Zanoceanique Hotel

The staff of the hotel was very nice. The room was spacious and clean. We had a beatiful sea view. The hotel is at 3min from the beach and there is plenty of restaurant nearby. The passion fruit juice was very good :)

The water was rare in the shower, there were no pressure, just a thin stream of water

Consindering the amount of money paid, breakfast can be better than it is, you can consinder buffet breakfast

Power being off and no generator

The rooms were large and comfortable, we even had a sitting room. Close to the beach, and very nice pool area. Staff were very accommodating.

Hot water was finicky.

I booked 4 nights in an "executive suite with sea view" at Zanoceanique for myself and my wife to give us a little comfort after spending the previous 12 days on safari in mainland Tanzania. The room was spacious, comfortable and clean, the aircon worked well and we had a lovely view of the beach, breakfast was included and evening meals were available for a very reasonable extra charge, the kitchen and restuarant were very good, most of the staff were very friendly and helpfull. So why such a poor overall review?

3 things happened to spoil what would have otherwise been an excellent hotel: The day before our arrival we were informed that their credit card machine was "in maintenance" so we would need to pay the full amount of our booking in cash upon arrival. As we don't carry excessive amounts of cash when travelling this was a problem for us, particularly as we has booked tours with their associated operator (Mr John), who would also need to be paid in cash. Upon our arrival which was late evening due to flight delay we handed over our cash for the room and found Mr John was waiting for us at reception quite properly expecting to be paid for the tours we had booked. We had to explain that we couldn't pay him untill we had visited the fairly nearby ATM the following day. After visiting the ATM the next day and withdrawing our full dailly limit we were just a small amount short of paying him in full but he agreed the tour would go ahead the next day. After the tour (during which we made another ATM withdrawl) we returned to the hotel and called at reception for our room key. The female attending the reception desk produced our room key and whilst holding it in fromt of us demanded the remaining small cash payment (approx 16 USD) for Mr John, which of course we immediately handed over. Whether this was deliberate rudeness or just a cultural missunderstanding I am unsure but found it quite shocking at the time. Finally, on their booking.com listing the hotel claims they have a bar - they do not, or alcoholic drinks are not served, we were informed of this on our arrival but assured that we could purchase whatever we wanted from a nearby shop and consume it on the hotel premises, I later found written rules in the room stating that consumption of alcohol was only permitted in our room - not public areas of the hotel. Perhaps the management should more properly identify their target customers and more fully cater for them.