Travel reviews by Mr & Mrs Dolphin from UK

"Ras Kutani was a perfect way to start our honeymoon. The accomodation was stunning with well positioned bungalows so they were really private and blended with the environment. The service was excellent and all staff were helpful and friendly. Attention to detail such as food allergies was very impressive. The food was very good and we had the most wonderful experience of dinner on the beach on our last night. The beach is beautiful though the sea is not as warm as we expected. There is not much to do but that was fine with us as we just wanted to relax. It was very interesting to visit to the village and see the school and I hope the money we gave in donation does go some way in making a positive difference though i hope it doesn't become a tourist attraction."

"A real safari experience. Guides were excellent and mostly spoke good english and were very informative. Good balance of activities but if you are staying for a while what you see does get a bit repetitive although we understand this the nature of safaris.The activities were very well organised in maximum of 4 people per group (but this could have been 6) which was great. For those wanting to do long safaris we would recommend splitting time between camps as 4 nights was long enough for us. We did see leopard which was a real highlight. Fly camping from Selous Impala was excellent with a fantastic guide, back to nature experience, no sleep.. but really worth it.

It is amazing to see animals close up but on a couple of occasions we felt the guides went too close and we ended up being charged by a hippo! Richard and Malcolm (who were the managers that week) kept reassuring everyone that the elephants in the camp were friendly but they can get very very close which can be unnerving.

It was communal dining, which was nice for us to share stories with other guests, but for some this may not be ideal."

"Excellent guide, good basic camp but with long drop toilet and bucket shower. It was lovely location on edge of a another large lake and we watched sunset before having a really nice meal.

From the short time we are at the Implala camp we were very impressed with the facilities, location and staff and the lunch we had was excellent."

"See previous comments"

"Beautiful setting, amazing empty white powder sand beach. Really nice resort, very tasetful and well layed out. We were in a brand new honeymoon bugalow which although was nice, had a few teething problems and had only been finished the day before. For example one problem was having no curtains on the windows which was not very private.

The food was ok though not of the standard we were expecting after the initial reviews. There was limited choice at breakfast and the menu was almost the same every few days. I had to send food back when it wasn't cooked and there was very little help with understanding my food allergy. Drinks were reasonably priced but food was a little expensive for what it was. In general the staff were friendly and helpful, although their english was quite limited. They seemed to be recieving little help or supervision and were always blamed for mistakes. This leads to our main concern with Echo Beach.

We were very unimpressed with the management and organisation at Echo Beach. When we arrived we were met by Lissa (?) who seemed to be a friend of Sue and Andrews but she didn't expalin what her role was. Sue was friendly and approachable but there seemed to be various problems with electricity, builders, court cases etc which meant she seemed quite distracted and stressed and openly admitted booking errors and problems with staff which didn't fill us with confidence. Andrew was unfriendly, sarcastic and if we approached him with a problem or issue he was very unhelpful, passed it in to Sue and would then just walk off. I had two pairs of shoes stolen from outside the bungalow. We had perhaps become a bit blaze as in previous resorts we had been told security was not an issue at all. This problem was not handled very well.

Echo beach has so so much potential and really is a stunning resort but needs to decide whether it is a 5* resort as it is claming or a more laid back, chilled out beach shack type place. Again, we did not think it gave a high class impression with the mamagers standing by the bar drinknig and chain smoking. We would recommend it as a nice holiday resort but for us and other honeymooners we spoke to we expected that little but more when it was our holiday of a lifetime.

We did diving at Breezes which was excellent both in staff amd equpiment and although the visibility was not as good as we had imaginged it was good diving. We organised a sunset dhow and swimming with dolphins through Sue and a local taxi driver. They were both very good but In hindsight although we were advised that he (Dini) was much cheaper than Fisherman Tours we are now concerned that the money was mainly going to him and not the locals who took us out. We booked a spice tour through Fisherman Tours which was excellent. We weren't expecting much but it was really interesting, the guide was excellent and a real character who had an excellent rapport with the locals. The young man who was accompanying us and gathering all the leaves and spices etc took us to his house which was a very humbling experience. So on reflection we perhaps should have booked all the trips through them although it does seem a long way for them to some from Stonetown."

"Lovely hotel with great rooms and service. We were given a specailly made welcome honeymoon cake which was a lovely touch! We only stayed one night and had a very early morning start but they organised sandwiches and cake for us. Transfer to and from the hotel was very good and punctual."