Luxury hotels in Zanzibar

Book the top end

The top end, in four lines

• $300 a night buys space and quiet. A serious kitchen, a beach that is not shared with a hundred people, and staff who know your name.
• $700 buys privacy. A villa or a small property with a dozen rooms, a butler if you want one, and no other guests in your sightline.
• $1,500 buys an island. Mnemba, effectively, and a handful of properties operating at that level.
• The step that matters most is the first one. Between $150 and $300 the change in what you get is larger than anywhere further up the scale.

What each price step actually buys

Per night for two in high season. The differences are concrete rather than a matter of stars.

Note that above about $400 the tide stops being a constraint, because the property has built its way around it. Below that it still decides your day. See the tide page.

What the first step buys

Between three hundred and five hundred dollars a night you get a genuinely good resort: a decent stretch of private beach, a pool that works, competent food and a room you are happy in. Baraza, Zuri and their peers sit here.

This is where the value is. The jump from a two hundred dollar hotel to a four hundred dollar one changes the holiday. The jump from four hundred to eight hundred mostly changes the thread count.

What the top step buys

Above eight hundred dollars you are buying exclusivity rather than quality. Mnemba island is the clearest example: twelve bandas on a private island inside a conservation area, all inclusive, and no other guests beyond those twelve.

That is a real thing to buy and it is not a con. What it is not is a better bed or a better dinner than the tier below. It is fewer people, and on an island where the beaches are getting busier, fewer people is what the money is for.

The Stone Town alternative

The restored merchant houses in Stone Town are a different proposition entirely: rooftop terraces, carved doors, eighteenth century rooms and the call to prayer at dawn.

They cost a fraction of a beach resort of comparable standard and they are the more interesting stay. Two nights there at the start of a trip, then the beach, is how a lot of experienced visitors do it.

All inclusive at the top end

Above about six hundred dollars a night, all inclusive stops meaning a buffet and starts meaning everything, including the wine list and the boat trips. Mnemba works this way.

It changes the arithmetic considerably. A resort at four hundred dollars room only, with two people eating and drinking properly, lands close to a place at seven hundred all in.

Read what is excluded rather than what is included. Spa, diving and imported champagne are the usual carve outs even at the top.

Villas, which are underrated here

A staffed villa with three or four bedrooms costs less per person than four resort rooms and comes with a cook, a housekeeper and usually a driver.

For a family or two couples travelling together this is the best value at the top of the market by a distance, and it is not what booking sites surface.

The trade is that you are catering for yourselves in the sense that somebody has to decide what to eat. Most villas solve this by shopping for you on request.

Getting there in the style you paid for

Ninety minutes in a taxi from the airport undoes a certain amount of the effect. The good hotels arrange a transfer that meets you inside and it is worth taking.

Helicopter and light aircraft transfers exist for the north east and for Mnemba, and cost a few hundred dollars. For Mnemba it is the standard arrival.

If you are combining with a mainland safari, the light aircraft network connects the Serengeti airstrips directly to Zanzibar without going through Dar.

What to ask before paying $500 a night

At this level the differences are concrete rather than a matter of stars, and five questions separate the properties that earn it from the ones charging for a photograph.

• What does the beach do at low tide, in front of this hotel? Above roughly $400 a night the good properties have built their way around the tide. Below it, the tide still runs your day.
• How many rooms? Twelve is a different holiday from sixty at the same price. This is the single most useful number at the top end.
• Is the beach shared with day visitors? Some expensive hotels sell beach access to the coach trade. The ones that do not will say so plainly.
• Is a driver included, or on call? Fifty to ninety dollars a day otherwise, and at this level it should not be a line on your bill.
• What is the flight or transfer arrangement? Ninety minutes by road from the airport to the north coast. Some properties fly you instead, and it is worth asking.

All inclusive at the top end

It works here for a reason that has nothing to do with greed, and it is worth understanding before dismissing it.

The test is simple and nobody asks it: do you intend to leave the property? See Kiwengwa for the coast this applies to.

Questions people ask