Ycona Luxury Resort

"Excellent resort. Great service The room was very spacious, clean, and had the amenities we needed. Breakfast was delicious and with many choices; The people in the reception were very helpful, not just on checkin and checkout, but also in giving directions to spots, special thanks to Mr Omar for giving us all the assistance we needed. I would recommend to friends, and will definitely stay again if Im back in Zanzibar.

1. We scheduled a special birthday dinner on the beach but they forgot it was a special birthday and didn’t bring the cake or sing happy birthday. Dinner was over and they asked us if we wanted dessert that was our clue they forgot about us. So, with hurt feelings we left for our villa. They tried to make it up to us by offering to sing and give us a cake after the next days dinner. We declined. They then wanted to bring our cake to our room. We declined. We felt that they wanted to just sell us the cake. You know. Make the sale. We were leaving in the next few days. One other surprise was that we discovered was that the room service charge was $10 per person not per room. The way they mentioned the charge “it will be $10 for room service” lead me to think it was per room not per person.

Beautiful Pool

Their exceptional service commenced several weeks before our arrival. Omar from Guest Service was always on hand to help us plan our accommodation, activities, including safaris, flights, and any last-minute changes. Upon our arrival, the staff greeted us warmly and were incredibly helpful. Their dedication and commitment to providing exceptional service were evident in every interaction. The room we stayed in was absolutely incredible! We were so impressed with it that we didn’t even consider other options in the area. 5/5 will gladly recommend them to friends and family

This hotel was our choice for our honeymoon after a lot of research. Our experience was definitely not what we expected (as it was supposed to be a honeymoon, everything should be perfect, also since this is a 5-star luxury and expensive resort). The positives: - The resort is very beautiful - The service is extremely kind and good-natured, we had no problems with the people working in the hotel and we thank them very much for their hospitality. The negatives: - The resort is poorly made: broken tiles, broken kitchen counter, no mosquito nets on the windows, the doors don't close well, the bathroom counter wobbles, the new air condition can't be adjusted properly and squeaks and so much more... - Cleanliness issues: towels are not changed every day, just refolded (or at least this happened to us twice). Unless they are changed with dirty ones. Once restaurant cutlery had dirty towels. Additionally on our last night in the resort the sheets in one of the beds had BLOOD on them. - Food: At least for me, food is a very important factor that affects my mood especially when I go to a place to relax and enjoy the moment. After seven days of Safari we just wanted a nice hotel with a nice pool and good food. The food was very average: 40% of what we tried we left untouched, the other 40% was just very average, and at most 20% of what we tried was really enjoyable. The same was the case with the drinks: average quality and most cocktails were not well made. - Problems with communication and operation in the restaurant: we go to the restaurant, order from the menu and our dinner lasts 60'. The next day we pre-order 5 hours before the meal and our dinner lasts 110' due to the delays in serving. We asked for sweet pancakes and French toast at breakfast and they bring them to us on the same plate, one on top of the other. We were told that the pancakes are 2 servings while they are 3 pieces. And many more... - One more “restaurant” problem was the lack of variety in foods, which was also often stated in other reviews too. Once they told us that they didn’t have bananas: this meant that 4/7 sweet choices in their breakfast menu were not available. The funny thing is that Zanzibar is full of bananas. Don’t get me started about the sodas. In 2/4 dinners I couldn’t get the Diet Coke I asked since it was not available. - Additionally they tried so many times to overcharge us, even before arriving at the hotel. We always had to show them screenshots of our agreement so that they don’t charge us more. This is extremely tiring when you want to relax. - One of the biggest problems we faced is that our room was filled with large ants. Before the ants entering the room we had already informed them that there are many of them outside the room, but they obviously did not clean them properly and 3 hours later they had entered and filled the room - Another problem we faced is false promises. For example on their website they wrote that the rooms have a jacuzzi but th