Caribbean World Resort Borj Cedria

Comment:
We enjoyed our stay in this hotel especially because there was a lot to eat (as much as one could) and food was excellent, provided that one has to be aware of the fact that food in oriental places smells and tastes different from, say, European (or Western) style. The bathing in the sea and in the pool was okay, except that the water temperature was too high to me. Many praises go to ``les animateurs'' who were around the whole day every day and tried to do everything to entertain people, although I didn't participate in animation. Well, ``pour les animateurs'', I have an advice: I believe they can diversify the musical background much more. Otherwise, they were very lively, kind and not too intrusive, as most of the locals are in general, except in the ``souks'' where the normal way of doing commerce is yelling at the customers and trying to sell them anything, even by pulling them by hands. I even liked the multitude of sparrows flashing everywhere: they obviuosly live on guests' leftovers and drink pool water, which is probably disgusting to most of the people but I had no problem with this. And yes, there are also some unpleasant circumstances: everybody, both guests and locals, smoked WAY TOO MUCH, the guests (not the locals) also drank a lot of alcohol so one could smell both substances in the air, especially in the evening. As somebody had already put it, it's not good to be too fussy there. Yet, I have to tell something about a very unpleasant event which occurred there in July '06. We were spending our holidays in the hotel with three young teenagers, our son and two of his friends. One day in the morning, one of son's friends took a glass of juice from the machine in the restaurant and hung there for a few more seconds than usual. I was observing all days that this is nothing abnormal, but it seemed that a guy who had stood nearby didn't like it and approached our young friend with kind of expressing a threat. I'll call this guy ``El Toro'' because he was wearing a T-shirt with a bull's silhouette (sorry for this abuse of your national symbol, Spaniards, it's just a temporary nickname of this guy who is NOT a Spaniard). Besides, he must be in his fifties with his remarkable tuft of grey hair. Well, our friend quickly got away and sat down at the table. Later the other friend of our son's intended to go to the hotel reception. He was followed by ``El Toro'' who struck him in the head for no reason. Our friend fell on the floor but, fortunately, he was not harmed. Then, he quickly went to the reception to give notice of what happened. I came there soon after, however, I couldn't see what happened because I was not present during previous minutes. As I was told by our three teenagers, the waiters in the restaurant as well as security guys watched everything, but they were indifferent or even giggled at the whole thing. I then tried to settle this stuff at the reception, but to no avail. I asked for the police to come to the hotel because ``El Toro'', an adult, made an assault upon a non-adult teenager, but the hotel staff concocted all kinds of pretexts: that they would call the police, that they were looking for a person for translating, then asked me if I really wanted to go to the police and denounce ``El Toro''; and in the end, they directly tried to dissuade me from having contact with the police. I later heard from ``El Toro'' that he was grumbling something about ``let's go out and settle this thing as men do among themselves'' (?!). What? So, I cannot denounce this kind of violent people? I tried to do something that day and the day after, and in the end I met with a travel agency representative (not mine, but some other agency) who kindly explained to me how the police affairs go in Tunisia. And again, he strongly advised me not to have anything to do with the police because this would be a terrible stuff. Now what? It's clear that the hotel security personnel didn't do their job, and I was obviously unsuccessful in my pursuit of safety for my people. I tried to obtain some info about ``El Toro'', but it would not be given to me, because officially, one cannot get personal data about another person at will. All I know is that ``El Toro'' came to the hotel by the ``Columbus'' travel agency of the ``Gruppo Ventaglio'' but this didn't help me much. Luckily, ``El Toro'' was seen around only a day or two after the incident, as he apparently left the hotel soon. He was seen mostly in one bar or another and drinking, so it's likely that he was drunk at the time of the incident. In the end, I can only write this story down and put it somewhere on the Internet, and the majority of e-surfers won't believe it. I still think that the hotel staff didn't quite excel when doing their job. Although it's ``El Toro''s responsibility for the whole stuff, the hotel guys (and girls) simply didn't do what they had to do. If this text is going to be read by somebody of ``Columbus'' agency, I'd just like to warn them about strange troublemakers that travel around with them. I will not disclose any further info about us or ``El Toro'' due to the sake of privacy, except that we are from Europe and ``El Toro''---you guessed it---is from Europe. BTW, I'd like to express thanks to our young excursion guide whose name is Adel (or Adil, I don't remember very well). He can be a good example for everybody how the job must be taken seriously, with expertise, and without being too formal. After our visit to the weekly fair in Nabeul, he abruptly left (probably because of some other business) and I couldn't even say thanks or goodbye to him. So, I hope he will read this. Also, I can say thanks to the agency representative whom I talked about the incident, as he was very helpful on other occasions, too, when the representative of our agency was nowhere around.