Riu Palace Zanzibar - All Inclusive, Nungwi

Muy buen lugar el personal muy dispuesto para solucionar todo lo único que veo es la lejanía del restaurante y lo demás servicio muy mucho desniveles

First time I go in such type of hotel (lots of tourists) and I felt like in a five star hotel. Wonderful staff, food, location, All is to make your feel the most welcome and with a very personal service It was a wonderful experience

We were very desapointed by this kind of resort Very bad check in,the rooms were not ready when we arrived even we told them that we will be there sooner and they said no problème. The breakfast was cheap, no service for fried eggs, the pâtisserie was very cheap for the price we paid about 8000€ for 12 nights all inclusive ( included a discount of 30%)All the meals were at the dame level, certainly not five stars hotel I am very desapointed about the rate that you gave to this « palace »...

A wonderful place to stay. Amazing food and the staff were excellent. perfect place to relax after 10days on Safari

I’m a true believer that PEOPLE MAKE PLACES and this IS NOT one of them: Common areas are infested with mosquitos after 4pm; beach towels stink; breakfast area is infested with crows; branding- everything was branded « Hideaway » not riu. - but most importantly, unfriendly and unhelpful management. We stayed at much more modest places in Tanzania and received the best service (eg: TLoma lodge)! Upon arriving after 5h of driving, 1h30 of plane and another 1h30 of driving from the airport + having been sick for 2 days, we were told we only had a booking for 1 adult. The price we paid was clearly for 2 people but they wouldn’t let us check in unless receiving a new email from hotels.com - keep in mind we’re in Zanzibar, no tollfree number, no reception. We were asked to sit down on a bench infested with mosquitos- you know, cause standing customers is not a good look for others..Since I was sick I even suggested removing the 'all inclusive' for both of us, I was in no mood to drink or eat anything. No! Management demanded we pay an addtl $320 for the 2nd person, bringing our total price at $1250 for 2 for 2 nights!!!At $600 a night you could stay at the ST Regis! And this hotel clearly was NOT matching a 5 star. When you have customers in front of you who’ve traveled HOURS by plane and car and who are sick, Who don’t have a car or option to go elsewhere, that’s simply called EXTORTION. Thanks for ruining our vacation - I'll be sure to recommend ANYTHING but Rui to my friends!

Excellent hotel with a great service from the staff. All day they were looking after us and trying to make our stay more pleasant. Special thanks to the GM and Orisbel who were wonderful hosts. I would recommend this hotel to everyone. The beach is also very good.

Positives : great weather, good clean place , good beach , friendly staff, great swimming pool, great food and bar area. Nice spa and games area. Negatives : smoking allowed in all areas and not nice to smell it while eating. Gym is ok but can do with more free weights and equipment Bar service is slow.

Absolutely fantastic!! First time in Zanzibar and we will definitely be back! Hotel is located about 1.5hr from airport, probably shorter if the roads were better. Hotel reception is very welcoming and staff very attentive! Our room was fab, 4 post bed, balcony and large bathroom! Pool/beach area is out of this world!! You do get some hassle on the beach to buy stuff, we did actually go with a guy from the beach for the dolphin tour and i couldnt fault it, we paid $15 less EACH for the tour and swam with dolphins! Staff around the pool were fantastic, always made sure we had a drink in hand. Water activities were so much fun, got everyone together, laughing! Breakfast, lunch and dinner was lovely! Im not a fussy eater so for me it was great, lots to choose from! Friday night dinner was an open grill and entertainment which really made our last night!!! I would 100% recommend this hotel! Just be advised for elderly/less active.. there is a slight hill from pool to some rooms/reception. There is golf carts that can move you around but maybe request a room near the pool.

Front desk and General Manager aren't honest and they intentionally use a hotel.com interface gap (and it seems that in Expedia too) to charge clients extra amounts. Basically you search for a room for 2, they end up giving you a room for one without any notice sign or information. In my case, the information of the room even said it was for 3 and in any field through the whole booking I had any chance to change the number of persons in the search. I always use hotels.com to travel, America, Europe and it was in Africa that happened twice. In this case, in RIU, they wanted to charge 400USD for the second person in the front desk, when in the night before of the booking I had already paied 250USD. I called hotels.com from the hotel and they gave me the rate for two and it was only 30-40USD more, but the front desk wanted to charge 10x that (the 400USD) and if I cancelled I wouldn't get a room available anymore. I couldn't believe that happened twice just in Africa, so I went through and recorded the whole booking online process to understand what happened. I found out (and recorded it) I had made no mistake, that hotels.com had that gap to change the number of people once you finished booking without ever showing that to who's booking. The page, the email confirmation, all that is setup by the hotel to mislead you to believe everything is alright (for 2) until your arrival. They know what is going on as it happens often, more than once/day to their clients.

Since the hotel is so spread out, there were golf carts to transport people from area to area. Sometimes the transport bever arrived. One day when we returned to our room after lunch, the entrance to our room was flooded with water from the malfunctioning airconditioner. I slipped on the water and almost fell, but was saved by my husband who was right behind me. We called reception and they sent over a technician after about an hour. When he left he said housekeeping would come over to mop up the water. No one came and we eventually mopped It up ourselves with our bath towels. We informed reception about this. Instead of offering a rebate which we hoped they would do, they sent over a bottle of champagne as compensation. We don’t drink champagne, so for us it was no compensation. We found the hotel to be too widely spread but the gardens were spectacular and well maintained. The food was excellent and the service friendly and efficient.