The Residence Zanzibar

Everything the buffet was amazing and the bicycles where a beautiful touch

Nothing

This was easily one of the best stays I’ve had. Everything is intentional—from the design to the service. The staff are kind, efficient, and genuinely care. You don’t need to repeat requests, everything is handled properly the first time. We had to switch to private dining due to my daughter not feeling well, and the team went out of their way to accommodate us, including offering discounts without us even asking. The property is spotless, beautifully maintained, and the twice-daily housekeeping is a lovely touch. Extending our stay was seamless. A true luxury experience—worth every cent.

Amazing views

The buffet was a bit hit and miss.

We have stayed here a few times before at the same time of year and always found it to be a wonderful holiday. This time, we arrived in the afternoon and were very warmly welcomed with a quick check-in and cooling drink. The villas are large and beautifully decorated with air-conditioning to cool down in the hot weather and their own individual plunge pools which are regularly checked for water quality. The grounds of the resort are beautiful with a small troup of monkeys, but beware of them stealing food, and a lovely little friendly cat who comes round at meal times. All of the staff are very friendly and helpful and a big thank you to all of the staff in the restaurants, Hellen, Farida, Sulesh and everyone else. There is a buggy with a very friendly and helpful driver to take you between your villa and anywhere else on the resort that you want to go. We particularly enjoyed the swimming pool which is great for exercise or just for cooling down if the weather is hot and a mid-afternoon ice-cream service around the pool is a real treat. A great stay and hope to be back again.

We absolutely loved this hotel, the rooms are incredible (we had a beach villa) the food is beautiful and I am still dreaming about the cocktails!! The location of this hotel is exactly what we were looking for, we had just been on a week safari and this was perfect to relax for the second half of our honeymoon! The staff are amazingly friendly and they cannot do enough for you, we liked a drink in the villa before bed and they always made sure they brought them to us so we didn’t have to take them on our bikes! The spa is also lovely! The service is amazing and somehow everyone seems to know who you are! The only problems we had with the hotel are… 1. We were put in the wrong room initially we were given a garden villa, I wouldn’t have minded as they are beautiful, but we had paid extra for the ocean villa so asked to be moved, they moved us to one villa about an hour after we arrived (1am) I was in my PJs, they then moved us again the next day at lunch time after saying it would be 10am so we didn’t miss out on a morning while we waited around. But once we were in the right room it was incredible! 2. There are loads of power cuts at the hotel. It happens usually from about 3pm and goes on all afternoon and evening, we often ate in the dark and sat in the dark in the villa. We were told it is island wide however as we were the end villa we could hear that the property next door had music on. 3. There is no room service included in the all inclusive package, if you want room service you have to pay for the items and a $10 service charge. 4. Late check out. I was originally told that a late check out (5pm) was going to cost $250 however we negotiated to $100, we were then told at dinner that we had to pay that night (I assumed we’d pay with the rest of the bill on check out) so a buggy was waiting for us to take us to reception to pay. So we missed our last nights entertainment and last orders, which put a bit of a dampener on the last night. Those points aside I would absolutely come back to this hotel and Zanzibar to do some more exploring oh and get a mango martini!