Le Grenat Hotel and Restaurant — Hotel in Ranomafana

The room is very basic, and clean, but the bathroom could use a good scrub down. As with most hotels on the circuit, they get a lot of wear from the high turnover, and are rather dated. Unfortunately, the options are limited to the same thing. The room does get high marks for having a fan in it, something I haven’t seen yet in Madagascar, and the electricity and hot water are available 24 hours. The wifi works pretty well until the evening, when many are trying to log on, but works perfectly during the day when the hotel is empty. The restaurant does have good food, but be aware of “language barriers” as an excuse to extract more money from you. When I checked in, I was told breakfast was included with the price of the room. At dinner, they asked for my breakfast order, and the time I wanted it. I reconfirmed that the breakfast was included with the room at the time they took my order — it has been like this for about 50% of my hotel stays so far. However, they then later hit me up with a bill for the breakfast while I was having lunch. When I insisted it was included, they all of a sudden experienced a “language barrier.” My driver wasn’t around to help me with this. For lunch, I opted for a vegetarian meal, which they charged me the same price as if it had meat in it. They decided to be kind, and make a deal by reducing my bill by 2000 Ar. The original bill amount isn’t much, but it is the principal that troubles me. This is the second time a “language barrier” excuse was used to extract more money. In the first incident, a local went after the other person for being dishonest, and told me in front of the guy not to pay more than what was agreed to, as if it works once, they will try this again with all other tourists. Just be careful with the restaurant workers. They speak pretty good English when they want to, then forget it when they are trying to shake you down...

Cheap accommodation in the center of the town 80 000 Ar (you can just call to make a reservation). Pretty calm unless you're there on festivities like Independence Day which kept me awake the entire night. Bed sleeps well and wifi is strong, reaches even across the river. Had my hottest shower in a long time. Didn't try their restaurant except for the fruit salad with yoghurt in the morning.

You can visit a vanilla plantation across the river (5000 Ar to cross by pirogue), 15 000 to visit the small plantation. The visit takes like 20 min and was in poor FR, I did not learn much and cannot recommend it. Bought 250gr vanilla...

Good rooms, excellent dinner, good location. The quality of the different rooms may differ quite a bit, though. Ours was beautiful and had a nice view into the garden (you can find richtig frogs directly in front of your door) and the river. Others, however, were looking onto the parking lot where the guides were starting preparing their 4x4s from 7am in the morning.

The internet was ok in the common areas, but very weak in the rooms. The 4G/LTE connection was excellent everywhere, though, even for...