Zanzibar Queen Hotel

The hotel is located directly at the beach far away from any major cities/activities. Very important: if you plan to be at the beach during the day and swim in the ocean this is NOT the place to stay: there is a strong tide and about 80% of the day the water level is too low to swim. The beach is full of locals trying to (aggressively) sell all kind of services and stuff. As soon as you enter the beach you will be targeted.
The standard rooms are rather small and at 1-2 star level compared to US/European standards. The bathroom is old and smelly and many things are broken / outdated (AC smells bad/ bathroom door is squeaky, toilet flush gets stuck etc). The standard/ocean view rooms are also quite far away from the ocean and have nothing do to with an ocean view. We could upgrade to a larger room directly at the ocean which was way more spacey(50m2), had a way better/newer condition and a large private garden area with private pool, a hammock and direct accees to the beach. These rooms are at a way better level than the standard ones.

Service is mainly friendly and helpful. The restaurant has US/European price levels (starter: 6-8 USD/ main: 12-18 USD) which is a fortune for Tanzanian standards. The food quality is ok'ish/below averagr and the portions are very small. Typically the is arranged in a fancy way but tastes either very dull or contains some not fitting spices were added(one day everything had a ton of dill added for whatever reason). The dinner changes between buffet and a la carte on a nearly daily basis. There is cheap entertainment nearly every 2 days during dinner which is loud and can't be avoided if you want to have dinner. Want to have some dinner and listen to African drums 3 meter away from your table? This is the place to be.

Overall the location tries to be luxury but fails at most levels (bad/average food, bad cocktails, coffee machine was broken most of the time, beach experience really announing, cheap standard rooms, provided sports equipment is mainly broken, pool area is too small if hotel is fully booked). One extra star earned for the mainly friendly and helpful stuff and the overall family friendliness.

I would NOT recommend if you look for a luxury experience in Zanzibar.

Nice garden and pool area + nice staff and service

Big rooms and a balcony with a mosquito door & big mosquito net around the bed which also includes night stands, that makes it more comfortable. But no real ocean view.

Water stations to refill your own bottles - great! But the stations look dirty and not well maintained

Definitely no luxury hotel, no 4 stars when held to European or Western standards, more like 2-3s stars ith need for renovation - we were disappointed to be honest... we had multiple things in our room that needed or would need fixing (dripping AC, loose and crooked toilet seat, partly loose curtains, loose light switches, shower temperature etc.) Towels in the bathroom and at the pool look old, frayed and discolored. White ones look yellowish. The lounges at the pool are dirty and low quality - they get really uncomfortable during a day at the pool. No water bottle service for brushing teeth like in other lodges or hotels (they fill up glass bottles with drinkable water, so you can use it for drinking or brushing your teeth)

Breakfast buffet was good, dinner was okay-ish to not so good. All cocktails we tried were really bad. Food and drinks are very overpriced and it's not possible to eat somewhere else easily

Not possible to swim in the ocean here, lots of sea grass and sea urchins

Something to bear in mind when booking: The hotel is frequented by a lot of families with children, so it's definitely not a quiet place to relax (no one's "fault", we just observed this compared to other lodges or hotels before