Essque Zalu Zanzibar — Hotel in Unguja

I don't typically write reviews, but I thought it necessary to share my experience at Essque Zalu where I stayed for 4 nights. Like many others, we just completed an amazing Safari experience and were looking for a few nights to relax and unwind. Unfortunately, I feel like I need another vacation after my stay at the hotel and felt obligated to share my experiences.

Food 2/5: Breakfast was a buffet with a typical African composite of a few hot items (e.g. mushrooms, beans, bacon, sausage), egg station, juices and cereal. However, there were so many flies everywhere on the food and tables that made it very uncomfortable to eat. Quality of the food was just average and I felt that I ate much better at many of the mid-range safari lodges I stayed at. Dinner was very hit or miss, with it missing the majority of the time. For example, the avocado in the avocado salad was so raw that the fork could barely poke through it and I've never had avocado taste sour until now. The fish and meat tended to be overcooked and tough. To top it off, after one dinner, my S.O. developed traveler's diarrhea despite being careful with the water.

Dinner Service 0/5: Of all the hotels and lodges that I have ever stayed at, I have never experienced the slowness of the staff that I did at Essque. Dinners will truly test your patience for how long you are willing to wait for your food. After sitting down at a table, it will take almost 10-15min before someone comes by to bring a menu and another 15min before coming back for drink and food orders. They serve a 3-course meal, which would be fine except that it takes extremely long for each course and even a bottle of water to come out. By the 2nd night, we ended up just bringing a water bottle to dinner with us so we wouldn't get dehydrated waiting for drinks. I also stopped asking for desserts, because I knew that it would take them another 40min. At the end of the meal, I would have to ask for the bill to 3-4 different servers until someone finally gave me it after 20min. You could sense the frustration on the majority of the diners as many were waiting for food without even any drinks on their table. One individual got so upset that he was asking why the food was taking over an hour. The server ignored him and while walking away actually had a smile on his face. Essque really needs to train their staff better as there was absolutely no reason for the poor service given that there was plenty of staff (about 1 server per table).

WIFI 1/5: They should really change their website to say "slow wifi available in lobby only". Although the WiFi network showed in our rooms, it was so slow that it never worked. Even in the lobby, a website would take almost 30s to download one page

Some positives:

Environment 4/5: the best thing about the hotel is definitely the views and pool. The lobby is absolutely beautiful with amazing triangular roofs and the infinity pool overlooks the beautiful ocean. The pictures on the website are very reflective of reality. Like many have mentioned, there is not a beach that one can lay on, which was fine with us as we didn't mind lounging around the pool. They also have a small gym, which was nice to get a workout in. Do note that due to the location, there isn't much in terms of activities to do outside of the pool, which would have been fine with us if it wasn't for the poor food and service.

Spa 5/5: I got a deep tissue massage and it was probably one of the best back and head massages that I've had. I highly recommend asking for Caroline if she is working.

Overall, the resort is very beautiful, but the poor food and especially poor service led to a very unrelaxing stay. If you're looking for some R&R after a safari, I'd highly recommend...

The property is fabulous, the rooms are amazing and the views are unbeatable. The food will leave you wanting, and the rather high handed employees will leave you surprised in a not so good way.

My stay here started on a rather unfortunate note - we booked ourselves for a couple of nights in the sea view cottages to end our Tanzania trip on a high but were given a room with no sea view at all. On protesting - the staff first tried to pass of that very room as a sea view room, the manager (Omar) then admitted they were overbooked and offered a rather strange settlement option where we could stay in a sea view room for a night and move to the non-sea view room for the second, without offering any compensation or make goods. Which was a really strange settlement where we gave up the room we paid for but didn’t really get anything in return! We had to persist and pushed for them to give us the room we booked, which they finally did. Fortunately, the room itself was fabulous - very spacious, super comfortable and with probably the best views on the island. The hotel is right on the sea, but there isn’t a beach you can access given it is right on a cliff. There are shuttles that ply twice a day to a beach (I think Kendwa) take you to a beach 15 minutes away and back, but no direct beach access. I didn’t see this mentioned clearly in any of the listings by the hotel on various travel portals, or even on their own website; and this was a bit of a surprise.

Housekeeping did a fantastic job to ensure that there were no hiccups in the stay though (shout out to Sunil Perera and his team!). We had housekeeping twice a day, they even came to change over the room to “sleep mode” which was quite cool and they were quick and responsive to our requests. The pool, the jetty, and the views from the common areas are incredible, and given the location on the Northern end of the island - you get to enjoy both sunrise and sunset which is very, very cool. The pool itself has salt water, which was unique in a good way and a pleasant change from the chlorinated water in all pools, maybe its their attempt to make us for guests not being able to jump into the sea?

The food at the restaurant was rather disappointing. Give how much we were paying for a meal, the buffet itself was very limited compared to the other places we stayed at in Zanzibar and across Tanzania. The buffet would run out if you are coming in late, and it took the staff forever to refill. They pitched the buffets with themed food - middle eastern the first night and world cuisine the second; there were like 1 or 2 dishes that would tie into the theme and the rest were standard meals. We had planned to upgrade from a half-board to an all inclusive package but the food just didn’t justify the $80 / person / night cost. We ended up stepping out and getting a meal outside, which was a lot more fulfilling. Oh and water at the restaurant is $2, but free in the rooms - which made no sense to me given all rooms in the property were super expensive and they could totally take away the headache of thinking about drinking water!

If you’re somebody who’d pay a premium for location and great rooms, but isn’t too keen on the food itself, then this place is worth sending a couple of nights in. If not and you’d rather have the entire experience - I’d recommend you pay the $20 fee (that you get as good & bar credits) to access the public areas around the pool and the bars for a day to soak in the vibe, and potentially stay somewhere else.

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The resort far surpassed our expectations. Before reaching the property you can see the large structure. It’s rather impressive. I tried taking a picture but nothing captures the enormous scale. It’s impressive. This is a marvelous property. As soon as we got out of our van there were cool washcloths given to us to wipe off the heat. This is one of the nicest things in the tropics. After cooling off we checked in and were each given a key card to our room. Since we had a large group we rented Villa #1. A three bedroom villa.

Villa #1 This is a three bedroom “house” that easily sleeps six people with a full kitchen, multiple bathrooms and a comfortable living room, large dining room and the most marvelous front porch.. It wasn’t cheap but the value was excellent. It’s like living in a tropical dream! Your only view is of the endless turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean. When we entered the house it was perfectly arranged and cold. This is the nicest vacation home I’ve ever been in. I was in the master bedroom with a view of the ocean. Amazing! I find it odd that one side of our room had views of the ocean but the windows would not open and there was no sliding glass door. Unfortunately you can not hear the ocean from the room. There must be something that they know that I don’t. Our bed did have a mosquito net but it was very old and slightly torn in areas but most striking was that it didn’t touch the floor. Maybe you can help me understand how to keep out the bugs if it doesn’t touch the floor.

WiFi After being on Safari, where the WiFi was at best spottie, blazing fast internet is the best thing ever.

The restaurants There are two great restaurants on the property with great food. The menu however did not change in the week that we were here so you may want to go off site after a few days.

The management and staff If you run a resort, you should come here and take notes. This is how it’s done. Five stars.

The ride from the airport Our vacation to Tanzania was completely pre-paid and pre-planned from when we left the United States to when we returned to San Francisco. Zanzibar was no different. Waiting for us outside of customs at the airport was our driver with my name so that we could quickly and easily find him. He drove us safely from the airport to the resort in a newer Toyota van. The ride is at least an hour so please remember to use the bathroom and maybe take a snack. I feel I need to apologize for my ignorance. We had been on Safari for a few weeks prior to our stay here and had no idea the level of desperate poverty on the island. That isn’t the first shocking thing though. Along the route we were stopped no less than three times by the police at improvised checkpoints asking the driver to show his papers. One time the fully armed police officer started yelling at the driver. I have no idea what he was yelling about but it was a very bad experience. Our driver was safe and friendly and had all the necessary papers, permits and licences so I don’t know what happened but it wasn’t a good feeling. You will pass through what can only be described and an open garbage dump. I was getting a little concerned of the quality of resort that lie at the end of our journey. Not to worry it was a...