Hotel Riu Jambo — Hotel in Unguja

Riu Jambo, what a whirlwind. If you’d like to book this hotel, this review is good to look at.

First, I’d like to start with the positive. The staff (except for those mentioned later) are so friendly. They never shy away from greeting, smiling or having a laugh with the guests. To the restaurant, security, cleaning, pool and bar staff, I take my hat off to you, since you all know what true hospitality is. I’ve been to quite a few countries and a handful of all inclusive resorts and this is by far the best buffet in a hotel I’ve ever experienced. There’s a variety of cuisines to try (and different restaurants, though some require reservations). It’s full board inclusive, so you don’t have to keep to drinking only certain drinks and eating certain foods, everything you see on the menu is included. Entertainment here is great too.

Next, the negative. We booked through bookings.com and received payment confirmations as well as confirmation emails. We were even in touch with the hotel through bookings.com to make special arrangements for my birthday as well as for check-in, never being notified of any problems with our booking. However, when we got there at 10pm, three long flights later, the reception staff notified us that our booking has somehow been cancelled, even though we were not notified nor refunded our $6000 (our booking never said cancelled, just paid and confirmed, even upon the day of arrival). The assistant general manager (named Zollie/Zoey, or something in that regard) was the RUDEST person I have ever met working in hospitality, demanding that we pay another $6000 upfront if we want to stay at the hotel, and told us that she doesn’t care nor that it’s her problem (those were her direct words). I’ve never met such a remorseless person in my life, and it’s not like we were beggars demanding to stay there, we already paid for everything. After fighting until midnight with this woman, we eventually had to pay to sleep there for the night, otherwise (once again the assistant general manager’s words) we must go find another hotel. I understand that this was also a fault from bookings.com, but in the hospitality industry, some kindness, especially towards guests who just traveled from across the world, goes a very long way. We had no wifi so we had no way to sort this out with bookings.com, and they did not even want to give us access to the wifi (once again, this was in the middle of the night). The next day other reception staff members were able to assist us (after much demand) and they said that we can stay and that they will get the original $6000 from bookings.com themselves (after they tried to push this responsibility on us, mind you, bookings.com would have taken weeks to refund us). I am still disgusted at the way that that woman (and other reception staff) treated us like we were scum, not guests. In the past, something similar has happened to me when travelling to Malaysia, the hotel staff were completely fine with us staying the night and allowed us to sort it out in the morning (and it ended up being resolved that same evening) and they made us feel extremely welcome regardless of booking issues. THAT is how you treat your guests.

The assistant manager also just sits at the bar and wears holiday clothes (short sundresses and flip flops) which is also completely inappropriate for a 4 star resort staff member. Only one of us received a mediocre apology the next day, and she couldn’t even look or speak to the rest of us. DISGUSTING behaviour. Riu Jambo if you want to remain a good hotel, you need to fix this behavioural issue. The only reception staff that showed compassion was another manager (I think; we spoke to so many people). When we explained how the other manager treated us, her mouth HUNG OPEN from shock. She gave us a complimentary gift to make up for it which I appreciate, though I still don’t think that excuses the original managers behaviour. I want to say more, but I already reached the word limit. Riu Hotels, you will never see me or my...

When we entered, we went straight to reception where they made us sign for a free upgrade as our travel agent asked if this was possible due to us being on Honeymoon. We were presented with 1 access card and they provided another one when we requested it. The hotel then explained the layout and gave us a map of the hotel with the times of all services. The specified checkout time was 11 AM, however, they informed us that it was 12 PM while they allowed us to enjoy most of the facilities until our shuttle came to fetch us.

The hotel staff is extremely friendly and try to assist as far as possible, however, their English should be worked on in order for them to understand non-standard queries as at times they will try to answer based on what they assume the question is about.

The map layout is extremely confusing as the hotel is on a slope which means that reception is on the 5th floor where as the main restaurant is on the 3rd floor, however, you can walk up the slope and you can go to the restaurant. This type of info (floor level) is not on the map. We tried to find the Yunnan restaurant based on the map and we reached a no-entry zone, when we asked staff members to point us to the correct place, they told us to go to the lift and go to ground level and it’s somewhere there instead of go back down the slope, go to the main restaurant and it’s next to it.

When we got to our room, there was a mini bar fridge which had Coke, Coke Zero, Sprite, Fanta Orange and water. There was a sign which said that the fridge will be restocked every 2 days (the days are not specified). There were no alcoholic drinks in the fridge which is odd since we took the all inclusive and we did not see the fridge getting restocked which shows that there is a lack of a checklist. We eventually ran out of water and we called reception as the restaurant said that they were the only ones who can assist. We called around 2 PM and we called again around 4 PM after which I went to reception at 4:30 PM as we needed to take medication. We noticed that there were no vanity kits and the shower had a 2 in one shower gel & shampoo which does not work that well, however, it assists to cut costs. This also cleverly makes you forget about conditioner which was missing. There were many times where we had more than 2 bath and hand towels which is also indicative of no checklist.

The hotel does offer few water sport options which are free, however, it is not well advertised and they do not remind you anywhere unless you go to the water sports shop to enquire. These are small but helpful things to inform the guests. We also noticed many hawkers on the beach who keep on nagging guests to visit the stalls on the side, it would’ve been a huge benefit if the management and the hawkers came to an agreement that the hawkers stay on one side and leave the guests alone while the hotel could place a sign to show that guests can support these hawkers as they will be on the right-hand side of the beach. It would then be up to the guests to visit these hawkers if they were interested.

The restaurants were good and had vegetarian options.

My wife got sick and we went to the Medical Centre which was open 24/7. The service was good and the doctors asked us to come back in order to do follow-up checks. They even gave us their cellphone to call the insurance in order to receive a claim reference.

The overall service can be improved if there are better checklists and improvements based on my suggestions above, a checklist will definitely assist in service standardization. There were also brief power outages (less than a minute) except the one day where I was showering and the power went for a while and the bathroom was pitch black as there are no emergency lights, the lights only came back after I wiped myself dry and got out of the bathroom. I would rate the hotel as 3,5 stars but upgrade it to 4 stars based on the fact that the staff is really friendly and try to...

In overall, after few vacations at similar places: not bad, but not worth the money spent. Will try to give few tips.

Economy building on left side of the beach together with beach volleyball place with 11am and 5pm playing slots and the construction work on neighboring piece of land on the right side of the beach, makes it impossible to find peaceful place. Stay in the middle. In the middle is the pool where the kids are allowed and the restaurant, but it is still more enjoyable than the sides of the beach.Security guys are nice guys, but asking for money for lunch. Hotel should just raise their salary. They are necessary at the beach. Also security needs sport shoes. Really no need for them to walk around in black high boots at 30 degrees. Private beach, yet so many sellers are walking around and offering their products, yelling at you even when you are in the water or lying deep in the shadows, without you even making an eye contact. Nobody likes to be yelled at. We ended up buying from “IKEA Zanzibar” guys on the right side of the hotel, that have their stuff displayed on the beach. One of the guys works with his son, who he wants to send to the University (forgot his name). Just lovely people. Go to them. Many activities during the day, yet we went to each only once and never again: avoid aqua fitness/workout if you are above 65kg weight on 165cm height (which is me), as the fitness training shall tell you that you are “too heavy for the exercise” (personal experience). “Yoga” has also absolutely nothing to do with yoga, even not with real stretching; would have been better for us if they played just a youtube video on the screen. 180 EUR would be a half of day excursion for 2 people if you let it be organized by the hotel. Search internet and find swimming with dolphins for 40 EUR a person. Evening terrace with music/show at 9pm every evening, but the music is waaaaay too loud during 2h before the real party starts. Really not necessary to not be able to have a conversation while waiting for the show to start. Also this is the time when kids jump in front of the stage. Their ears must be harmed forever.  Ladies: at lunch time it is ok to have a completely see-through dress with holes, with bikini very visible underneath. Yet if you are having a long sleeve shirt over a swimsuit, trying to respect the place and culture, you have to button it up completely, as you will hear about how “all is visible when you bend over”. Not consistent.Kids are running and screaming in the restaurant between the people carrying plates and nobody is stopping them. Be careful not to trip and hurt them. Shadow on the beach is provided only by the palms (no umbrellas), so the places where you can lay on the beach within complete shadow (which you will need with sun being very strong) are very limited and are reserved by towels already as of 7am. While people who reserved it come actually to their places around noon time. So get up early and enjoy the sunrise.Bar the beach opens at 5pm, so definitely go there and watch the sun go down. At first it is not very spectacular, but around 15min later you will see beautiful colors. Swimming in the sea is not allowed after 7p. Only if you played beach volleyball, which ends about that time, you can jump afterwards in. Guests are (at least during our stay): almost exclusively Dutch, German, Bulgarians. Coffee: complete disaster. Neither at breakfast nor during the day is it possible to get an espresso. Milk is not helping as it seems to be powder milk. Which led me 7 days without coffee and for a person who has usually 1 coffee a day, it was quite difficult to stay awake. Food was really good. In my opinion also very diverse and tasty. Yet of course, we got stomach troubles the 3rd day and it stayed with us even one week after vacation. Rooms are of a really good size. Cleaning is decent. The shelves in the bathroom...