We were put into this hotel without any information because another Ora resort was closed and they down graded us to here. The hotel was not even open a week and we soon found out it shouldnt have been open at all.
The staff were terrible as they just didnt seem to care about anything we had to say. Unless you are Italian, nobody here cares about your opinion or custom. Half of the facilities in the room didnt work, there was a stench of sewage from the drains in the room. Air con didnt work and then the fan broke down. The beach is quite possibly the worst beach on Zanzibar and there is nothing else at all around this hotel.
The hotel rips you off left right and centre by putting everything in euros and all inclusive is a joke. If you want a soft drink or water, it gets served to you in a plastic.thimble.
We really couldnt wait to get out of this Italian hell!!!

It's an italian hotel for Italians, with italian quisine, italian TV channel in the rooms, italian evening entertainment and all the locals in the area speak italian too. They have an impressive beach with a pizzeria and a spa on it, but if you'd like total privacy for honeymoon or sex-weekend, you can do better.

Travellers from Cape Town, South Africa
Dates.. 23rd Novemver to 27th November 2010
Family - 3 Adults and 2 year old infant
Accommodated in a supposed Standard " Family " : unit..

At the outset of this review we have to say that:-
we have previously visited Zanzibar in 2009 and stayed at The Ocean Paradise Beach Resort [ North East ] which was excellent in all respects and would rate all categories 5 out of 5...Highly reccommended.....

What we got here at the Ora Beach Resort Palumbo Reef, was nothing short of a disgrace and a spoilt vacation although we did try and make the best of a bad situation..
Because of the language difficulty [ we are English speaking ] we had extreme difficulty in trying to make ourselves understood -
This resort is NOT reccommended in ANY way for those that doi not speak the Italian language...
The Reception area and dining area and pool areas are excellent and spotlessly clean and it was the pool area which, to a large degree, at least, gave our vacation some sense of enjoyment expecially for the 2 year old infant ...

ACCOMMODATION
===============
What a disgrace this supposed " Family " room was...A front door led into the fair sized main bedroom with a reasonably comfortable bed...Nothing else in the room other than a cot for the 2 year old infant.....The shower and toilet area which led off the Main bedroom and also the adjacent " room " referred to below, was okay - but the shower was a disgrace with the water collecting in the shower for 5/6 inches and only subsiding when the shower was switched off.....
Leading off the main bedroom was another tiny room where the family could " hang " their clothes with a few shelves as well....What was deplorable was that it catered for two bunk bed type of twin beds...AND TO TOP IT ALL THE ROOM NO WINDOWS......The only light coming in was from the front door....The lighting bulbs in this room was atrocious......There were no chairs in the unit save for the verandah chairs which were in dire need of replacement......There was one tiny table which, for some reason, the drawers were removed.....The was absolutely NO views....
There were no pillows in the tiny " dark dungeon : room and when they eventually came they were musty smelling....

SERVICE
========
One can only say that the staff did their best but perhaps realising that we were English speaking we got the impression that they purposely avoided us.....When we did approach the staff for anything the language was a huge problem and in many incidents we just gave up...

We had pre-booked outside excursions through Serene Tours who, incidentally, were excellent in transporting us to and from the resort and also arranging the outside excursions...These tours commenced at 8am and we were only planning to return sometime later in the afternoon.....We approached the Reception area and once again had the extreme difficulty in trying to ask them whether they could provide us with a
" Picnic " box considering there would not be time for a full breakfast [ with the infant ] and we would miss out on the lunch......The reception staff could not understand our needs and called a " Manager " who had to refer elsewhere and after a lengthy wait came back to tell us that the " Hotel " does not provide for such items....We left it at that without any further fuss or ado...
When passing the staff on the Resort they were mostly curteous in their traditional Italian greetings...
Many of the service staff were pleasantly attentive ot the infant.....
There is a strange and inexplicable reasoning that when we wanted to pour some water from the water cooler unit we were told in no uncertain terms that we were not able to pour the water directly into babies bottle but had to, instead, pour the water into one of
" their " glasses and were then permitted to fill up the babies bottle from " their " glass
once seated at our seating area.....How odd...How ridiculous....
Our stay was on a " Soft " stay basis entitling us to the three meals of the day with tea/coffess and soft drinks free.....On one occassion we approached the pool area bar for soft drinks and was told that they only open at 10am and one would have to avail oneself of the minerals in the dining area which we had done on many of trhe previous times when having our meals.....On this morning we had already had our breakfast but when asking for the minerals in the dinning area we were told that the soft drinks were warm and we ought to get our soft drinks at the main bar......We were refused our " free " soft drinks as it was not yet 10am and were informed that we had to " sign " for minerals on a paying basis which would be added to our account.....The more we tried to explain the situation that we were TOLD to come to that bar it was to no avail....Who should be standing at the bar was the Resort Manager who only intervened when he saw our frustration and told us that that was the " rules " and we must understand the way the resort operates...It was only when we objected did he reluctantly say that we could have our " free" soft drinks....We thanked him and told him in the circumstances we can wait until 10am not wantiing to disrupt their resort " rules" and this we did.......

MEALS.
======
Next to the dissappointing accommodation and the language problerm by far the biggest disappointment was the standard of the meals.....Very, very poor...In all our travels by far the worst breakfasts anywhere.....Not ONCE in our 4 day stay did we get any of the following traditional breakfast fare - pork or beef sausages - fried mushrooms - bacon - ham or baked beans....On our last mornings breakfast there was only fried tomatoes, eggs to order, choice of two cereals and the customary rolls, bread with toast making facility and daily " dry " cake and some fresh fruit...NOTHING ELSE ..
We can only recall that on two occasions that we got meat and tough at that too...We were served dry tiny florets of Cauliflower with no sauce.....The food name tags, because of the language problem, were not at all helpful - yet when one could plainly see it was rice there was the English translation of " White Rice "....
Many times the " Hot " food was cold!!!!...
Considering the strong Italian influence we could not believe that the Pasta Corner meals were quite unoriginal and tasteless....Not a good stand by choice if the meals were not to your liking...
We made a pracrtice of arriving " dead on " opening time for the meals as the servings were very meagre..
Tea/Coffee times you were treated to plain biscuits and left over dried cake....
Considering now is the season for fresh fruit in Zanzibar all we were served with daily was
" pinky white " thin strips of watermelon, watery Pineapple and " off putting " looking bananas.........
Desserts/sweets were the most boring you could ever see....Dry Cake and more dry cake....Not once was there any Fruit Salad - not once did we have any ice cream - not once were there any cream cakes - Once we had a creme brulee and a " sort of trifle " ....
NOT ONCE WAS THERE ICE CREAM ON THE MENU....

The crockery was shoking in that every second cup had chips on it - this is not an exaggeration...Even when the tea/coffee was served by the staff they would first check the cup to see if it was chipped...
No teas/coffee sweeteners were made available...

We asked for Cheese and clearly were not understood or the staff did not know what cheese was as they constantly enquired whether it was " Chillies " we wanted....NOT ONCE IN THE 4 DAYS WE WERE THERE WAS THERE ANY SIGN OF CHEESE IN ANY FORM.......

ENTERTAINMENT
===============
ZILCH....That was it....No daily/nightly entertainment other than a Friday night short display of a Maasai routine.....The Animator was never anywhere to be seen unlike at the Ocean Paradise Beach Resort that had nightly interesting entertainment - various sngers - local gymnasts etc and with the Animator arranging interesting things to do during the day...

GENERAL
=========
Conspicuous absence/visibilty of Management...
Resident Boutique? Shop owner [ ? ] most helpful
Ground and pool upkeep - good....

LIKES
=====
Pool area / Dining Area / Location

DISLIKES
=========
Lack of English / Poor food fare / No entertainment / Terrible accommodation /
Lack of visibilty of Management

Would we return to Zanzibar -MOST DEFINITELY
Would we again stay at Ora beach Resort Palumbo Bay - DEFINITELY NOT.....