Club Med Nabeul, Tunisia

Muscle and Medals at Mini Club Med

For some reason the Hub has something for Club Med. Maybe it's a French thing, because when I was buying tickets at Wild Wild Wet in Singapore, the French ladies queuing up behind me talked about going to Club Med (Bintan) too. And if you've watched the cult movie Les Bronzés they were also waving their arms away in some Club Med. Sea, Sex and Sun...

So though I blanch at the idea of indebting ourselves just to spend a week doing nothing and stuffing/drinking oneself sick, I gave the details of my Carte Bleue over to said Club and condemned the family to another week of excess and certain weight gain.

Positive thing was that I've never been to Tunisia. And in my lost youth I've dated a rather cute Tunisian guy for a few days, so I've some interest in seeing (more than a decade later) his homeland (and countrymen).

We flew into Monastir from Paris and had the joy of hearing the same child scream from Orly Airport onto the plane into the bus all the way to our hotel. His chic mother looked absolutely helpless and hopeless. In fact many of those rich people's kids could be quite painful as we were to discover during our stay, made the Babies look like angels in comparison. Many a time I was really tempted to tell the parents that certainly a little swing of the cane from time to time couldn't do any harm.

Our part of Tunisia looked dry. Desert-like, with olive trees and cactuses everywhere, half-built houses and buildings and herds of goats on both sides of the highway. I was pleasantly surprised to see many Tunisian women in casual wear in the streets, sleeveless tops and all. In fact we could go topless on the beach or poolside and nobody would try to stop us from doing so.

Club Med Nabeul is more than 3 decades old from what I was told. About time it received a facelift. Our rooms were simple with 2 single beds each, a bathroom with shower and a ceiling fan. The cool thing though was that the rooms were cleaned and tidied up daily unlike in the cheaper French Clubs.

Now if you want to go to Club Med you must like to party a minimum. Which I don't. I know, I am a bore.

Senegal (made me want to visit the country)

At Club Med, they engage you 24h/24h. Music, dance, arm waving all the time. Peace and quiet is not a given. And best to like sports because they are really top for that. They have tennis courts, a private beach filled with top quality catamarans, surfs and kayaks, rollerblading grounds, archery grounds, outdoor gym etc etc. And those GOs (Gentils Organisateurs) usually have qualifications like "Junior Champion at Roland Garros in 2006", "Senegal's Top Archer", "France's Champion in Rollerblading in 2005, 2006..."

Couscous

And to make it worth your money, you must like to drink. Now they only do all-inclusive packages which means that you can drink (even alcohol) 24 hours a day. I found myself drinking like 3 Sangrias and 3 Mojitos most days after Noon plus a few Diabolos here and there!

Dessert Buffet

Did I mention buffets 3 times a day? All you can eat and drink. The quality of the food is so-so, but there is variety and alot of effort usually goes into presenting our meals e.g. garden party, beach party, pool party etc.

Poolside Buffet cum BBQ

Lamb Tagine

There were also themes every evening and if you didn't have the right clothes for a certain evening, you could always purchase something in the Club Med Boutique (business 1st, babe). There's a spa (European prices), a mini Souk, afternoon tombolas, fried doughnuts at 4pm, a performance (in French, of course) every evening.

Cocktails on the beach before dinner

You could also go on excursions to visit Tunisia, ride a camel in the grounds and play golf in Hammamet (also European prices).

Mechoui

For those with children, there are clubs for children of different ages and they look after them almost all day long from like 9am till 9pm with a shower break in-between (5:30 to 7). The babies preferred to stay with us though and we usually had to threaten and bribe to get them to spend a few hours in their Club.

Tunga

One thing Hub and I took a liking to was archery. Almost every afternoon at 4 sharp we would turn up to shoot a few arrows. And he also did a bit of wind surfing now and then. I regret not taking the opportunity to learn how to rollerblade or play tennis (didn't bring tennis shoes), apparently they were good even with total beginners.

Mini Souk at the Pool

Finally, guess what? I didn't buy anything. I stood amidst rows and rows of ceramic bowls, leather slippers etc and I didn't buy anything.