We had a horrible experience at this hotel. It was poorly managed during our stay, which was during low season. Their only redeeming qualities are that the breakfast was good, the hotel is clean and they hung up balloons for my Mom's birthday. The acting manager, who is not from Zanzibar, tried to bamboozle us. His quote for taxis and archipelago experiences was $20 - $30 more than the island's going rates! I'm from South Africa so I'm no stranger to power outages, but we arrived to no electricity at Isla Bonita at 1pm. And we were the only 2 guests at the entire hotel. I'm sure if you're coming here on your honeymoon or romantic getaway, this would have been ideal, but as I was travelling with my gregarious mother for her 70th birthday, this made us feel down in the dumps. With the heavy rain, we couldn't explore the Matemwe beach either. So we were stuck in a hotel room with no air con, no WiFi, no lights and no TV. It felt like a colossal waste of money for an important trip on Day 1. The manager assured us that the power would come on in an hours' time (so around 3pm) and that they had a generator, which would run the entire night. After sitting without power until 6pm, I had to WhatsApp him to ask for candles/light. The power only kicked in at 10pm, and yet still there was no WiFi nor TV. So we had NO power from 1pm to 10pm. I couldn't pay by card due to their card machine issues and he shouted across the courtyard, "MAYBE IT'S YOUR CARD!" It wasn't, as I used this card for our entire trip in Zanzibar. But that should give a glimpse into the kind of person he is. He was also rude to our driver. The next night (around 2am) the power went off again. At 8am in the morning, I messaged the manager to ask what was going on and he said that it was out of his control and that the entire island had been affected. I said that when we were in Stone Town the previous day, and that that the entire part had electricity and generators, and 20 minutes after my message - Isla Bonita's generator kicked in! Such inconsistent lies. I notified Bookings.com and checked us out immediately. I paid in cash for the 2 nights that we stayed and the taxi from the airport. The manager changed his attitude and suddenly became very humble and talkative, asking us not to give a bad review. There is no sense of customer service at this place. From personal experience, I felt that we were treated this way because we are 2 women. Don't waste your money here. Rather go to Stone Town during Zanzibar's low season and have a trip that's worthwhile & shows a true reflection of this beautiful place and its warm people.
自動翻訳