Hello Rafiki House — Hotel in Shangani

So a friend of mine and me booked a guest house apartment near darajani market by hello rafiki. We payed 10x the amount local people pay for their rent here which would have been accetable, if the room an service would have been 10x better than a local‘s apartment.

First of all, several times the water supply did not work as well as wifi (which was important to me bc I was working online, they took one week to fix it) Additionally, the windows could bot be closed completely, leaving small gaps for mosquitos and other animals come into the room. There is a mosque directly next to our building so every 2-4h you could hear prayers very loudly even during the night! The only night I was able to sleep was with 40°C fever.

For the other guest house tenants, the sheets were cleaned regularly for free, whereas our sheets were not cleaned within five weeks so they turned yellowish… We begged to just leave us fresh sheets on a chair so we can do it by ourselves but even though I google translated this phrase into Swahili for them to understand, they did nothing. I did not understand why we had less rights then the other ones.

The location is also a bit difficult as the darajani market is very loud and noisy, and people just see you for the money and not for the person you are. They start to follow you home if you do not want to buy a 20th pack of spices. If you hear the word Muzungu or Wazungu I recommend not to...

I had a fantastic month long stay at RafikiHouse. It felt like more than booking a room. Yousuph, the landlord, was extremely attentive and was helpful beyond the call of duty. Being a guest in Zanzibar, I needed a lot of showing around and getting to my bearings. Yousuph was always available to show me around, and gave great advice to help me navigate. The rooms were cleaned everyday, or as often as I'd like it, the balcony was beautiful and romantic, and when I come back to Stone Town I know where...

Do not stay! When we arrived the guy at reception was clueless as to our booking, he had to repeatedly call his manager. In the end it turned out our room had been double booked and there was no space for us. Another lady in reception was having exactly the same issue. Luckily we had just finished a group overland tour so our previous tour leader was able to book us in somewhere else. I’m not sure what we’d have done otherwise as reception staff offered no help and were happy to leave us without...