Smile Beach

Given that I had chosen this hotel because it looked nice in the photos with a beautiful beach in front, and in particular because it is positioned at the extreme northwest of Zanzibar where I had read that there is no low and high tide phenomenon, but instead there certainly is. ROOM: As soon as I arrived inside the room, there was a smell of old, so much so that I had to spray it with my perfume, and furthermore, there was only a small 50 cm wide closet and the headboard of the bed was under the window. The hot water is turned off with a switch that looks like a light switch, and therefore, not knowing it, you can be left without it, also because there is nothing written about what it is. COMMON AREAS: In the beach area, there is foot traffic from all the tourists and in particular from the locals who constantly offer you everything. The lounge chairs have unstitched covers and the pool is dirty. At the restaurant while I was sitting one evening, a little mouse passed in front of me and another evening the table (which I had to change) was full of little ants and in any case, there were constantly cats under the table approaching and asking for something. The restaurant staff is kind but they don't use the shower much. As for the food itself, it's better to say nothing, while as for the drinks, even worse, because since the owner is Muslim, it is forbidden to consume alcohol in the entire hotel, including the restaurant. At checkout, they had also charged me for lunch and dinner, which were instead included in the reservation. Ultimately, a score of 3 and the complex needs to be renovated. PS: if you don't believe what I wrote, you can go there to verify it in person, but I don't recommend it to you.

The restaurant food it’s amazing , I tried few restaurants in the area but the ocean view restaurant has amazing food . The hotel rooms are clean and you have ocean view from the balconies . The pool is ok but nobody goes to Zanzibar to use a pool when you have the beautiful ocean with amazing sand and water right in front for you .

The Smiles Beach Hotel is a small resort on Nungwi beach. very relaxing and private and, if you want, close to other resorts much more animated where we went in the evening to listen to music and have a drink. Clean and spacious rooms, we had a superior with a king size bed. Located right on the beach, with private pool. The staff was very friendly and helpful. Some general power failure and wifi coming and going. Otherwise we would definitely stay there again.

There are many positives to this hotel, but significant negatives too. The positives are: fantastic location on beach front. Close to nearby restaurants and bars, but distant enough to be away from busy madness of it all. Nice pool. The staff are helpful and friendly. The rooms nice but a bit basic , with limited hot water and maids forgetting to leave water, towels etc. The major downside is the food. Awful! The breakfast had almost empty hot food containers of died up, tasteless food, despite more than one hour of service still remaining. Pastries inedible. Don't stay for half board. Luckily, we only booked bed and breakfast, but tried the evening menu once. It was awful ! The other downside is no alcohol. Not too much of problem as it's a Muslim country, and there are several bars and restaurants nearby serving alcohol, but it came as an unwelcome surprise, which if I had known, would have made me book a different hotel. Overall, it was ok, but many other better competitive choices in the areas.

The hotel staff stole our US money from the room safe. The management did not take it seriously at all. He said it never happened before and brushed us off. We had to spend hours of our vacation working with the local police department to file an investigation. We spent so much money on this vacation to leave in tears. Please do not go here! I wasn’t even going to complain about the lack of service, bad food, no alcohol or bar service, inconsisten wifi internet, no ice or or cold refreshments, boring, out dated room. This was just too expensive to be robbed of our money. It doesn’t matter if the money was in the suitcase, bathroom, bed… it was stolen and ruined our trip.

This hotel desperately needs updates. Rooms were dirty, bathrooms smelled, and the furniture was worn out. There was no reliable WiFi and no cold refreshments available even in the heat. Service was terrible. Staff showed zero urgency or concern when problems were reported. Management clearly does not care about guest experience.