Kilwa Beach Lodge

I liked the staff who were kind and thoughtful. It is a beach lodge, the huts are clean and tidy, don’t expect luxury. The meals are splendid. Also they arrange all the guided tours and transfers to buses and other forms of transport. Could improve: The lavatory seat wouldn’t stay up!!

Really beautiful spot right on the beach. Excellent food for all meals, always a good vegetarian option. Dining staff very friendly. We had booked a room not on the beach, we asked to change and they allowed us to do so. There was usually hot water. When no other guests were there, it was really peaceful and relaxing. They let you use kayaks for free. Could improve: For our first two nights there were no other guests so it was really peaceful and quiet. On our third night, a Friday, it was very noisy. The cabins are quite open and very close together, and they serve alcohol until almost 1am, so this seems likely to happen - we wouldn’t want to stay again if there were many other guests, unless they start to have a quiet time and encourage guests to be considerate of others. It was also expensive by Tanzanian standards - for lunch, dinner, a beer, and coffee it was around $30 per person per day. They were charging 2k shillings for a small bottle of water, in town we paid 1k shillings for bottles 3 x the size. We also felt the cost of the Kilwa Kisiwani trip organised through them was expensive, e.g. $35 for the boat which took around 10 minutes.