Smiles Beach Hotel

Staff very nice Room comfortable and clean Buffet breakfast Swimming pool

Restaurant is expensive, little portions of food The beach in front of the hotel but nice beaches are not so far

The property is well located on the beach front of one of the best beaches in Zanzibar called Nungwi. It’s easy to access and see the vibrancy of the island. The pool is great with 24 hour access and the rooms are comfortable with all basic necessities and hot shower.

The staff although friendly, did not seem to be too attentive or available. There were times when I went to the reception to find no one there. The breakfast was unfortunately not good at all and lacked variety.

Even all that happend,hotel managers and the owner were very nice and were trying to be helpfull and menage all mistakes as soon as possible. Hotel gave us refund of 5% for the rooms, they didn't charge us for any drinks or 3 dinners we had and they organized transfer to airport for free.Usualy it is paid like 40-50usd. Also,the ladie who works as manager... just started working there in the middle of our vacation and in just few days she already made some good changes and was very helpful. She organized for us a boat transfer to another beach for the best price and she is very helpful by organizing safaris and all other tours. Unfortunatly i don't know the name of one young boy who is working at reception... he was the most kind person in all and i am sorry i didn't gave him a bigger tip. At the end..despite all what happend...if they would change the cook and restaurant personal and give strictly instruction to room maids... i think i would book again the same hotel as everything else is menageable. Hotel is on a good location,close to shoops and some restaurants. So...keep in mind,this is not 5 stars hotel and hotel has a nice owner and menagers..just talk to them. I would recommend to the hotel just one more thing as they have many guests from europe... power adapters for the rooms should be a MUST HAVE.

Hotel forgot to organize airport pick up and they are bit unorganized with room reservations,room facilities and furniture. Also, they should imidiate change the cook and the personal at the restaurant as only one men was nice there and able to smile and....the cook? ...you don't have to be professional cook to cook good. Breakfast options are few...or you eat kind of weird smelling eggs or kind of pancakes but for 3 star hotel that is ok. Paid dinner options are terrible and food is terrible...but we kept in mind..we are in Zanzibar and options in anything are very squized and small everywere. But there is one specialy weird thing that happend...one morning we found in the middle of our bed "sea ​​urchin needles".Lot's of them.So check your bed before going to sleep. And one more thing,bathroom smell is like in the stable.I realy don't know why. Also..in hotel desciption they say they have a shop...but there is no shop,they also say rooms are soundproof but we were woken up the last night at 2am by our new room neighbours so we was going to ask them to be quite. But...

The staff were just wonderful, so friendly and helpful. The grounds of the hotel are lovely and it was a peaceful space to lounge and swim. This side of the Nungwi beach is much quieter than the other end. The rooms were great and clean, though there wasn’t a huge amount of space for luggage. Nungwi is a beautiful village and though touristy at the beach, still very traditional and under developed a stones throw away. I would urge you to explore a little further and make sure you spend money with the locals and not just at the big hotels... there’s a lot of money being spent by foreigners but sadly it doesn’t seem that much trickles down to the locals.

The hotel advertises a private beach- it really is not private! Everyone walks through and though this is quite entertaining and downright joyful at times... don’t expect a private beach. We had a difficult time at check-in and almost got charged $500 over as the hotel had the wrong amount... I had to get my booking details to prove that this was not the agreed amount. That’s not happened to me before at a hotel so do make sure you check on arrival. The food is ok for a few days but but they could definitely upgrade the menu to offer more variety and veggie items. IMPORTANT- there is no cash point in Nungwi Village and when we got a taxi to the closest ATM, It didn’t work! Take cash with you, I do think hotels should warn you this and can’t help but feel it keeps you spending money in hotels on your card than cash at smaller Zanzabari places. Finally- the road- be prepared for THE WORST ROAD of your life. It’s still worth it, but be prepared. If you’re staying in Stown Town first (which I’d recommend) do your land trips from here and then Nungwi is great for beach and boat time. Enjoy!!!