Villa Juliana — Hotel in Unguja

We loved our stay at Villa Juliana. We went after an 8 day safari on the mainland and it was the perfect way to unwind for a couple days.

The room itself was perfect for what we were looking for. No AC, but the room was surprisingly cool at night with the fan blasting.

The Villa is located right on the beach, with access to comfortable lounge chairs under a cabana. The water is stunning during high tide, made nicer that there is basically no one on the beach.

Dale (apologies if I misspelled) was a fantastic and super friendly host who took care of all of our needs. One of the window panels popped out which he promptly had fixed.

The villa and Jambiani itself was super quiet. We only saw one or two other couples there our entire time. On the plus side it felt like we had the entire villa to ourselves, which was great. On the minus side, there wasn't much to do around that area. Dinner has to be ordered in advance, and we forgot to order one day. All the neighboring villas were closed, so we had to wander around the town using our phone flashlights at night for 20 minutes before finally finding something. Fortunately Paje is only a ten minute taxi, so if you're looking for more action you can head up there.

Overall, we highly recommend this place if you're looking for a few...

Loud and no privacy. One can hear everything that is being discussed outside the room, and people can hear every sound that comes from inside a room…. The hotel should make customers aware that this is NOT an accommodation for couples in search of intimacy. The description says that guests must be over 18 yo when checking in, yet there were some families with small kids. The hotel also puts forward that guests benefit from a « private » beach but salespeople walk past the hotel all day long, calling out customers to try sell souvenirs. Unfortunately we were given a room squished between the reception, kitchen, and walk path: it was horribly noisy and the lack of privacy made us very uncomfortable. That particular room should not be put on sale at all. We struggled a bit with the concept of being provided only 1 small bottle of water per day per person; while the hotel claims this is due to sustainability reasons, drinkable water is indispensable and should be accessible at all times. Guests just end up buying their own 6...

We are end of September 2019 and there are only 5 stars reviews I can tell you that coming at Villa Juliana has been the best experience I had for years traveling the world

The place is quiet, lovely, clean, spacious Food is homemade and generous :)

Staff is great, available and helpful in any case. For instance I wanted a scooter and got one quickly for good price + police authorization which mandatory here ! They fill the form for me, translate, advise !

Food is great, cleaning is everyday or more, pillows are everywhere and you are at the beach connected to see oursin and fishing people

They even brought us to a local festival that was actually a Muslim wedding ceremony in the middle of the evening (8pm) that was genuine and kids were so nice, dancing with us without no expectation more

So if you want to be sure to enjoy your stay, come here ! It is cheap, heaven and quiet

Many thanks again all of you This is the first place I would come back in Zanzibar !

Maxime...