Travel reviews by Mr & Mrs W from Oxford

"An absolutely wonderful camp, everything about it was perfect. The tents are very spacious and well equipped. Food and service is second to none and being an open camp makes walking to dinner an exciting adventure as you never know what your going to bump into, but the masaai to keep you safe reassures you.

Would highly recommend the day fly camping, camping 200 meters away from a pride of lions is quite an experience!

Guides and drivers were very knowledgeable and helpful. Having the option of driving, river or walking safaris was brilliant as it mixes your day up and stops the drives being very similar. My only regret is not taking advantage of the fishing, but i'll save that till next time."

"We were a bit nervous about this to begin with as it felt a bit scary to be camping out in the bush, but in the end it was brilliant and memorable experience, and of course there was nothing to worry about! Even when staying in an open camp like Imapala, the fly camp brings you even closer to the wildlife. We were camped on the shores of a lake with a great camp fire, 200 meters away from a pride of lions with Elephants walking through the camp in the night.

The tents are obviously more basic than the main camp, but even so it is very comfortable and has everything you need including a shower and toilet, and they even bring you warm water to wash with in the morning!

The food is as good as at the main camp and they still bring you your early morning tea when you wake up!"

"I found Shooting Star Lodge slightly disappointing, partly because our Safari was so brilliant that it had high standards to live up to.

There are many good things about Shooting Star Lodge, its in a very pretty location, the infinty pool looks amazing and the sea view cottages were very good. The staff were good and the bar area was quite socialable and had a mix of honeymooners and families. There aren't really any places around to go out for dinner or lunch as it is really only other hotels further down the beach, so you are pretty much restricted to eating in the hotel every day. Activities are limited to organised excursions or dealing with the local fisherman to organise snorkelling/boat trips.

Our main problem with Shooting Star was that it could have been a lot better with just a couple of extra tiny touches in the cottages - they had some lovely things such as providing baskets to take your things to the beach, but equally there were a few small things that could have been added to make the room a little more comfortable, such as a hook for the towel by the sink (after a week, the towel began to get a bit smelly just lying by the sink).

I also thought the furnishings, cushions and linen in the rooms and restaurant were getting a bit tired and could do with a refresh. The matress in our bed had definitely been there a long time and was incredibly soft, which made it a bit uncomfortable, and the laundry service was really quite expensive and not very good as the clothes came back smelling very musty - a bit of a surprise after our safari camp provided free laundry that came back very clean and fresh.

The biggest problem with our room was that our bed unfortunately had fleas. Despite mosquito nets and repellent we still got bitten a lot during the night and we couldn't work out why. It wasnt until the morning we were leaving when I saw a couple of fleas jumping on me. I mentioned this to the management when leaving and was even more disappointed not even to get a an apology, the manageress just made a note to tell housekeeping and mentioned matter of factly that it was probably the cats that wander around the hotel.

I also feel the management were possibly taking advantage of the location as the bar was more expensive than all the other places we visited in Tanzania/Zanzibar and one of the excursions incurred a $140 transfer fee to travel 60K there and back. This can be shared if other people in the hotel want to do it on the same day but a London taxi probably wouldn't have been that expensive! And it did seem a little strange that there was no negotiation on the price and it was all to be paid to the managers rather than directly to the taxi driver.

I think we were also a little disappointed by the weather - we didn't expect it to be as windy as it was in the afternoons, and it did cloud over pretty much every day from about 11am, and we only saw patches of sun in the afternoon.

The high and low tides however weren't really a problem and we actually enjoyed walking out during low tide, but we did spend a lot of our time by the pool as the sea was actually quite cool most days and without the sun it was a bit cold to go in the water!

Despite this we really did enjoy our stay there as it is a very friendly and relaxing place. It was particularly nice to get a free gift of a bottle of wine and head massage each as we were on honeymoon. The spa was lovely there and they had a good range of wonderful treatments."

"We had a very brief stay here, which was very unfortunate as its a lovely hotel and we would have loved to stay longer. We were very lucky to have the Dunia suite on the top floor which has a penthouse outdoor bathroom, which is a brilliant place to watch the sun go down with views over Stone Town. it has a lovely bath but is a bit unpractical to use as the water pressure was quite low so would have taken all day to fill, but dont let that put you off it trully was an amazing and unique room.

The hotel had a lovely unique feel to it but it does have a lot of stairs and no lift which may be issue to some.

Were not sure if it was the manager or the chef but he was very friendly who even escourted us to a local shop to look for some gifts. I cant comment on the food or activities as we didn't really eat there apart from a very light breakfast to catch the early flight home - we were very grateful that they provided us with something even at 5.30am!"