdeveloped areas before on this trip, but this felt like something else entirely, and it left me wondering what we’d actually do if we wanted to venture beyond the resort. There wasn’t an obvious answer.
To be fair, this may say more about where we happened to book than Tunisia as a whole. Djerba might simply not be the part of the country with the infrastructure or community feel other regions have. We didn’t know enough going in to say either way.
Walking into the room
I’ll be upfront about where I was personally before we even arrived. The week leading up to Tunisia, I’d been quietly struggling with homesickness, not communicating it as much as I should have. What I needed from this stop was somewhere to feel settled and at peace for a couple of weeks before heading back to the UK in about a month. Pulling up to the hotel, unassuming from the outside, didn’t give me that feeling. And when we were shown to our room, I burst into tears.
I don’t say that to sound dramatic, or snobby about what we expected. This wasn’t a cheap stretch of the trip, we paid over £3,000 for two weeks, a fair amount of money by any measure. This didn’t match that. The family room was tiny, one double bed with two single beds crammed a couple of metres from it, one cupboard, no real floor space, and not especially clean. There was nowhere for the children to play, and we couldn’t even get both suitcases open at once.
Ben went to reception and negotiated an upgrade to a larger room with a separate bedroom, at a cost, €750, but worth it for the space alone.
Three rooms in one night
The second room was bigger, but still fell short of what a four-star resort should offer, a broken toilet flush replaced with a piece of string, a dirty sink, grime around the shower. We started unpacking anyway, went for food, and came back to find the room getting unbearably hot, the air conditioning running but doing nothing against the heat.
By 9pm, with the children overtired, sweating and increasingly upset, we went back to reception. A maintenance visit and a promised ten-minute fix came and went with no change after 45 minutes. No spare fans were available either. In the end, we were moved to a third room, packing everything back into cases and carrying two exhausted children between rooms at 11pm, on a day that had started with a 4am airport alarm.
That third room, thankfully, was a genuine improvement, cleaner, better maintained, though still not quite four-star standard. It became clear the quality at this resort depends heavily on which room you’re given, a genuine lottery rather than a consistent standard.
What’s actually been good
The following morning, once I’d unpacked properly and set up the children’s usual comforts, nightlight and toys included, things felt more manageable, even if I knew I wouldn’t feel fully settled for the whole two weeks. And credit where it’s due: the children have loved it here. A pool, a beach, a park, ticked every box on their list, even if the bigger picture (rusting play equipment, a beach that isn’t especially well kept) was harder for us as adults to look past.
The animation team has been the standout part of the resort, interactive pool games and a mini disco that both children loved. Every member of staff we’ve encountered, waiters, bar staff, the small on-site shop and hairdresser, has been consistently lovely. We’ve had to keep reminding ourselves that different destinations come with different standards, and that’s part of what we signed up for by choosing somewhere new.
Settling into a rhythm, and hitting a wall
Food came in fixed two-hour windows for each meal, with little available outside them. When we missed the 10am breakfast slot after a rough night, we didn’t eat again until 12:30, so we started saving biscuits from the evening dessert table to tide the children over on slow mornings, a small workaround that made a real difference.
Our children didn’t take to the actual kids’ club room here, it felt more like a room of toys than anything actually interactive, so we mostly skipped it. Days settled into a repetitive rhythm: the pool for a few hours, a walk along the beach, an hour or two in the indoor lounge with cards and colouring books to escape the worst of the midday heat and humidity. With no gym, nowhere within walking distance, and the same small loop day after day, it started to feel less like a relaxing reset and more like being confined. We’ve felt like we’ve outstayed it.
Cutting the stay short
We gave ourselves a week before deciding anything, telling ourselves we’d push through to two weeks if we could. We couldn’t. We’ve now moved our flight forward, leaving Saturday morning instead of the following Monday evening, the earliest available option given how limited flights out of this location are.
From here, we’ll fly back to Marseille, collect the car, and begin working our way back up through northern Italy, roughly ten days travelling back towards the UK before we fly out to America.
What we’re taking from it
For all of that, this has been one of the best parts of our travelling experience too, and it’s worth saying plainly. The children have had a proper holiday here, exactly the kind of pool-and-beach, no-agenda stretch they needed after such a fast-moving few months, and watching them enjoy it that freely has meant a lot.
We’ve come away with two clear lessons. The first: an all-inclusive resort, however good the price looks on paper, isn’t what we actually need when we want a longer, static stint somewhere. We need the flexibility to come and go, choose our own meals, eat when we want, and venture out of the property when we feel like it. Next time we want to properly settle in one place for a while, we’ll be looking for something self-contained and self-catering instead, with the amenities we need to stay comfortable without depending on a resort’s fixed schedule.
The second: research matters, every time, no exceptions. Since we actually set off travelling, we’ve researched everywhere we’ve booked. Tunisia was the one place we didn’t, because it was booked before we’d even left the UK, before we really knew what mattered to us on a trip like this. That gap showed. We’re glad to take that lesson forward, and we hope this piece helps another family avoid the same one.
What else is possible when the reset you were counting on turns out to need its own reset?
FAQ
Would you recommend Tunisia as a family destination? Honestly, we can’t say either way with confidence. Djerba specifically didn’t work for us, but we did very little research going in, and other parts of the country may offer a completely different experience.
Is all-inclusive the right choice for a longer family stay? Not for us, and this trip taught us that clearly. For a longer, static stint somewhere, we now know we need self-contained, self-catering accommodation with the flexibility to come and go, eat on our own schedule, and venture out, rather than being tied to a resort’s fixed routine.
What would you do differently next time? Research properly before booking anywhere unfamiliar, no exceptions, even when the booking is made months in advance for practical reasons like a visa rule. Tunisia was the one place we skipped that step, and it showed.
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