Badolina Bungalows — Hotel in Unguja

The hotel is okish when you look the big picture but its is fairly expensive for the price-value provided. Rooms are extremely basic and small. The service is avarage. Although many staff members are very friendly, the overall culture of the place and notion of service is very very low. Some examples: when we arrived, to do they payment by card they charge you 3% more which is now illegal, but they still do it. Decoration pillows were stained and the filling coming out, sleeping pillows were sweat stained and uncomfortable. The room cups were usually dirty, we always had to rinse them. In 5 days the beach towels were never changed even if they started to be smelly because they were never fully dry, the toilet door is moldy and stinks of humidity. A bag of laundry costs 30 dollars!!! 30 dollars!! there is only one soap/body wash bottle in the shower that guests need to move from shower to the sink every time they want to wash hands, of course no shampoo or other basic toiletries provided. The main waitress at the restaurant is extremely unfriendly and even rude. Always with a tired and annoyed attitude. The manager, who is present most of the time doesn’t even greet guests. We cross the owner a few times and he said hello tho. The food at the restaurant is not bad but super salty and also overpriced compared to same quality and same menu to close by restaurants and when you stay for more than 3 days the vegetarian options fall short and are not balanced (only protein source is eggs). The hotel is located fairly close to the beach, but even if not their fault, the moment you step out of the hotel it starts the real nightmare: You get harassed by dozens of “beach boys” all day, no matter the time trying to sell you all sort of stuff, from activities, handcrafts to drugs. Many of these people clearly being under effects of heavy drinking and heavy drugs some walking around with visible machetes and knifes. You never have a feeling of being safe and relaxed. When swimming next to the shore there are boats and jet skis passing next to you at full speed without any safety distance. Overall, our stay was incredibly disappointing due to the hotel and Zanzibar in general too. Both very Instagramable but in reality is not worth it at all. Clearly never coming back and not...

Pros:|Lovely friendly staff - Jackie on reception/bookings. The barman and the waitress.||Cons:|Most uncomfortable bed EVER. Rock hard. Literally concrete. Did not sleep a wink.|Bedding supplied consisted of 1 single sheet.|Old room - definitely not the nice renovated ones you see online for this place. ---Grubby bathroom, broken and rusted shower head that was falling apart and sprayed water out at a right angle, literally straight into the bedroom - in the space of a 10 min shower, our room was flooded, soaked our suitcases on the floor and created a hazard with electricity. We received zero support from manager Oswaldo the next morning - shocking attitude. We shortened our stay from 2 nights to 1 due to our awful experience. Requested a refund for the 2nd night but was told only if they sold the room that night. We weren't happy with this but said Fine, we'd simply review our experience online. He then called us evil to threaten such a thing. The owner called me and advised he was happy to refund me but only after I'd written a 10 star review. I told him to keep his money - I'd rather write an honest review.||Location is not on the beach - it's set one road back, so no sea view. Construction going on directly in front, so not a pretty setting...

Pros:|Lovely friendly staff - Jackie on reception/bookings. The barman and the waitress.||Cons:|Most uncomfortable bed EVER. Rock hard. Literally concrete. Did not sleep a wink.|Bedding supplied consisted of 1 single sheet.|Old room - definitely not the nice renovated ones you see online for this place. ---Grubby bathroom, broken and rusted shower head that was falling apart and sprayed water out at a right angle, literally straight into the bedroom - in the space of a 10 min shower, our room was flooded, soaked our suitcases on the floor and created a hazard with electricity. We received zero support from manager Oswaldo the next morning - shocking attitude. We shortened our stay from 2 nights to 1 due to our awful experience. Requested a refund for the 2nd night but was told only if they sold the room that night. We weren't happy with this but said Fine, we'd simply review our experience online. He then called us evil to threaten such a thing. The owner called me and advised he was happy to refund me but only after I'd written a 10 star review. I told him to keep his money - I'd rather write an honest review.||Location is not on the beach - it's set one road back, so no sea view. Construction going on directly in front, so not a pretty setting...