We stayed at the Iberostar Mehari Djerba 25th September - 02nd October 2011. Although this review is a little late, i think that some recent reviews are unfair as we did not witness any of these problems during our enjoyable stay there.
We flew out from Manchester with Thomas Cook for 7 nights all-inclusive at a very reasonable price (£740 for 2 persons). Our plane diverted outbound via Newcastle airport at midnight to deliver a spare pilot to fly a stranded plane-full of passengers. We still managed a few hours' sleep before breakfast on our first morning. Our ground floor room was pleasant and adequate, considering that we spent most of our time by the pool, beach, bar or restaraunt. Advise everyone to hire the room safe for security and peace of mind.
Weather was mostly hot and dry with a few showers, mainly during the nights.
Private beach area is 200 metres from pool and had an inclusive bar serving beer, soft drinks and wine (I do not recoment the wine though). Plenty of free lounger beds available on the beach and if you occupy these, then the persistent local beach vendors will not pester you too much. You can walk many miles along the beach to the west and about half a mile to the east.
The large pool was well maintained and there were always sunbeds available (although many were "reserved" early, but not occupied until late morning. The hotel is a bit isolated but taxis are cheap and plentyful. A large golf course is located across the main road. The daytime and evening entertainment is multi-lingual so can be slow and labourious. The staff, however, work hard and will leave you alone if you say you do not want to participate.
Ask what drinks are available for all-inclusive customers as some drinks and cocktails are charged extra. The beer and spirits are good and the service excellent. The rep was generally present as advertised and kept her welcome meeting to 30 minutes. The food was excellent with a good choice available for every meal.
We thought this hotel was well run and represented excellent value for money.

On the whole I would rate this hotel as a good three star all inclusive, but I thought the service was of a four star standard. Unfortunately it seems trip advisor ratings go from average to very good with no 'good' rating and so I have erred on the side of caution and rated as average which seems slightly unfair.

I Booked this as a last minute winter sun holiday with Thomas Cook at the very reasonable price of just over £700 a week for the two of us and I do think it was really good value for money, just one major issue for me.
1. The air conditioning in the rooms is switched off after September. We stayed in October and the temperature was in the low thirties which was great, but our room could be stifling at times. I do think the manager should have some discretion on deciding if the air conditioning should be switched on or off depending on the temperature rather than ending after the 'summer season'.

On the whole I found the hotel staff very polite friendly and helpful and hardworking. A few of the reception staff and a smattering of the restaurant staff spoke some english but we managed to make our needs known with gestures etc.

On arrival at the hotel we were allocated a ground floor room (704) which had a horrible odour and I think we were next to a drain in the courtyard. When I spoke about it the next day to reception we were promptly allocated another room on the second floor with no problems at all. This room was much nicer with a balcony facing out towards the pool and was maintained daily to a very good standard. There was only one english channel ( al jazeera) however some films on the other channels could be in english at times.I had read previous reviews and took my travel kettle along for tea and coffee in my room (thank you previous reviewers) cos I do like a drink of coffee when I wake up.

The food was varied and although I found nothing amazing, I thought they provided very good value for money. At breakfast freshly squeezed orange juice was available, none of that horrible reconsituted powdery stuff. I also loved the concept of self service drinks in the main restaurant. You had the option of chilled or room temperature wine which you could obtain by the glass, or just take a bottle to your table. Beer, soft drinks and various teas and coffee (cappacino, expresso included )were also self service. I thought the coffee particularly good.

The main bar serves cocktails which were ok, but would have benefited from crushed ice. I did hear comments from others that the measures for spirits were small, but I cant comment as I tend to drink mostly wine. You can also obtain a bottle of water for your room from the bar which they say you can obtain after 2030. They will in fact give you the water earlier, but as there is no fridge in the rooms to keep it chilled there seems little point and there are water coolers at the main,pool and beach bars.

Regarding the animation team of which I had read some negative reviews regarding people being hassled etc. I found that they didnt really bother us at all, except to say hello and the odd conversation and they all seemed like a really nice hard working group. We noted that they were exceptionaly good with the children. In conversation one of the team mentioned this is the first year english people have stayed at the hotel and so I think you have to make allowances for their initial lack of understanding of our english reserve and the majority of us wishing to be left alone rather than join in games and dances around the pool (please note I did say majority for I did notice some brits who were 'up for it' . On the whole, apart from the first day we were not hassled by any of the staff provided trips,rides or taking photographs where a simple ' no thanks' seemed to be sufficient.

We did go down to the beach, which on the whole was well maintained and the sand is of hour glass quality. What I don't understand is why the huge amount of ?seaweed (of which the Mehari seems particularly affected) is raked up daily into large mounds only to be swept back into the sea by the tide and so the process has to be repeated on a daily basis. However apart from the green mounds, the beach is clear by lunchtime.

The touters along the beach are not allowed to approach the main area of the beach, so please dont make the mistake we did and stroll up to the main walkway where we were immediately pestered by a man selling rocks and had a very difficult time getting away from him. I appreciate they are trying to make a living, but after 10 minutes or so of saying no you think they'd get the message. You can walk a good distance along the beach where you will get approached to ride a camel,horse or buy cigarrettes, sarongs etc. We found the best tactic is a polite no thank you and keep walking, to engage in conversation is fatal! The bartender at the beach was very friendly and did his best to speak to us in english, and was amused by our attempts to say hello and thank you in arabic. Soft drinks, tea,coffee and hot chocolate are self service, wheras wines and spirits served and cheese,pastrami batches are available in the afternoon.

There are three shops at the Mehari, two by main reception. One selling jewellery and the other bags,tea shirts etc and a further small shop at the back of the restaurant that sells shampoo,sun tan lotion and a few touristy things. I would advise a 15 minute walk or a taxi to a fixed price shop that sells identical articles as the bag, shoe, tee-shirt shop, or to the larger fixed price supermarkets in Midoun (approximately 3-4 dinars by taxi ). This way you get a guage of prices. At the hotel shop you have to barter and I thought I had done well agreeing on £30 for a bag until I went to the fixed price shops and saw identicle for £22! Midoun is ok, you do get hassled but again avoiding eye contact and a polite 'no thank you' whilst moving swifly on seemed an effective tactic.

There is a man at the Mehari offering trips into Midoun and initally we went with him, but taxis are cheap and plentiful and he did take us straight to a carpet shop were we had to go through the rigmarole of having tea and looking at various carpets etc and you do feel pressured to buy.

To sum up, you get what you pay for and if you are looking for a good, cheap,value for money holiday I would recommend the Mehari Djerba. Lacking in any 'wow' factor but a thoroughly decent hotel with excellent staff.

Spent half term week at this hotel paid £430 for a week all inc and thinks we got value for money. Rooms were nice and clean, always plenty of choice on foods and it was fresh, beer was good, spirits were small measures. Entertainment team were excellent, especially for children, nightly shows were good. Pool, Bar, Hotel always clean. The hotel is mainly french speaking but all staff tried to speak english, 1 member of bar staff was a bit rude but others always polite enough. Beach nice and kept clean, water comes in close too. Didnt get mithered to buy things think this was because we couldnt speak french. All in all it was relaxing week in the sun during school holidays at a cheap price for what we got. I would recommend hotel for families

We used the Iberostar as a base for visiting Djerba for 2 nights after reading the reviews and getting a very good deal online. As we had a car, we could visit the rest of the island very easily, although if you didn't the only way to get around would be by taxi - there isn't very much within walking distance.

The rooms were fine - we had one facing the garden on the ground floor, although it was relatively noisy as you could hear people walking past the door as it was on a main route to reception.

Food was very poor - I didn't enjoy the buffet style, and felt quite sick when we were leaving. The restaurant was pretty chaotic too, and this was in March - must be hell in Summer!

The beach is a 5 minute walk away, and wasn't that impressive, although being March the weather wasn't very warm. The hotel seemed very popular with French and German tourists, and there were very few British tourists around. Also, a word for the 'Animation' team - incredibly annoying, and would really get on my nerves if we'd stayed any longer!

Overall, not a bad base for a couple of nights, but unless you have kids, I would recommend staying elsewhere.