Kendwa Rocks Beach Hotel — Hotel in Unguja

Kendwa Rocks has a huge reputation for hosting the best beach parties on the entire island of Zanzibar. So naturally, my friends and I chose the hotel's NYE 2021 party to ring in the new year. We paid TZS30,000 entry fee. They were not allowing taxis to drop off at the resort and had coordinated a park and ride, but the shuttle took so long to arrive that we ended up walking about 1km to the resort. Only when we arrived, did we find out that the party did not accept cash and we had to pay a TZS3000 deposit + a choice between Tzs50, 100 or 150 thousand shillings on a preloaded card. If we didn't finish the amount on the card, there was no way to reclaim it. They smugly told us "You can come spend it next year when you come again."

That would still have been okay, but for the absolutely arrocious, horrendous, terribly planned bar service. There were so few bartenders for probably, about 2000 people. They only seemed to be serving women and those who were purchasing expensive bottles.

To exacerbate matters, the power went out at least 3 times, for at least 10 minutes each time, in the couple of hours we were there. And when the power was down, the card system for purchasing didn't work!

Despite the advertisement of good international DJs, they could not pick and stick with a genre of music (aside from the Zanzibar DJ who steadily played amapiano and afrobeats). I wish they could have decided if they were playing 90s hiphop or 2020s EDM or RnB, but to switch in between the genres within 30 seconds of each other really made for disjointed dancing and a confused vibe. To top it off, they completely missed the New Year's countdown, as the midnight timed fireworks went off before they even realised it was midnight.

My friend who hadn't been able to spend the money on his card fought with the staff and insisted on a refund, which he did, albeit reluctant, receive.

When we were leaving, we searched in vain for the shuttle bus. The guard pretended not to speak English when we asked him where to find it. Eventually, we ended up walking more than a km to the main road to meet our driver, and thank goodness we did, because no one was coordinating taxi arrivals anymore! It was a nightmare of traffic out there.

For a resort whose monthly full moon parties are legendary, we were severly disappointed by our experience that night. We had travelled to Zanzibar over New Year's, particularly to experience an exciting beach party. But lack of coordination, unpreparedness and generally, what felt like a 'dont-care' attitude ruined our night. It felt, at one point, like a scam to just make money as easily as possible.

Wish I'd stayed for the New Year's bonfire at...

We spent 5 days at Kendwa Rocks and we were very excited. Once we arrive in the room (47 for reference) we arrived to a bunch of ants moving in the bathroom. No problem for now, we understand. After a 8 hours flight we wanted to take a shower and we discovered a huge problem. The weirdest shower ever: it was broken from the top of the shower head and it was splashing a strong jet to the ceiling that was bouncing back to the floor flooding the whole bathroom!!! We called the reception and they said they will come but they never came. Also Internet and electricity was coming and going a lot. Very annoying at some point.

Second part I want to address was the restaurant: we ate there everyday: the shrimps were good, the lobster was good, and the fish burger was good. Aside from this anything else we ordered was really bad. The pizzas are not made with fresh ingredients, the cheese is odd, the toppings were old and tasted weird (peperoni and chicken) the sauce was tasteless… Fish and chips: extremely oily, dripping oil when eating and bland. Cheddar beef burger: weird taste as well with strange things in the patty ( orange pieces, carrots maybe?) Fish of the day: no comment it tasted like nothing, ate that out of hunger. And many more: so we lived out of French fries for the last 2 days rather than eating anything else over there.

Service at the restaurant : a lot of time just to get their attention since they’re always chatting even if not attending anyone. Also they make a lot of faces and sometimes rolling eyes at us! Some of them were really rude. Also again they’re not accommodating requests at all: Last day we ordered food at 12:15 asking them if they can make an exception in taking our order 15 minutes earlier than the opening time at of lunch service since we had a car booked to take us to go to the airport at 1pm. They accepted : cool! The food arrived at 12:56!! Why accepting it in the first place? The restaurant wasn’t even crowded at all at that time! We had to eat in 4 minutes. We didn’t have a good experience with the restaurant at all. Portions are a bit small for the price as well.

The only good part of the last day was Oumayma the guest relation service of the restaurant that had a chat with us and tried to make it better for us to leave the place with at least a smile: thank you Oumayma!🥰

Aside from all of these problems Kendwa is amazing for views and chilling vibes☀️ Amazing views, amazing sun and...

I don’t usually write reviews but I really feel like people should know what to expect here. After 9 days of amazing safari in Kenya and Tanzania I came to Zanzibar with really high hopes and Kendwa Rocks was just a massive letdown.

First off, check in. We were a group of 16 and it took more than 2 hours to get sorted. Fouddia at the reception desk was super sloppy with the whole process. After a 7 hour journey that’s the last thing you want.

The restaurant was no better. After check in we sat down and the food and drinks didn’t come for another 54 minutes. I was counting. And that was just the first meal. Every single meal after that was painfully slow. Sometimes an hour just for drinks and more than once the starters showed up after the main course. This wasn’t a one time slip up, it was literally the same story every day. Honestly I found it bizarre how consistent the delays were.

Then there’s Ahmed, the spa guy. He was combing through the restaurant every day and buzzing around the beach beds like a fly, constantly pushing and upselling spa packages while guests were just trying to relax or eat. A few friends who gave in and tried it said it was a total waste of money.

And the beach, which should have been the highlight, was actually one of the worst parts. In the evening when I tried to walk after dinner I was swarmed by hawkers. The next morning I went out with my partner thinking it would be calmer, but we were swamped again. When I said no they actually got upset. Weird. On top of that, the view is completely blocked by all kinds of boats lined up in front of the resort. You can’t even enjoy the amazing view properly from the sun beds because of it. It killed the vibe completely.

Even the souvenir shop inside the hotel was sketchy. Different prices for the same items depending on how you asked or paid. Unreal.

And here’s the kicker. After my stay I went through the reviews and noticed the guest relations manager just posts the same generic “we’re sorry, we’ll improve” response to every bad review. With over 3800 reviews that feels completely disingenuous.

Bottom line. Beautiful location yes. But the service culture is broken. Check in, meals, upselling, the beach, even the shop. Everything felt slow, sloppy, or like they were trying to squeeze a bit more money out of you. For the price they charge it’s absolutely not worth it. Honestly I don’t know how this place still has...