Jafferji Beach Retreat,

The location is at Matenwe in Zanzibar. A bit difficult to get ro but an absolute treasure. It's a retreat place but more like a resort. Directly opposite the beach, great pool, fine location and overall great staff. I'll like to visit again.

The Manager (Maurizio) and his staff were so chilled, flexible, friendly, and accommodating to our large group. My wife & I had the Harusi Room #6 upstairs and it was very nice, with a fan and AC, a safe for valuables, and with a great view looking east over the Indian Ocean. The bathrooms were all stocked with high-quality shampoos & body wash by Zuri Botanicals. The food was top notch with a variety of choices for both breakfast & dinner (we were on half-board). Our first day they gave us a great deal on lunch for everyone with competitive prices so we didn't have to go out looking for a restaurant that was open in the heat of the day. The pool is small, but adequate and you can't beat the view. The waiters were very good, taking a large # of orders and getting them all correct and the food all came out at the same time. We liked everything we tried and I loved the soups! We went on a dolphin tour / snorkeling trip our last morning that did not disappoint, although there were only 2 or 3 other boats out there. If it's busy, you may want to reconsider & look at reviews online on Google maps, as I'm sure it can get quite hectic and even unsafe for swimmers & snorkelers as they try to jump in with the dolphins. The snorkeling was so-so, but no fault of the hotel's. We did not spend very long there as we'd gotten up at 6:00 am, left at 6:20, and were back at the hotel by 9:30 in time for breakfast, but the water out there was incredibly clear and there was a decent variety of fish & corals. I will add that perhaps due to the season, there was a lot of seaweed on the beach and also in the shallow water, and be careful of sea urchins not too far out - either bring proper reef shoes or only go out a few meters unless you are swimming (it was also not Spring tides / full moon or new moon so water levels didn't change much between tides). Sadly, this is a reflection of overfishing and something would have to be done that was community-led to reverse the ecological imbalance. That being said, I did swim / walk occasionally all the way out to the reef & breakers (about 600 m?), then swam out beyond to the deeper corals and out there I did not see many sea urchins past the reef. Inside the reef there were lots of urchins, but also a good variety of small fish and the coral looked fairly healthy.

The stay was absolutely lovely. The nicest staff and the yummiest food! The rooms are beautiful and service impeccable. The only thing I would recommend would be to have one fan above the bed since the rooms are huge. This isn’t too major cause everything else was amazing!