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Traveller reviews

Travel reviews by Red-eyed Dove from London

Review Distribution

Excellent
Good
Average
Poor
Terrible

Total number of trips

1

Countries visited

2

Lodges stayed in

6

Excursions taken

0

our honeymoon

Zanzibar and 1 other country between 22 Sep 2007 and 12 Oct 2007

Trip rating: Good
"We had a brilliant trip. Majority of places we stayed at were great."

Fumba Beach Lodge

Fumba Beach Lodge

"Fumba Beach Lodge review"

5 nights Arrived 23 Sep 2007
"Very friendly and well trained staff. Excellent etiquette. Plently of staff.

When we arrived we had some other people using our beach beds and when we asked the man in reception to ask them to move (as they could see into our outdoor shower), he was not willing to ask them to move, which was rather disappointing. Especially as he agreed that they shouldnt have been using them.

Vegetarian food was on the whole good. However there were at least two occassions when they forgot we were vegetarian. The availability of an a la carte menu at lunch was great. They catered well for us, though the options were repetitive.

We had a massage here - but I wouldn't recommend it. It was not great.

Bungalows were very cool, though we prefered number 6 over 5, less mosquitoes and cleaner. They both had lots of space.

Cool surprise dinner settings, this was very well thought out and made us feel special on honeymoon. Complimentary bottle of wine also helped us feel like we were on honeymoon."
Good
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Good

Location
Average
Service
Excellent
Facilities
Good
Rooms
Good
Food
Good
Chumbe Island Lodge

Chumbe Island Lodge

"Chumbe Island review"

2 nights Arrived 28 Sep 2007
"one of the best places we stayed at overall.

Facilities were better than we had been expecting (the compost toilet was fine), very friendly staff, brilliant excursions/activities (snorkelling, intertidal walk, forest walk) and educational. The bandas are cool and very easy to live in.

Food was fantastic and we were well catered for as vegtarians

Birthday cake and complimentary wine made us feel very special and we want to go back."
Excellent
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Excellent

Location
Excellent
Service
Excellent
Activities
Excellent
Rooms
Excellent
Food
Excellent
Facilities
Excellent
Unguja Lodge

Unguja Lodge

"Unguja Lodge review"

4 nights Arrived 30 Sep 2007
"Friendly staff - but were pretty slow, did not know about ettiquette in the same way as all the other places we stayed at (brought out the wrong wine on one occassion).

Nice to have tea on our doorstep before breakfast and a nice welcoming card on our arrival. We had a good village tour that we really enjoyed. Washing clothes was relatively cheap.

The bungalows were amazing - extremely spacious and well equipped with air con etc. However our private pool was not cleaned throughout our 4 night stay and by the end we would have not liked to have shared pool with all those fellow insects...

However this was the one place where we did not feel like we were on honeymoon. We did not have any 'special' dinners or complimentary wine, or any little special honeymoon touches. Was rather disappointing given that the rooms were fantastic.

the bar was pretty loud and not particularly relaxing. They often played loud music (which again did not make us feel like we were on honeymoon).

When we relaxed on the sunbeds, we felt that there were not enough around the pool for all guests at times.

the vegetarian food was the most dissapointing part of our stay. We felt like we were awkward guests by having dietary requirements. they did not have an a la carte menu for lunch, so we felt obliged to have a full three course set buffet meal for lunch (or at least pay for three courses, even though we probably had two courses at the most) - which was not brilliant for veggies. Having no real choice when we were there on a half board basis was not great. Despite this, they did make us veggies some chips for lunch, which were nice!

We both feel ill while we were there and think it was related to the food we had there one lunchtime (think that we had a cold soup which probably hadn't used boiled water). This didn't help our stay there.

We found it really strange how they would ask guests straight after breakfast whether they intended to have lunch with them. We were there ona half board basis and so would have liked the option to have lunch if we felt like it later on in the day. but to be honest deciding just after a meal, without knowing what was on the menu, seemed rather strange. When you're on holiday, you don't want to be making food decisions at breakfast!

At first we did not have to sign for our meals and so it meant that we had no idea how much we were spending.

We made a few enquiries while we were there - one asking about why our room safe was not working - another about whether there was anywhere we could go for a massage. we felt rather disappointed that we had to ask twice before anything was done."
Average
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Average

Location
Average
Service
Average
Facilities
Good
Rooms
Excellent
Food
Poor
Zanzibar Palace Hotel

Zanzibar Palace Hotel

"Zanzibar Palace Hotel review"

2 nights Arrived 4 Oct 2007
"Excellent. Sebastian and his team were great.

Friendly, great breakfast, good local knowledge and advice."
Excellent
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Excellent

Location
Excellent
Service
Excellent
Facilities
Excellent
Rooms
Excellent
Food
Excellent
Impala Camp

Impala Camp

"Selous Impala Camp review"

3 nights Arrived 6 Oct 2007
"Excellent. The food was amazing, safari drives amazing - our guide was fantastic, the boat safari was cool and different and walking safari fun too.

What can i say - absolutely brilliant! we saw some amazing game and just loved this place."
Excellent
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Excellent

Location
Excellent
Service
Excellent
Activities
Excellent
Rooms
Excellent
Food
Excellent
Facilities
Excellent
Ras Kutani

Ras Kutani

"Ras Kutani review"

3 nights Arrived 9 Oct 2007
"the massages here were fantastic. the food was good, nice romantic dinner was put on for us, we felt on honeymoon!

there was good service and the staff well trained

only drawbacks (perhaps out of their control) were that you had to request for the hot water to be turned on in the morning (and they forgot or the hot water was all used up by our neighbour on our first full day their) as well as lights going out after the last person had left the bar i.e. no electricity during the day."
Good
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Good

Location
Average
Service
Good
Facilities
Average
Rooms
Average
Food
Good

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