Cristal Resort Zanzibar

Beautiful rooms and very good location next to the beach and shops

Power outages but it was manageable

Absolutely nothing.

Same items for breakfast everyday, very limited choice, no milk on two separate occasions. Drinking Water in bedrooms had to be bought everyday. Only one bottle was provided on the first night. Internet kept on cutting out every time. No staff available on reception. Had to walked to reception every time to complain about towels not provided and drains blocked. No electricity and took over half an hour to get the generator going on three different occasions. Too expensive- no value for money. Would not recommend to anyone

The view is amazing. It is definetly the nicest property on the beach.

The Breakfast could have a bit more of a selection

The rooms are very nice, well equipped, and tastefully decorated. The location on the beach was perfect. The food was good and staff very friendly.

Room 101 needs a curtain, room 103 the toilet is loose. I recommend mosquito netting in the bathrooms. There was a problem with our booking which was not received by the resort. Luckily they were still able to accommodate us. Also we paid tax twice as the hotel requested it in cash although we had already paid it through booking.com

Cristal Resorts seems like a big lot and they took an area - quiet and away from the beach side - to build a new set of rooms/huts with their own tiny "jacuzzi"/pool and big bathroom and shower area. They look great and the bed, closets, towels everything was new. Every room has own AC and wifi with good quality signal. One good thing they had Masai guys at the beach, preventing vendors from annoying you every 2 minutes. The location was nice and in a quiet area of Paje, we definitely had a good time when comes to relax and forget about work or long travel.

* Electricity: First day we almost had no electricity the whole evening, and during the next 5 days was constant power cuts. There's no fan, only AC. First day since there was almost no electricity the room to run AC, was quite hot. * Drinking water: Rooms are provided with cups, glasses, coffee and tea in the room and we got a bottle of water just once, when asked at reception they wanted to charge per bottle - stating the first bottle was just for mouth washing. In the whole resort there's no water dispenser available for guests. * Communication: We booked this place last minute and we no reviews of the property, wanting to explore Paje after Matemwe. We asked to add taxi service and communication thru booking.com was not the best: I was asked for confirmation around 11pm and answered around 8 am next day with no reply whatsoever thru booking.com. The place has a +34 (Spain) number as property contact which we used to contact via whatsapp with a profile photo of a dude in the snow, so we were not sure about how serious this place was. Also, since this area of Cristal Resort is new there was no real Tripadvisor, Google Review to rely on and no Tanzanian local number was available to contact right away. * Food at the "Japanese" restaurant (Wasabi) is not that good and overpriced, I recommend going to the bar next door called NOMAD. * They must do something with beach umbrellas and sun beds, many germans doing that German thing of going early and reserving the place, not using it but leaving towels and personal stuff there for hours. * Breakfast was decent at best. A few days, if I was not asking for them to take our order they wouldn't even show me the menu. In comparison to Marafiki Beach Resort in Matemwe, where we paid $20 more per night, this resort fell short in terms of food quality, service, and overall attention to guest needs.

The new rooms are good.

I understand that the whole Island has issues with Electricity but the management should do something with outsourcing either a generator that will help substitute when the main source fails. Management should work on improving on their client -customer relations. For instance, I had an issue with housekeeping services constantly knocking and forcefully asking you to leave the rooms for them to clean up despite asking for time and privacy. Breakfast is Horrendous, WORST IN THE WORLD. WI-FI IS BAD They also offer beach towels as bathroom towels They only offered one water bottle the day we checked in and when we requested for an extra bottle they said that as per their hotel policy they only offer guests water on the first day. The hotel seems to only have one iron box even after constantly requesting for one and offering to pay they refused to honor the request. The FACILITY IS RUN DOWN👎 I would not recommend anyone to visit not worth the amount. However there are neighbouring hotels that offer better facilities for a cheaper price.