Impressions

We've now had approximately a week at Karafuu and our first impression was impressive. The rooms, hotel itself and its view was great. But after 2-3 days we'd basically seen it all.
We expected a possibility to walk around other places but there were no other places to go (except for a small primitive village nearby).
I'm sure this area will be further developed as years go by but we felt a bit like prisoners kept inside the hotel-perimeters (even though we had some trips to the village and went on excursions with the locals).

We had a week on safari before zanzibar so we got used to the extremely high amount of staff everywhere around us (it's just different from what we are used to). The nice thing at Karafuu was that we did not have to tip and everything was charged to the room (no cash needed). A bit surprised with the high prices in such a "poor" country.

Our last night at Karafuu was a BIG disappointment. Hundres of your countrymen arrived and took over the Hotel. We got no information until we were sent to the Masai-village to eat dinner, which we were NOT ready for. Our group of 9 people and another big group of people felt treated like second-rate-guests by the way this was handled.

And the morning we left one of the rooms did not get the wake-up-call we ordered. Pure luck that we noticed the room was black (this was 4 am) and woke them ourselves.

Unfortunately (for you) the last day made our total impression of the Hotel NOT GOOD at all. We also noticed your food and beverages-controller ALL day as he ran around looking disappointed with EVERYTHING.

Dear OT2,

Thank you for your comment.
It is definitly true that the hotel is very isolated we expect now to get the road completly fixed with tarmac to be at less that 1hour from town.

Concerning your last evening, I'm sorry about this but the "countryside people" were the president of Zanzibar, the Prime Minister and all Ministers of Zanzibar coming for a 3 days workshop after the president election in last october. I'm really sorry bout that but didn't have any choice, it is like in Europe if all your gouvernement is going to your hôtel.
To put this in positive side, I would say that they came to Karafuu because it is the best hotel in Zanzibar so you haven't done the wrong choice coming here.

Anyway I can see that you were happy about your stay except the last night and the wake up call, I fully appologize for that.

Regards

Sylvain

sylvain wrote:

Concerning your last evening, I'm sorry about this but the "countryside people" were the president of Zanzibar, the Prime Minister and all Ministers of Zanzibar coming for a 3 days workshop after the president election in last october.

Oh, you've got it ALL wrong. I said YOUR countrymen, not countryside people. We dined with the president of zanzibar, and played pool with him without any problems. I'm talking about the 100 french guests which obviously got special treatment from the hotel.

oopps MY countrymen,
Definitly they had some special treatment because they have paid on top of their normal price extra services like cocktail party around the swimming pool, private gala dinner...
I do apologize if you felt put aside, we try to keep the same services for other clients when we have a special group so I will definitly take your comment in consideration for the next group arriving to be sure the other clients doesn't feel what you felt.

Sylvain