香料宮殿飯店(Spice Palace Hotel)

Friendly reception, clean rooms, cute pool and rooftop restaurant, enjoyed my stay 😀

Le séjour est vite raconté. Il est indiqué que l'hotel a un accueil limité. Notre vol ayant été reculé après 22 heures, nous avons questionné sur la possibilité de nous accueillir dès le 7 juillet par mail et ********** et n'avons eu une réponse que 4 jours avant notre arrivée (nous étions déjà en voyage). Il nous a donc fallu réserver et payer un autre hôtel...

We only went for dinner here having heard that the roof-top restaurant has a good view. In the end the view was really the best part of the evening. The food was fairly standard fare, really nothing special - piece of chicken, not specially spiced, rice and veg - and we had to wait for it. The staff were slow and unresponsive, and when it came to pay I had to pull them away from their chatter to give me the bill and then they were unable to take hard currency and I had to pay by card. Frankly, there are plenty of better options in Stone Town.

Excellent location in Stone Town. Very nice room. The dining was reasonably good, although at times just a bit slow. The staffing and service at the lobby coffee bar was very poor, with apparent staff disinterest -- this is the only aspect of this hotel which could use some more attention, Otherwise, highly recommended.

Dans les chambres, il y a une odeur d'égout nauséabonde qui s'échappe des canalisations. En plus les ordures situées non loin des chambres n'arrenge rien. Les chambres sont très sombres. Très bruyantes. il y a un bruit de générateur qui rend la nuit compliquée. Dans un premier temps impossible d'ouvrir notre porte, puis le lendemain impossible de la fermer. Personnel désagréable (sûrement sous l'effet de stupéfiant), ce qui dénote par rapport au reste des zanzibarites. La clim fonctionne quand elle a envie et s'arrête difficilement (forcément les piles dans la télécommande ne fonctionne pas). Trace de moisissure au plafond. Drap à l'hygiène douteuse. En plus il utilise leur propre taux de change si on paye en shilling un prix en dollar. Alors oui c'est un hôtel pas cher mais au moins vous savez ce que vous payez.

The hotel is very tired. The rooms were very tired, the mosquito nets were grey with neglect and had holes in them, defeating their purpose. The shower in the bathroom had cracked tiles and wholes in the door. You also needed to be a contortionist to sit on the toilet, and all this was in what is described as a superior suite. They claim to have happy hour on beer and cocktails between 4 and 7 every day (advertised in the bar) but when you try to take advantage of this they use all sorts of excuses to give you any form of happy hour discount. When I tried to raise this with the management they didn’t even have the decency to respond to my email. Either they need to remove the happy hour sign and references to happy hour or honour it. The food was average at best. Do not use their airport shuttle as the charge double the going rate and do not get you as close to the hotel as they possibly could do. This is all a great shame as the hotel does have great potential due to location. All it requires is some freshening up.

The hotel in general looks nice, simple and clean, but they need to look after details specially maintenance. The shower area (in the room) was having a big leakage due the glass door was broken. In other way, breakfast was nice, services (waitress) needs more training.... Even though the location is in a very busy area of stone town, was cool, quiet and chill the terrace, very confortable to relax. For those who likes to stay in the heart of stone town is perfect.

Hotel, room, rooftop restaurant, location everything is nearly perfect but beware of the dishonest Reception and travel desk staff. We were told that a trip to prison Island in a group of 6 costs 30usd pp incl guide, boat ride, snorkeling however when we reached there, there was no guide and no snorkeling equipments. It was a local boat which we could have taken for 10-15dollar from the port but we chose to overpay to have better experience. But the boat driver was sort of a drunkard, dropped us and asked us to return within an hour. When we returned to the hotel to re-check what all was included at least as per the *written* rates, guide and snorkeling charges were levied without service. Additionally, worst part was that the printed rate for tour pp was also 20usd in a group of 6 instead of 30usd. When we confronted that you lied to us, they had no comeback and made stories like they called the boat driver who apologised and this that. It was a waste of half day with a bitter experience on our last day of the trip. That way, we could have simply taken any tour from any random person outside.

Majority of things are ok but something very important which I didn't like is the fact that you cannot easily sleep in the morning or during the afternoon and the reason is that too much light in the room. The sun goes directly through the small window of the door overlooking 5he balcony, from the toilet door. The curtains are not dark and leave the sun light to come in. I was in Room 302