Zanzibella Hotel & SPA — Hotel in Unguja

Who rated this place with 5-stars? We selected it based on rating & it was way off. Maybe because they solicit "good reviews" before you leave, people do that.

TL;DR: for us it's a toss-up between 2 and 3 stars.

Next is my gf's review, and I'll follow hers: This place was a nice getaway from our usual rushed life but I feel like everything that could go wrong actually went wrong. The room was really cute, with a lot of Pinteresty and Instagrammable stuff. I loved the earthen vibe that was in the room. However, a couple of things did ruin my four days stay here.

First off, let me start with my main pain point which was the bathroom. As a woman, I do not want to get back from vacation and go straight to hospital with UTI. With that in mind, I had to use my own pocket tissues because the toilet paper they provided in the room was of really poor quality.

The bathroom was poorly ventilated and smelly. Also, having air fresheners would have probably helped with the minimal ventilation and freshened the bathroom. I loathed using the bathroom here.

Towels! OMG! Two out of the four days that we stayed here, we didn’t get new towels and they had really smelly towels. I am not sure whether it is the detergent they were using on them or just poorly washed, that I will never tell but I regretted not bringing my own.

The place was infested with flies and that was gross especially when they fly over your food. Also, they had two cats that begged for food at the restaurant, not sure whether they are wild or domestic but I found them very annoying especially if you do not like cats.

The food was amazing, although they had a very limited menu, not so much to choose from. The drinks were fantastic. I particularly loved the virgin passion mojito. The swimming pool was clean and had enough lounges, which was really nice.

This is the only hotel I have seen that doesn’t provide slippers in the room, but I would understand why, because they are selling them in one of their small shops within the resort.

The internet was stable to allow both my boyfriend and I to work from the room. Next are my own pros and cons for this place:

PROs:

Waiting staff are really friendly. They go extra mile to make your stay nice. I wouldn't blame them in no way for our sour review. This place is owned by white people and by seeing how much they nickel-and-dimed us, I'd say that the wait staff are paid peanuts. So we have no beef against the wait staff.

The guy that was making cocktails was amazing! We really enjoyed them as my gf said.

Their beef on the menu was great. Very fresh and nicely cooked.

The pool was very clean and well-kept. It was also connected to the bar, which made it easy to order right from the pool.

The beach didn't have as many beach boys, trying to sell you stuff. Although there were some (see photos.)

CONs:

Absolutely disgusting flies everywhere: when you eat, go out, have a drink. You have to swat flies everywhere.

They gave us a corner room, on the first floor, right by the gate even though the place was almost empty. I'm not sure if that was on purpose or what?

Like I said above, they nickel and dime you for everything. The reception doesn't even have a computer and they do all billing by hand. Then they accept only cash, and if you want to run your Visa or MasterCard, they charge you 5% extra. And there's no ATM on site. Then there's no slippers, or anything extra in the rooms.

Some beach boys on the beach that will pester you to buy stuff. Plus the beach is very filthy. It has broken glass in the sand and lots of garbage. My gf cut her foot when we ventured out into the ocean. So bring water shoes if you plan to do that.

Keep in mind that this is a Muslim country, and they impose strict dress code, especially if you are a woman, worse still, a black woman. (See their sign in pictures.)

Overall impression - this was our one and only stay at this place. We travel a lot to Mombasa in Kenya, and resorts there are much better in...

Later edit 2 (reply to hotel response): We didn't go to any safari. We just changed the hotel and presented all the reasons below at check-out, moment when we were offered SPA vouchers.

Later edit: After receiving 3 negative reviews, 3 reviews with 5 stars appeared that seem to be from the owners or friends of the owners from Poland. check the photos in the reviews (some are even branded with Zanzibella logo) and also check the review content that is quite generic. Check their social media accounts (Facebook / Instagram) and see that the ladies appearing the photos of the positive reviews are part of their staff or friends of the hotel owners. AVOID this property! in the 4 days we’ve spent in this hotel we never seen anyone doing yoga :)

Pros: Luxurious garden / inner yard whit lots of nice plants Infinite pool is nice however the space around the pool for the sunbeds is quite small and gives you a feeling of being packed Food - a la cart menu is average (not great) diversity being limited Room - spacious room. Every evening they came to spray the room for mosquitos

Cons: Room - cleaning can be better. We found in the room a cockroach, spiders and mosquitoes despite constant spraying. Towels are dated, the small ones for face are grey already. Mirrors are not cleaned - I’ve sprayed the cockroach on the mirror and the spray stain was still there when we left. Also there were a lot of noises coming from the neighbors and from the outside. There is literarily no soundproof. We heard the neighbors speaking, flushing the toilet and every bird and insect outside during the night + the service at the mosque. Also we’ve experienced frequent power outages which were short but we kept hearing during the night the beeps from the AC/phone when the power was back up. Really hard to sleep. Breakfast - far away from a 5 star rating. Maybe at most a 3 one. Extremely limited selection and food not stored in proper conditions - fruits, vegetables and some hummus, guacamole salads, mozzarela stored in plastic boxes next to a window where sun is coming in. No ice to keep them cool. All of them being warm and uneatable. We arrived early in the morning after a night of flights and had to pay $15 / person if we wanted to have breakfast. Suggestion - move to a la cart options where guest can order from some predefined options that are made fresh. Xmas Eve buffet - although we were half board we had to pay extra $20 / person to be able to eat in the Xmas Eve. The reasons they stated was that it will be a buffet - which was an epic fail. Food that was supposed to be served hot was warm, at room temperature and limited selection. Dessert was again stored without any ice around it and all the cakes/mouses were melted. Bar/restaurant prices - with half board nothing is included from the bar. Just a bottle of water per day in the room and at the restaurant. But even this bottle is a refilled one - we do not know if it is tap water or not. They should provide bottled water to tourists. Everything in the bar menu is expensive, including bottled water ($2 a bottle). During our stay we rarely seen someone ordering drinks from the bar at the pool. Our driver for the day trips told us the he had people from Zanzibella who preferred to pay $50 return trip to Nungwi for dinner given prices were cheaper and overall it costed the tourists less to take a taxi and eat outside Zanzibella.

Overall this hotel does not represent a 5 Star hotel nor a luxury one as they market themselves - it’s mostly a 3 star hotel. We booked and paid for a 10 nights stay but given we actually wanted to enjoy our holiday, we decided to leave after 4 days and book another hotel even though they did not want to refund any of the money we paid for the remaining of 6 nights. Instead of refunding us they offered vouchers for their SPA but we did not want them given we were leaving the hotel. However we managed to get the bills that we had on the room covered (~$200 while the refund was supposed...

Baffling Experience (see below response to Hotel comment)

We stayed 2 nights during our honeymoon after a safari.We booked (and prepaid) the most expensive double room, but unfortunately had a quite negative experience. We had stayed in a different boutique hotel in Zanzibar the week prior, so the comparison is to that. Overall this felt far from a 5 star boutique level stay. -Arrival: we felt very unwelcome at arrival at 21.30, only a security guard was at the gate (which didn't speak English), no welcome personnel or porter service were present, we had to carry 4 suitcases up to the restaurant ourselves and our luggages were then left on the border of the pool for more than 1h. The hotel had Xmas Eve dinner planned (with an additional cost on the already paid half board) and we were rushed into eating as the kitchen was closing. In reality the dinner was a buffet, so everything pre cooked. We had kept the hotel updated about our arrival time. -Room: the rooms are spacious enough. We booked a room with Ocean view but in reality there was no view of the ocean as there was a plastic cover on the terrace window. You could (barely) see the beach only from the bathroom window. -Service: very underwhelming and at points rude. Multiple reminders needed to the reception for basic stuff, missing towels, missing toilet paper, ants infestation. Multiple times awaiting for a callback. Housekeeping had to be reminded multiple times to carry cleaning and did so only after 2pm. The only quick thing about the services was the bill. -Food: in line with restaurants in the island (average), but addition had to be paid to the already paid half board for Xmas Eve and Xmas dinner, which ended up being very normal dinners and nothing special. Only water is included. -Pool and Spa: nice pool and ok Spa service. -Wifi: lacking, weird ticket system, often not functioning and disconnecting. During our stay there were also 3 to 5 small power outages each day. -View: nice, but beach full of seaweeds and algae (the most we have seen in this area). Going further north to the hotel, the beach was much better.

Overall unfortunately our stay was not worth the cost, to the point that we were looking forward to leaving asap instead of staying longer. We might have caught them in a bad week, but definitely not recommended based also on other experience in Zanzibar.

RESPONSE: The response of the hotel tells you everything you need to know about their attitude. -completely invented story on the greeting, nobody came to us except the security guard -no plate was prepared for us in the room. We were told WE COULD BRING FOOD INTO THE ROOM, which we were supposed to have paid in our half board, not a favour from you guys. There were also other 3 tables with people at least, you didn't keep open for us -house keeping was requested after do not disturb tag was removed and had to be reminded multiple times -wifi was terrible, no matter how you put it -no response on the addition to be paid for the already paid half board, nothing like this was mentioned at booking

I suggest the hotel changes their attitude, as it's clear from other reviews it all comes down to luck if you are treated with...