Horizon Palace Hotel — Hotel in Shangani

I genuinely am baffled how this place has the ranking it does... so many things I hated about my stay here.||I visited at three hotels while in stone town and in order of preference.||1. Spice palace|2. Dhow palace|3. Tausi (not recommended)||So from the start I found the female manager extremely rude and had quite negative interactions with her. The other staff were actually quite pleasant so perhaps if that manager was gone a whole lot of things about this place could improve. But that was a small part of the issues with this hotel in reality.||The bed - my sheets, both top and bottom had blood stains, they were old so the sheets had at some point been washed, however this is disgusting, unhygienic and unacceptable in any hotel, the stains were the first thing I saw when I pulled back the covers so I find it hard to believe the staff missed them. There was also a large dirty stain of some type on the sheets. The mattress I believe was made of bricks as it was so hard and the pillow was very thin and falling apart.||This hotel probably was nice in the past but is in dire need of some TLC.||The bathroom was full of mould and had stains all over the place. Thankfully my|Plumbing was ok but my friends bathroom flooded multiple times so she had dirt floating around the place.||Breakfast - is on the top floor with many stairs so don’t try if you need accessibility access. The staff at breakfast were uncomfortable and seemed to watch and stare at you as you ate. The breakfast was not good. The milk I had for cereal was sour so I could not eat that. Then the bananas were hard so you could barley bite into them (weird). There was limited fruit at breakfast compared to the other hotels which had plenty and a wide variety. I also tried the breakfast cake which was dry :( so in the end I had toast.||My friend had booked a double room and prepaid for it. When her and another friend arrived they insisted that another $65US has to be paid as they didn’t have the name of the other friend (even though she booked a double room) - in the end they wouldn’t budge so the friend stayed elsewhere and paid $45 and the place was amazing and had a pool|And everything.||Positive - location is...

Great:

1. The view at the last floor (panorama restaurant) with its view over Stone Town and the sea. It is called Horizon Hotel for a reason.

2. The kindness of the staff. All very kind.

3. The colonial-time furniture in the room and the public area like the staircase. Lots of wood from back in the days. I hope the hotel will never change it, it truly is a charm. Go there if you like history, skip if you seek modern comfort.

Less good: There sadly is no elevator... If you are 4th floor, you walk 4 floors maybe multiple times a day. By the way, the restaurant is on 6th floor (also for breakfast) so... people with heart issues, mind this! Another negative point was the leaking and unstable bath tub in my room for taking a shower... Hold tight, don't fall!

The breakfast was a bit like "You get what we have at the moment, not what the menu sheet has to offer"... So if you're picky, you might not eat much. Hakuna Matata as they'd say here.

Good value, amazing view, i recommend and would go again. The ideal customers are... People with no exercise issues, others might struggle with stairs, kids with the partially antique furniture which I loved a lot. Go if you like history, skip if you want a...

The WORST hotel EVER!! ||Service is nonexistent!!||Soooooo out dated. The water did not work in the 1st room. So they moved us to a 2nd room. The smell was nauseating !! ||Room service is extra!!|Sooooooono trash cans in the room… no trash collection, no wash clothes, no clean towels, no tissue, no mosquito netting in the room. |Dirty sheets on the bed. |VERY very old & smelly blanket in the closet. |It appears this hotel had not been inhabited for years! Looks like this guy open the doors the day we arrived. |They had less than half the food on the menu took over an hour and a half to get food from their restaurant. ||VERY VERY SLOW SERVICE. ||No trash cans in the room AND overy nasty rooms. ||Smell is horrendous!! Not sure if it’s the OLD hotel or the raw sewage coming up from the toilets. ||SO UNSANITARY!||Get this!!!…….|You have to PAY EXTRA for house keeping !! SO, we stayed 3 nights.., no towels, no tissue, no trash collection, no soap, NO mosquito netting for the beds, no linen charge, no courtesy water! ||DO NOT STAY HERE.!!! ||YOU WOULD BE BETTER OFF ON A PARK BENCH with a public...