Breezes Beach Club; Zanzibar, Tanzania

$192 to $287 per person per night, half board

Link to Lodge website

Download Video

View photo slideshow

Download PDF

Breezes Beach Club

It is an elegant choice for luxurious beach accommodation on Zanzibar. Located on the East Coast with all mod-cons and entertainment to hand, Breezes Beach Club is the best of Zanzibar's larger hotels.

Breezes Beach Club – The Facts

Breezes Beach Club – The Detail

The accommodation at Breezes Beach Club is in spacious and comfortable stone flats, with air-conditioning and a choice of standard, Deluxe or Suites, depending on whether rooms are at ground level with balconies or on the second floor with extensive bougainvillaea trailed verandas.

Honeymooners and romantics opting for the latter can request their beds laid out beneath the stars under mosquito nets. A small restaurant on stilts above the beach also caters to those of a more romantic inclination - for a few who might wish to pay a little extra and enjoy a more extravagant a la carte menu than those in the large central restaurant - although the latter is well designed to diminish the impression of its size, and meals here are sumptuous and imaginative.

The beach is refreshingly wild and endless, with fantastically soft coral sand in thick drifts and shaded by coconut palms. It is however prone to tidal extremes, and has a tendency to build up seaweed during January and February, and the waters are generally shallow, especially popular with beachcombers and children. Many guests spend much of their stay making the most of all that the hotel has to offer, gathering around the swimming pool and beach bar, taking tea in the cool of the balconies and gardens or chilling out in the games room.

Despite its vast complex and numerous facilities the hotel does try to lessen the 'holiday camp' sensation by keeping organised activities low key; the well-equipped dance and fitness centre and disco is situated some distance from central area, beyond a fine ornamental garden flanked by a number of tennis courts. The partnered Rising Sun Dive School and Watersports Centre is situated on the beach, and offers SSI diving courses to beginners, as well as snorkelling and dives for the more experienced underwater explorers. Dive courses and discovery dives are available on a one-to-one basis, and there is wide range of speciality dives including Aladin Computer dives. The attraction of this region for diving is the number of uncharted sites that have been discovered since the centre was established here, (presently 14), which focus on a deep drop-off beyond the eastern reef. These range from gently sloping coral reefs extending from 8-9 metres to a sandy bottom at 20 metres, to 40m sites beyond the barrier, including The Blue Wall, a perfectly vertical drop-off where everything you see is enormous, notably the turtles, but also sharks, including white-tips.

Both Hawksbill and Green turtles are the stars of -Turtle Garden- site, and as with elsewhere in Zanzibar, the months of November to January tend to afford the best visibility.

Breezes Beach Club – Our View

Like Ras Nungwi, Breezes Beach Club is up there as one of our favourite large hotels on Zanzibar. For those of us who dislike large resorts, Breezes is a real breath of fresh air. Great rooms, good service and an atmosphere that dispels all thoughts that you are in a large hotel. The suites are without doubt the best rooms offering private balconies where guests can sleep out at night.