Sheraton Tunis Hotel

I booked a deluxe Club King Room with breakfast for 3 nights. The room itself was quite big, but needed some maintenance. For example, the toilet seat cover was broken, but nothing was done during my stay. The hotel itself is quite a distance from the city center. You need to call for a taxi to go out. My biggest disappointment was with how they charged my breakfast on top of what I had paid through Trip.com. As I mentioned, I booked a room with breakfast. Nothing particular was said about the breakfast during booking. When I arrived, I was given a room on the third floor. The receptionist gave me another card to access the fifth floor where the lounge is. She told me that I could have my breakfast there as well as drinks in the afternoon. Maybe something was lost in translation, but I was not told that the breakfast for me would strictly be at the lounge. In any case, my since my wife and I arrived at almost 3 p.m. and we hadn't had our lunch yet, we decided to have some snacks at the lounge. The lounge was very small and had only 2 types of pastry and a plate of fruits, plus drinks. I commented on the paltry choice of food there was and said to my wife that if the breakfast selection is too meagre the next day, we should go to the main restaurant for the next 2 days. The next day, we went to have our breakfast early as we had an excursion outside Tunis. However, the access card to the fifth floor did not work, so we decided to have our breakfast at the main restaurant on the ground floor. Upon entering the restaurant, we told the waitress our room number and she just noted it. The breakfast spread at the restaurant was quite good, so we happily had our breakfast there for the next 2 days. I also tried one more time to access the fifth floor but failed and decided to give it a rest since we thought there was no point to go there anymore. Upon check-out, I was surprised to be told that we had to pay for the breakfast at the main restaurant since our room rate covered only breakfast at the lounge. I told the receptionist (a different lady from the first day) that I didn't know about this arrangement as I couldn't recall being specifically told so. She said that is the hotel's regulation. I asked her what is the difference between the breakfast at the lounge and the one at the main restaurant. She said the one at the main restaurant is a full breakfast while the one at the lounge is a 'soft breakfast'. This is the first time I am hearing such a policy. At any other hotels I had been to, usually the food quality at the lounge is more superior than the one at main restaurant, even if the quantity and probably the selection is less. That is why people pay more money to be at the club room/floor in the first place. I also told the lady that in any case, the access card didn't work for us even if we wanted to go to the fifth floor. After some hesitation, she said she would deduct some amount from our bill, but we still had to pay the rest. Needless to say, this experience really left a bitter taste in our mouths. We had a good visit to Tunis in general and the hotel itself is not so bad even if it a bit far from the city center. But after the 'breakfast' experience, I wouldn't recommend this hotel to others.