Pearl Beach Resort By Sansi

“Holliday”

Location, atmosphere, services, room, cleanliness very good, but eat is western for me.

“So much potential unfortunately squandered”

I'll start by saying that this hotel is a bit of a conundrum - it has such immense potential to be one of the stars of this area, but for various reasons the management seem to think they don't need to try The highlight of our stay had to be the staff. They are always unhesitatlingly friendly and … more

I'll start by saying that this hotel is a bit of a conundrum - it has such immense potential to be one of the stars of this area, but for various reasons the management seem to think they don't need to try The highlight of our stay had to be the staff. They are always unhesitatlingly friendly and polite, but they are working with what they have which to be honest is not good enough. By the end of the first day they knew who we were and which was our room number - something that some 5 star hotels don't even manage No way is this a 5-star hotel - in our opinion it's barely 3 star The biggest issue BY FAR is the way they deal with the expected power outages. We understand that Zanzibar does have issues with it's power distribution, but the Pearl Beach thinks it's not necessary to have their generator always on standby. We had complete power cuts lasting from a few minutes up to almost 12 houts overnight As other havd said, that means no air conditioning or lighting, but because all the water is pumped, there are no showers nor ability to flush toilets either Dinner one night was half spent in torchlight, which is great for attracting all the local insects! Their generators should be immediately available when needed Our stay in Stone Town was completely unaffected in this way, so it is solely down to decisions made by the Pearl Beach management Also, the food whilst OK never rose to the level of a 5 star property. And because of the power issues, we were often delayed at meal times and always had that nagging doubt about whether the food was properly cooked There was never any suggestion or offer of compensation for the disruption It seems that the bulk of their clientele is on some type of all-inclusive package holiday - complete with packaged entertainment. If this is your thing, fine but again it's not what's expected in a 5 star resort On occasions where there was power at reception, but not in our rooms, it would be nice to sit in their upstairs "lounge" area. But it only seated about 15 people!! The reason why we say it has so much potential, it is in a gorgeous position (maybe a little remote for some, but that's what we like). The views from the sea view rooms is amazing It has two pools, but the main pool may be challenging to get to for anyone with limited mobility We enjoyed our stay (100% due to the staff) but would not consider staying here again unless things changed significantly

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