Reviews of Azura at Quilalea

"Waw, what an amazing place! If you're looking for the ultimate 'lost island' beach holiday with white sand, blue (every shade of...) sea, baobab trees, romantic villa with private pool and all the amenities "needed" (the Nespresso machine was an unexpected bonus!), genuinely friendly and very personal service from each and every one of the staff ; marvellous, fresh and creative cuisine, great wines and cocktails (I could go on like this for a while ...), search no more: Azura at Quilalea has it all !

From the moment we stepped out of the helicopter, we felt like we had arrived in paradise. The island is just a perfect place to unwind, digitally detox, and enjoy ! Claudia and Leon, the managers, run this place with so much dedication and attention to detail, and are so genuinely friendly, that you feel at home at once ! The same goes for assistant managers Yvette & Freddy, and for activities manager Predicanta. We are enternally grateful to her for her kindness, endless patience and enthusiasm in introducing us to the world of scuba diving. We couldn't have wished for a better place in the world to start this new adventure ! Which brings me to the underwater world of Quilalea: marvellous house reef, right at your doorstep. We were blown away by what we saw: great variety of fish, unspoilt corals, nudibranchs, and of course, the turtles ! Quilalea is one of their most important nesting places, and ome of the quests were lucky to see turtles hatching. Unfortunately, we didn't, so that is certainly a reason to come back ! ;-)

Special thanks also to your host, Farai, who miraculously seemed to know where we were whenever we needed him ! ;-) He is a very friendly, attentive and helpful person, and we loved being hosted by him !

Finally, we very much enjoyed the private (very tasteful ! ) picnic at turtle beach and the Dow sunset cruise, the romantic walks on the beautiful island, and not to forget, the romantic bubble bath that came as a birthday gift for Pascale !

A big thank you to everyone at Quilalea for making us feel like royalty for 7 days. This is probably the best place we have ever stayed at, and we hope to be back !" See all these reviews: 10n in Mozambique

"A truly beautiful luxury resort set on its own private island amid the magnificent Quirimbas Archipelago.

Luxurious facilities. Private, comfortable, well appointed rooms looking out over the waters. (The west-facing Kusi villas are better-located and much more private and are highly recommended over the Kaskazi Vills.) Excellent food at all meals. Dinner is served at a different location each evening, including within a baobab grove in the middle of the island (a really extraordinary experience). Absolutely first-rate service, including a dedicated server for all meals and drinks. Excellent staff, helpful, engaged, and supportive.

Excellent activities in the waters of the Quirimbas. A very good house reef immediately offshore provides excellent snorkeling. Very good diving (if not quite the quality at Azura Benguerra off Vilankulos). Wonderful kayaking, including medium-distance trips to nearby Ilha Quirimba and around the island itself. Good wildlife, including tropical fish and turtles. Great short hikes on the island itself among a large number of very impressive baobab trees.

The pump failed near the end of our stay, and our room was without water for the last 24 hours of our stay." See all these reviews: 12n in Rwanda; 7n in Mozambique; 1n in South Africa

"Quilalea is en exceptional place to relax and unwind.

The setting in Qurimbas Marine Park is exquisite and the hotel has the perfect balance between simplicity and comfort." See all these reviews: 7n in Mozambique

"We chose Quilalea because it is one of the very few places where you can go snorkeling of the beach. And the snorkeling is truly magnificent. Excellent food (except for the one night we had a barbecue Mozambique style), wonderful people. The selection of wines was poor: three white wines, all of them sauvignon blanc. When we said we didn't like sauvignon blanc, they found us a different wine, but all of the next days it was back to sauvignon blanc again.

Overall a great place to relax after a Safari." See all these reviews: 7n in Botswana; 6n in Mozambique; 2n in South Africa

"This was an amazing resort. Really friendly team, excellent service and food and great for snorkelling from the beach - we enjoyed this so much we didn't undertake any other activities.

The standard of the rooms was extremely high and there were nice little touches like sunset cocktail delivered to your room." See all these reviews: 10n in Namibia; 6n in Mozambique; 3n in Botswana; 1n in South Africa

"This resort was fabulous. From the moment the pilot picks you up in the helicopter the experience is wonderful.

Droenie and Andrew who manage the Resort are wonderful and did everything they could to make our stay special.

The Villa has a wonderful triple aspect and has everything you need. Service which is provided almost entirely by local staff is great and you are made to feel very welcome.

The seafood and fresh fish on offer was tremendous and Imebe, our Butler was great and created lots of different venues for us to enjoy our meals.

It is a beautiful island with the most magnificent Baobab trees" See all these reviews: 9n in Botswana; 6n in Mozambique; 2n in Zambia; 1n in South Africa

"Beautiful island. Very relaxing. Beaches slightly disappointing in that entry/exit to the sea difficult at low tide except on main beach which in turn was some way from many rooms. Care and stout soled shoes needed for walking on some beachs due to sharp corals..

Corals by beach disappointing but fantastic further away but these only available by boat/diving.

Food superb.

Doubt about reception efficency; initially given east facing room with double bed having booked west side and twins.
Quickly rectifed but management team is fairly new and still learning." See all these reviews: 7n in Botswana; 7n in Mozambique; 1n in South Africa

"Quilalea Island Resort is a beautiful and very peaceful spot.

We spent the last 4 nights of our holiday here and all really relaxed and recharged. At times it's hard to imagine that there are other people staying there as the chalets are cleverly arranged to be very private and we even had our own white sand beach. At meal times the tables are moved to different locations and sometimes you can't even see other guests.

The chalets were excellent; large, airy and light with lovely, tasteful furnishings and plenty of loungers and daybeds on the terrace to relax on. The food was amazing, and in perfectly sized small portions, and the service from our waiter, Robson, and the other staff was excellent.

The snorkelling from the beach was great fun and definitely the best we did all holiday. Quilalea is very well managed but at times we found the over attentive nature of the senior staff a bit annoying when you just wanted to relax with your family in the bar and chat! Some guests clearly didn't mind this but the staff should maybe be more sensitive to those who do or don't. However, this did not detract from a wonderful and memorable stay." See all these reviews: 9n in Mozambique; 4n in Tanzania

"We had a thoroughly enjoyable 7 nights here.

The rooms are good (but not amazing) though the service and food is spot on. The island has 10 (or so) rooms and they are spread out enough so that you only ever see 8-10 people, even in the bar area.

The diving was good (though Mafia Island is definitely better), but strong tides play havoc with the visibility. We didn't go deep sea fishing, but it appeared 50% of trips were successfull." See all these reviews: 7n in Tanzania; 7n in Mozambique

"Quilalea is an excellent spot where it combines everything. The service is great and I need to applaud all of them for their proffesionalism and level of service. Everything was planned close to perfection by them every small detail, from the moment they picked us up at Pemba (where instead of letting stay at the aorport waiting for 3 hours they took us to a nice hotel to have some lunch and relax) to the last moment when we were transported by boat to Queriba to the plane and we had to walk due to a low tide where the dad bottles of water so we could rinse off our feet.

The place is really great for snokerling where you can just 2 metters in the sea, something you could not do in Vamizi, but you have to be cautious of currents. They have really good dive sites and excellent dive instructors (Heilke and Paul) a big thank you to both of them for my PADI Certification and training.

It a really nice cozy resort that we would certainly return and suggest other people to visit and stay. The only thing we regret is that we did not have more days to stay." See all these reviews: 11n in Mozambique; 6n in Tanzania