We have just returned from two weeks at the hotel. A great holiday but there are two points I would like to make. The first is that the young gentleman who worked on the Exchange Bureau was extremely rude to me (as a woman) and queried my signature on Barclays Bank VISA Sterling travellers cheque. I was very annoyed at his ignorance and curt manner. The second is the trips you take out to the dessert and to Hammamet as you will ultimately end up at "government shops" that sell carpets before you even know where you are at. It is a sleek operation, be careful.... we ended up buying two rugs and are hoping that the larger and more expensive of the two does actually get delivered to our home in the UK.

We did get fed up with tipping people and also the food at the hotel became boring after the first week. The hotel could do with providing snacks on a lunchtime.

We stayed at the Hasdrubal with my husband in June 2006 and it was quite a good experience. It's a large resort and has lots of good facilities, so the five days we spent there were no drag at all. We enjoyed the food and the people, although we were a little displeased with the front desk who did not help us adequately on our second evening with a reservation, but otherwise their staff are very efficient. Our room was nothing spectacular, but well-appointed and functional. We did go to the spa a few times, but I thought it was a little too public and a litlle too "clinical" in some ways. We wanted more of the orient and this was not it. Overall, I think they deserve a 4/5 rating but they will need to lower their prices if they are to be truly value for money.

The Hasdrubal has an attractive layout. The beach is lovely and the aforementioned seaweed is no problem. The pool area, although not as big as it looks on the website, is equally attractive. All the public areas are spacious and the gardens are lovely with an effective use of water. The rooms are spacious with decent outside space. The decor is Tunisian and the furniture a bit naff for a luxury hotel but the bed is huge and overall I liked the room. The outdoor setting for breakfast is great and the food, although not brilliant, is as good as most places locally. The resort of Yasmine Hammamet is not really to my taste but it was better thasn I expected ..the area by the marina is nice and the Matelot restaurant there had lovely service and reasonable food. Taxis are plentiful and Tunisia is good value.The weather was glorious in late JUne.

I would definitley recommend this hotel for a relaxing break.

As other reviewers have said about Tunisia, a 5-star property here is more like a 4-star in other more developed locations. The same can be said about the Hasdrubal resort in Hammamet. And please note that this is supposed to be the best hotel in all of Hammamet. Hasdrubal was built about 8 years ago in the newly developed area of Yasmine. The hotel itself is big as are the rooms (all suites). We were not impressed with the room or its furnishings, which are standard if not mediocre. If you don't like to walk, be aware of the fact that the reception (near the restaurants) is on one end and the spa on the other, so it only makes sense to have your room on the end of the spa if you plan on using the facilities daily. The breakfast buffet is decent but not spectacular. We stayed for 5 nights and noticed that when it got busy, it was hard to find a table and you had to stand in a long queque to order an omelet, but the staff did try its best to help.

Since we went to the hotel specifically for the spa, we were pleased with the quality of the treatments. The spa offers packages for 4 days, 7 days, etc. at about 120 euro a day; expensive for Tunisia but reasonable considering it's much more pricey in Europe. Since the packages don't necessarily offer a discount off the rates, before signing up for them, I suggest that you first try out the different treatments to know which you like the best.

A comment about Yasmine: the developers basically put up huge concrete buildings (albeit in the North African style) in the desert, so when you enter Yasmine, you will drive down long stretches of the boulevard lined with hotels. There can be little said about ambience unless you like big concrete buildings along a boulevard! The one nice thing is the "Medina" they built, which is a replica of the traditional Medina with souks. There are some fun shops and cafes inside. For quality sight seeing you're better off going to Carthage (about an hour's drive away), where there are many Roman ruins and a gorgeous little blue and white village called Sidi Bou Said. We had dinner at "Le Resto" in Villa Didon, which was excellent.

One last thing: if you drive from Tunis to Hammamet, you have to pay a toll (péage in French)and please remember it's 1.2 Dinars (less than an Euro). We passed the station a few times and each time they tried to charge us a different price and/or give us the wrong change.