Zanzibar, Tanzania

Following our two week trip to Scotland (June 2022), my family and I spent two weeks in Tanzania, Africa. For the first part of our trip we went on a safari, (click here to read that post). In the later portion of our trip, we went to the island of Zanzibar. Below is our itinerary:

Day 10: (overnight at Zuri Zanzibar) 

  -flight from Kohatende Airstrip (Serengeti National Park) to Arusha, about 1 hour

  -flight from Arusha to Zanzibar, about 1 hour and 30 minutes 

  -drive from airport (in Stone Town) to Zuri Zanzibar, about 1 hour and 30 minutes 

Day 11: (overnight at Zuri Zanzibar)

-hanging out at the resort

Day 12:(overnight at Zuri Zanzibar)

-Spice garden tour

-hanging out at the resort

Day 13: (overnight at Emerson Spice Hotel)

-drive to Stone Town

-exploring Stone Town

Day 14: (fly home)

Zuri Zanzibar is a very fancy resort on the island of Zanzibar. The rooms we stayed in at this resort were incredibly extravagant. When we arrived there were snacks in our rooms along with gifts, including bracelets and kanga (a decorated piece of fabric to be worn). Over the beds there were bug net canopies and on the back porches there were hammocks. One of the many other neat things that the resort had was a library. Next to the front desk there were several shelves of books and movies. You could borrow from either any time you liked, I thought that that was pretty neat.

The dinner buffet was pretty neat. Each night there was a different theme for the food, they always had so many options. One night the theme was traditional food from the local area, “Zuri”, another time it was Mediterranean food and I ate giant octopus tentacles, one of my favorite foods! Sometimes though, the labeling of what was gluten free and not was inaccurate. For the breakfast buffet, anything that you could possibly want, was available. My personal favorite breakfast was feta cheese, bacon, and almonds on gf toast and gf cookies with peanut butter.

The resort sits right over the beach, so you are able to walk down a flight of stairs and sit on the beach. Part of the time we were there it was raining, so I really enjoyed it. Down on the beach you could borrow/rent kayaks, snorkel gear, and games. One morning, my parents and I went kayaking, it was really pretty. Some of the days it was quite sunny, while other days it rained. The view from the beach looking out over the ocean with the dark storm clouds was breath-taking! In addition to beach access, the resort also had several swimming pools.

On one of the days we were there, we went on a tour of the resort’s spice garden. This tour was completely free. Spices we saw in the spice garden included, but were not limited to, cinnamon, cloves, starfruit (carambola), indian almond, pineapple, soursop, pepper plant, allspice, custard apple, sugar apple, ginger, ylang ylang, and curry leaves. After the tour we were given delicious cookies.

One of the nights we were there, the resort held a movie night. We sat on large steps with pillows and watched Jumanji 2 projected on a screen. During the movie, they brought us popcorn and ice cream. Another night, there was a traditional dance done by local men on the beach. It was definitely different than what we are used to, but still very interesting.

After our time at Zuri Zanzibar, we drove back to the city that we had flown into, Stone Town. Then we checked into our hotel for the night, “The Emerson Spice Hotel”. The hotel was beautiful with a middle eastern theme.

That afternoon, a tour guide took us around the city. We learned many interesting things such as the fact that the island of Zanzibar used to be the Sultanate/Capital of the country Oman. Another interesting fact we learned is that the lead singer of the band Queen, Freddie Mercury, was born in this town on the island of Zanzibar. We were able to walk through the city and visit different shops as well.

That evening, we had dinner on the top of our hotel. It was composed of a five course meal that was only okay.

The following day, we hung out in our hotel for the morning and then had lunch in the garden restaurant attached to our hotel. We also made an excursion to find gelato; I ended up having peanut butter gelato and it was delicious!

Later that afternoon, we flew to Dar es Salam, had a lengthy layover there and then flew to Amsterdam. Due to the fact that our flight was late, KLM rescheduled our flight to Glasgow for later. This means that we had to leave the terminal, go through customs, and get our passports stamped. We spent just under 24 hours hanging out in the outside area of the airport. My siblings and I ran across the street outside of the airport to get a picture with a sign and now we count the Netherlands as a country we have visited. In order to make our flight back to the U.S. out of Glasgow in time, we ended up taking a flight to Edinburgh, then a taxi to Glasgow. Of course in the very confusing process our luggage went missing for several days, but eventually showed up in Alaska.

I greatly enjoyed the time with my family on the island of Zanzibar and hope to go back someday!