Shanzu Beach Reviews

I had already booked my holiday when I found this site. I was really worried by what I read, and feel quite annoyed now that my anticipation of my holiday was spoiled by these worries - most of which were unfounded.

The hotel has a lovely location, and there are a variety of pools and restaurants that you can use. We had 4 rooms between us, and, although somewhat shabby, they were kept spotlessly clean, had air-con and balconies with good views. Although the service at meal-times could have been more efficient, the food was of reasonable quality, there was choice, and the staff were friendly. The safari we went on (to Tsavo East) was truly wonderful. We had a great guide, who seemed as enthusiastic as we were, and was really knowledgeable too. We saw every animal we hoped to see including two different prides of lions, and so many elephants that at one point we were stuck in a traffic jam of them! We went into Mombasa for an afternoon and evening and ate at a really top-class restaurant called the Tamarind which I recommend highly. As well as the best food in Kenya, we reckoned it also had the best lavatories! Everything was very child-friendly, but it is true that the beach-boys can be over-zealous, and, at times, less than perfectly honest.

The hotel does not pretend to be 5-star, and if you want 5-star accommodation you will need to pay 5-star prices. We found the holiday good value for money.

Mombasa in June 2006 at shanzu paradise resort was a wonderful experience with lovely warm and cool climate. nice rooms with ac and helpful staff. excellent big buffet at paradise, had various european, indian and swahili cuisine/food. the cooks at paradise are some of the best you will come across.

plenty of activities at hotel for kids and adults, buses to other hotels and excursions can be arranged. within walking distance to local shops. i would recommend to visit blue room restaurant in mombasa if you like indian cuisine/food. will definitely return again with the family.

English is widely spoken here. also hotel staff speak german/swish.

KENYA, MOMBASA:I spent 4 days at The Shanzu or nicknamed by hotel guests as the Shitzu Hotel. The hotel was discusting and the management were abusive and ignorant and dismissed you as being unimportant. The food was unedible. I was told by the management this is ";A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY WHAT DO I EXPECT"; I have travelled all over the world and never had room, food or such treatment from a hotel or it management. The staff were lovely, but frightened to say anything for fear of losing their jobs, as they told us there was hundreds waiting to take there jobs.

I was ill for the 3 weeks I was a way and have never been right since and it is now 5/5/06; previous to this never had an illness in my life. I did 11 days cruise to the Seychelles, Madagascar and Zanzibar ship old, but fantastic from start to finish.Then had 7 nights at the Flamingo Beach Resort was a beauitful hotel and rooms large and airy with verandas, food was was quite good even though it was similar every meal. Monkies were a nightmare if you left your door open.However, because the start of the holiday was so bad it ruined what could have been an amazing holiday. African Safari Club on telephoning London were not interested and on return apologised and only when I said that was not good enough did they send me a refund on the Shitzu Hotel. Kenyian people were lovely and as long as you made it clear you do not want to buy they were fine.

We were a little aprehensive about this holiday because the reports we had read were not particularly favourable. But we are used to camping so we are quite hardy! and we decided to give it a go. Now, you ask any one of us how good the holiday was and we will say the best ever - the kids put it way above Florida and Disney. The hotel was excellent -brilliant service from all the staff who couldn't do enough for you, the rooms were cleaned daily and the hotel grounds were tended daily. The tap water is undrinkable (tastes like filtered sea water!) but bottles of water are avaliable in the hotel and are not over priced. The plug sockets in the rooms are the same as the 3 pinned we have in England so don't make the mistake of taking 2 pinned and then find you can't use your mosquito plugs (like we did!)The food was excellent with a large choice of dishes every meal. Although the menu was slightly repetitive this did not bother us because there was so much choice.If we had an early morning start (Safari 5.00, other trips 7-7.30 start) there was always breakfast provided before you set off. The hotel site itself was beautiful - palm trees, right on the beach with part of the coral reef in swimming distance and monkeys running wild around the grounds. Two swimming pools at the Shanzu but you could also use the other hotels for swimming, eating and entertainment-a walk up the beach or shuttle bus at night. (We wouldn't recommend the Coral Beach to stay in - pay the extra money for one of the other hotels). Once in the hotel, no money exchanges hands as such, anything purchased was signed by chitty and you paid the 'cashier'at the end of the week/holiday. We suggest you take Euros and Kenyan Shillings and not Dollars/Sterling.

We had our holiday during the last week of July/ first week of August. We took every precaution against Mosquitos (50%deet spray) and Malarone tablets. Only my daughter got bitten(once)-even on safari we avoided the itch.However, we think the tablets were responsible for our upset tummys which kicked in on day 3 and continued on our return home for a week while still taking the tablets - don't be too quick to blame the food!
Now to the trips. We did the Red elephant Safari-2 days, one night at Crocodlie Camp. This was excellent and we were lucky enough to see most of the animals -elephants, baboon, monkey, giraffe, crocs, hippo, waterbuck, gazelle, zebra, snake, warthogs, dic dics, ostrich and lion (I think that's everything). We flew to the site on a Biplane and drove back in the jeep-and although quite a treacherous journey, what an eye opener!.This is where you really saw Kenyan life;we visited a Masai village and school, passed the townships,saw poverty like we have never seen before. We took exercise books and pens/pencils with us for the children in the really deprived areas and in the poorer villages the people will appreciate any clothes/shoes.What an education for our children.We also took candles and left clothes/shoes that we no longer wanted.

Other trips we went on included a day in Mombassa-recommend, 1/2 day snorkelling on the Coral reef-recommend, African Tribal Night-recommend,Follow the Dolphins-I wouldn't recommend this unless you have extra sturdy sea legs and you may not see any Dolphins!
If anyone asked us the best part of the holiday we would say all of it (the Safari probably just takes the edge) and the worst bit was the Dolphin trip (only because we were so ill on the boat and didn't see any Dolphins anyway). Would we go back tomorrow - YES, but there are so many other places to explore!