All-Inclusive Resorts in Zanzibar: The Honest Guide
Zanzibar is one of those places whose name is doing significant work before the traveller arrives. The island — an archipelago, technically, of which Unguja is the main island that visitors call Zanzibar — carries in its three syllables the accumulated weight of centuries of spice trading, of the Portuguese and Omani empires whose architectural legacy fills Stone Town’s labyrinthine alleys, of the cloves and cardamom and cinnamon that once made this the most commercially significant island in the Indian Ocean, and of the particular quality of light that the Indian Ocean coast of East Africa produces in the hour before sunset when the dhow sails appear on the horizon and the sky turns the colour of something expensive. The name does a lot of work. The island, in most respects, earns it.
The north coast — the Nungwi and Kendwa beaches — is where the all-inclusive and luxury resort market is concentrated, on a coastline of white sand and the specific turquoise of shallow Indian Ocean water over coral sand that the east African latitude produces. The tidal variation on the eastern coast is significant — beaches that are swimmable at high tide become long walks of sand flat at low — and the north coast’s more consistently swimmable conditions have made it the primary resort zone for this reason as much as for the sand quality. Understanding the tide table before booking a beachfront property on Zanzibar’s east coast is more practically useful than most hotel descriptions will tell you.
Stone Town: The Reason to Give It Two Days
Stone Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the only historic city in East Africa that has retained its original urban fabric essentially intact. The Arab-influenced architecture — the carved wooden doors that are the island’s most reproduced visual shorthand, the coral rag and lime plaster buildings, the narrow streets where the afternoon light barely reaches the ground — is what remains from five hundred years as the centre of the Indian Ocean spice and slave trade. The slave market, converted into an Anglican cathedral by British missionaries in 1873 on the specific site of the last slave auction on the island, is the most historically weighted building in the city and the most honest encounter with what Zanzibar’s commercial past actually comprised. The Darajani Market, where the spice trade’s descendant retail economy still operates under iron-roofed stalls in the morning, is what the food of Zanzibar tastes like before a resort kitchen applies its international interpretation to it.
The Park Hyatt Zanzibar, built into and around a nineteenth-century seafront building in Stone Town, is the finest hotel on the island and the correct first accommodation choice for the guest who wants to stay inside the historic city rather than using it as a day trip from a north coast resort. The rooms above the Indian Ocean, the rooftop restaurant, and the position that allows Stone Town to be experienced by night as well as by day — when the old city’s own life reasserts itself after the day tourists leave — make it a specific and irreplaceable experience that the north coast beach resorts, however beautiful, cannot replicate.
The North Coast Resorts
Baraza Resort and Spa at Bwejuu on the east coast is Zanzibar’s most consistently acclaimed luxury all-inclusive property — an adults-only resort of thirty suites built in the Zanzibari architectural tradition of stone and carved wood, with a spa, direct beach access, and an all-inclusive programme covering meals and beverages in a property intimate enough that the service can be genuine rather than processed. For honeymooners who want the Indian Ocean beach alongside a property that has been built with careful attention to what the island actually looks like, Baraza is the honest recommendation. The east coast tidal variation is relevant here — confirm beach conditions at low tide before booking if beach swimming throughout the day is the primary requirement.
The north coast at Nungwi and Kendwa offers the widest range of all-inclusive resort options, from mid-range to luxury, in the more consistently swimmable water conditions that the north’s lower tidal range provides. The Zuri Zanzibar, The Essque Zalu, and the Gold Zanzibar Beach House are the north coast’s most frequently cited luxury options. For the guest whose week is primarily organised around the beach and the Indian Ocean, the north coast’s consistency is the practical advantage over Baraza’s east coast position.
When to Go
June through October is the long dry season — the finest weather, the clearest water for diving, and the most reliable conditions. December through March is the short dry season and also good, with the Christmas and New Year period at peak demand and peak rates. April and May are the long rains — heavy and sustained, and the wrong time to book a beach-oriented holiday. November is the short rains — briefer and less reliable, but still a period when a beach week can be disrupted. The diving season follows the dry seasons: June through October for the best visibility on the north coast reefs.
Book Park Hyatt Zanzibar direct — the finest hotel on the island, in the heart of Stone Town’s UNESCO old city.
