unpacking the package holiday…
Package holidays have gained a reputation over the years. They are seen as the haven of the family, visions of harassed mothers. ballroom dancing, karaoke, and kids clubs all spring to mind at the very thought. I imagine in the summer the package holiday would be something reminiscent of a nightmare – at least for me.
But in the winter, it turns out its actually quite a pleasant experience. Four of us travelled to Tunisia (yes, I went with people this time!) for one weeks full-board at the Hotel Tour Khalef in Sousse courtesy of Thomson.
Now I’m not going to go into the details – that would be boring. But I’m going to pass on a few tips to make the most of the package holiday.
We were lucky – our hotel had two great Dance Leaders (for the ‘young at heart’ travellers) who did a number of walking tours of local sights (for free no less) – and very helpfully around the hotel complex itself (so on our first day we found the cheapest water, the local Internet cafe, and had an idea about what to expect from the local area).
As on all package tours you have the trips and tour organised by the operator. We did a couple of these – well – one day trip and a couple of activities. The best activity we did (well it was so good we did it twice) was a quad biking trip. If you imagine quad biking here – usually a ‘dirt track with a couple of bumps’ to quote James. In Tunisia, to borrow an Americanism – it was Awesome! We were riding for a good hour, down dirt tracks off-road, with huge holes and steep hills, even a bit of riding on actual roads!
Some of the trip was decidedly tacky – the Reps gave a ‘welcome’ sales pitch – of the more expensive excursions, there was Karaoke and Kids Clubs, and all that malarkey going on. To be honest though, all these things are what you make of them – we went Ballroom dancing and Line dancing and thoroughly enjoyed it even if it did prove that I had two left feet!
All in all it was a good holiday. We did a lot and saw a lot. It was a quiet time of year with it being the week before Christmas. I would never try it in the summer, and a week was the right length of time. If I was there for longer I think I’d need to go off and do some proper travelling and not stick to the tour operator plans.
Oh yeah – and one other note – go swimming in the sea the week before Christmas, even in Tunisia, it doesn’t half look odd!