Essque Zalu Zanzibar Hotel

Pros +

• Rooms are amazing, big, and clean. sleeping quality is great. you're in a garden, and it looks fab. the pool is big and the view to the ocean is awesome. we loved the buffet food and the variety. the staff are helpful and very nice. all in all worth it!!! we'll return. due to the tide you can walk on the sand where it used to be water in the morning hours, see starfish and crabs.
• The STAFF in this hotel are very nice especially the server ANGELO and one of the managers JACKSON. The rooms are also very nice and spacious and the giant POOL is the best part of the hotel. It also has a nice small gym and the gardens are very pretty too.
• Wonderful stay. The rooms were very large and the staff was amazing in the hotel. The view was stunning and the breakfast and dinner buffet's were pretty good. Also the massage at the spa was very nice. The hotel staff were super lovely in helping arrange day trips etc to go swim with dolphins, explore caves and beaches etc.

Cons -

• if you dont like salty water in your pool, it's a thing, but we enjoyed it. also there's no sandy beach if you are looking for one, not in walking distance anyways.
• NO BEACH! This property does NOT have a beach as its all pretty dirty rocks and cliffs so you're stuck with the pool the entire time. Also, the hotel is EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE! Everything inside the hotel is three times the price or more especially the shuttle to the airport or anywhere else + the super expensive resort tax ($5 per person per night and you charged my 5 month old baby) its absolutely ridiculous paying $15 per night for a couple with a baby! Also, every time we ordered a drink (which was insanely expensive $6 beers/$9 cocktails by far most expensive in Zanzibar) it took over 45 minutes to make! That's right - you order a drink and each time it took about an hour because there was one bartender who clearly didn't know hot to make even the simplest drinks which is why after an hour you usually got a completely different drink