Aluna Paje

Nice staff

The location is perfect, the property is beautiful and the staff couldn’t be any more welcoming or accomodating. I would highly recommend staying here. The rooms are spacious, very clean and have everything for a perfect stay. It also felt very safe. It’s 5 minutes away from the beach and you have everything so close from a Pharmacy, local shop and food market. All the staff are so friendly. Thank you for making our holiday so special 🫶

We had the best experience in Aluna beach hotel! The rooms are just wonderful, clean, nice bathroom and very nice new bed. 2 steps to the lovely beach. Edward, Tuma and Bony especially made our stay amazing. They are all so friendly, offer their help and tips whenever we needed. Thank you team Aluna! The rooftop bar is perfect for a cold drink after an afternoon at the beach. We will definitely come back to Aluna in the future! Kind regards Vivian and Georg

Hotel is positioned well, handy for shops, restaurants and 5 mins from the beach (albeit a fairly grotty walk and I’m not sure you would want to go solo in the dark). Clean rooms and communal areas. Well equipped bedrooms with everything needed, although a little tiered. Service, with the exception of housekeeping totally let the hotel down. So slow, I understand ‘Tanzanian time’ but one hour for 6 (simple) drinks is a little bit ridiculous. No apology and a fight to get them removed from the bill. Check out is an ordeal, especially if there are multiple rooms and things not put on correct bills, beg them to change things even when they were asked the first time to put each thing on the correct room on ordering. Big tables be prepared to wait a long time, ‘the kitchen is small’ so we’re told and clearly no where to keep dishes warm as they come out cold. Front of house weren’t equipped to handle complaints and weren’t empowered to make any decision. Management were dismissive and full of poor excuses and no real apology. I wouldn’t recommend a stay here unfortunately, nicer places, in better locations (closer to the beach) with better service for similar pricing.

A beautiful oasis in a chaotic part of Zanzibar however sadly our experience wasn’t as expected. Reception staff were incredibly helpful and friendly, Egon really made a positive impact. However after that, we were all incredibly disappointed. Simple parts of hospitality seemed to missed throughout, we had issues with food and drink service taking over an hour to arrive each time and something always arriving cold. From ordering 3 portions of chips, to food for a table of 6, every thing took over an hour. At one stage, one coconut water took an hour to arrive. It’s appreciated a bigger table in a small hotel may take longer but it was the case with whatever was ordered. Similarly, if a delay is know it is common courtesy is to warn guests of such a delay. The hotel setting is beautiful, but again small efforts could be made to make experiences better. For example, the toilet in one of the rooms our party had flooded, it was sorted quickly however no new bath mat was given - the soaking wet one was left. I appreciate it’s a tropical climate but maggots were in the mango served one morning, when given back to the wait staff they apologised and nothing else was done. We’d expect the fruit to be kept in the fridge given the environment. Every day there would be another issue, although some trivia, on a holiday you don’t want to have to experience this. Management did speak to us about the slowness of service, mentioning it isn’t the same in Zanzibar as it is in Europe. A comment which felt like it was to provide an excuse and to belittle our cultural understanding. We are aware things run slower, but if you offer a hotel to tourists you’ve got to cater for them slightly! Between our party we had 3 rooms. We’d made it clear from the start we wanted specifics items on different rooms. This wasn’t done so instead we spent 40 mins on our last day sorting it. Again, not a task guests should have to do. We also couldn’t help but notice, water bottles were rightly filled up at the bar for free for 2 days of our trip. Given the 31 degrees and a 4 star hotel you’d expect this. The water ran out at one stage in the middle of the day and we were told there was no more, providing unnecessary stress to paying customer. After complaining that a hotel must have water available for guests in such heat, eventually more was delivered. That said, whilst management were watching by the bar suddenly we were to be charged. After the complaints about service already and a clear discomfort from guests, this felt was incredibly poor customer service. Unfortunately there is a lot more improvements for this hotel and until these are rectified and with so many other options around, I wouldn’t recommend until things have been improved. A real shame as it could have been lovely. I hope this feedback allows the hotel to improve in areas so future guests don’t experience such a poor service.