We stayed in Mnarani Beach cottages for three days and we absolutely loved the place. Our room was in the relatively new Zanzibar House directly opposite the seaside. The rooms are decorated with local furniture and beautiful flowers on the bed. They are spacious and include a fridge and beach towles. We absolutely loved the veranda with a comfortable hammock hanging in the middle. The staff was always friendly and well informed and especially at the beachbar the sundowners are fabulous (try the Pina Colada which is served in a fresh coconut!). The place is always windy and cool so that you never feel too hot and when the tide comes in in the evenings you really feel in paradise. Dinner is served in a nice and simple restaurant, we especially liked the Swahili buffet with lots of currys, fish and fresh salad. Also the international atmosphere is great, there were literally guests from all over the world, from Germany to Scandinavia, England and South Africa. The hotel offers the possibility for massages and canoeing and has a nice little swimming pool which is great for relaxing after a day of snorkelling. Ah, and yes, the snorkelling: We booked a day-trip to Mnemba Atoll at the hotel. What an unforgettable trip! The reef and the fish and the colour of the water are simply marvellous - although you can not enter the island as this is privately owned. For lunch we stopped at a lonely beach close to Matemwe where we were the only people and where fresh fish, tropical fruits and salad were served by the boat crew.
Mnarani is a truly wonderful place and we absolutely recommend it to anyone coming to Zanzibar.

After a long illness from which I am still recovering, we selected this hotel for a convalescence period in which the plan was to do nothing but lie in the sun and read. For this the hotel was perfect. We booked directly and at every stage, from initial enquiry to arrival at the airport for the return flight, the staff were courteous, friendly, helpful and informed.
You have to realise that this hotel is not the Four Seasons in New York, or the Steigenberger in Franfurt, or even the Kempinski in Zanibar. It is a local hotel, with local people and if you want a hotel that has some luxury, is safe and yet still lets you know you are in Zanzibar this is ideal.
I think it would be a shame if people were put off by some of the other reviews I have read.True the beach is not ideal for swimming, but we loved the oportunity to wade out to the reef at low tide and see all the starfish, sea urchins etc. Watching the tide rush in each day was exhilarating.
We stayed in a family room, which was plenty big enough for 2, although I think 4 would have been a bit of a squash as the bathroom is small.
Everything worked in our room. When the bulb went on the outside light, we reported it and it was replaced, no problem. We couldn't work the safe, and someone came immediately to show us how. Any time we had a problem, we told the staff and it was fixed. There really was nothing that was too much trouble.
We did see some very rude guests and the staff behaved admirably under these conditions.
We stayed for 2 weeks, the longest stay of anyone this month at least, so we saw all the menu. The evening food was varied, we had a buffet only on 5 nights. 2 of these were the Swahili dinner, which was a nice attempt to give us a flavour of the country, 2 were barbeque nights. Apart from these the choice was different every night we were there. Lunch menus did get a bit boring after a few days. However, if there was nothing on the menu that you wanted the chef would make something different.
Breakfast was fruit, fruit juice, coffee/chocolate/spice tea/tea, special bread, bread (with a toaster, marmalade etc.), eggs however you wanted them including filled omlettes, a cake (varied - doughnuts, cookies, pancakes & syrup, chapatis, muffin), and at the weekend fried potatoes and meat (similar to bacon).
The bar is good, and makes lovely cocktails, we particularly liked Blue Sea and the freshly made mango juice. The mark-up on sodas etc compared to the local village was about 50% - about what I would expect to pay in any hotel bar.
I ran out of books to read, and was very grateful for the hotel's library.
We booked 2 trips through the hotel and both were excellent.
The owner is often there, keen to get feedback and improve the guest experience.
I guess, in the end, it comes down to expectations. We expected an African hotel, offering the chance to rest, do not very much and be looked after in reasonable luxury for a couple of weeks at a good price. We certainly got this, plus the added bonus of friendly, happy staff who really made us feel at home.
We would happily recommend the hotel to friends and family if rest and pure relaxation is what you need.

I booked Mnarani after spending hours on Tripadvisor reading positive reviews for this place. I was truly mistaken. Let me tell you the reasons why:

1) THERE IS NO BEACH: Mnarani is located in Nungwi which is supposed to be one of the best beaches in Zanzibar, but the truth is you cannot swim on the beach in front of this resort. There is high fluctuations on the sea level at high tide (at which point the waves break so harshly on the rocks, you'd die) and low tide (when the sea withdraws so much, you have to walk out 50 meters on rock bottoms to get to any water). That's why they must've built the 10 m sq. pool, but who swims in a pool on an island famous for its beaches?

2) ROOMS ARE TERRIBLE: We paid $150 for family cottage, which I agree is not very expensive, but the rooms are so bad that it absolutely does not even deserve the $150. Firstly, the rooms are very poorly decorated. There is a constant smell of mold and mildew, no matter how much you air the room out. The bathroom is filthy and old and broken, that I was disgusted to take my shoes off. We stayed in different hotels ranging from $60 to $650 on our Tanzania trip and the $60 hotel was so much better and cleaner.

3) NOTHING WORKS: The air-conditioner in the room doesn't work. The safe in the room doesn't work. The fan, no. The shower head, no. The light in the bathroom - no.....etc etc. It is very clear that there is absolutely no investment back into the rooms, as even the mosquito nets that had tears were mended with plastic band aids.

4) FOOD IS TERRIBLE: The half board is misleading as you'd think you get breakfast and dinner. The breakfast is measly, tasteless with only 3 or 4 items (2 of them fruit). Cost per person simply cannot be more than $1-2 for the hotel to set up that breakfast. Dinner is open buffet, with a little more variety, but not much taste there either. We offered Lobster one evening (has to be booked day before) as we could not imagine the buffet disaster again and were charged $40 for each.

5) SERVICE AND AMBIANCE IS TERRIBLE: The ambiance of the restaurant is a little better than the pit stops that buses take on long distance inter city routes. The staff comes and basically gives you a "what now?" type of a look and attitude. Bottle of water in the shop is 4000 TS when it is 500 in Stonetown.

My group was so disappointed with this resort that we decided to leave early. Please please please take my advise and if you don't want to ruin your holiday in Zanzibar, don't stay at this hotel!

The owner of the resort needs to learn that just by grapping a good piece of property in a good location, he lucked out, but he won't for much longer unless he invests in fixing his rooms, his staff, his food and his service....

This was my first visit to Zanzibar, and it won't be the last! For the most part, our stay was very pleasant . I spent quite a bit of time with the owner and made several practical suggestions on how this beautiful resort could be upgraded and improved with not too much effort or money,
I am not sure whether any of these suggestions were implemented, judging by some of the more recent reviews, it seems not!
My friend and I arrived after a nightmarish flight late at night and were shown to one of garden rooms which reeked so badly of mould and insecticide that it was impossible to spend even one night there. We complained to management, who said there were only certain rooms allocated to our travel agent - well now I know I should not be so trusting of them in future...
The staff were friendly but not too impressed at having to make another plan and organise an alternative room.
Eventually after much consultation with various hotel staff members, we were taken to one of the large family suites (the only one available) but told we could only spend one night there and would be transferred the next day to another room.

The sea facing rooms in the older section of the resort are really lovely. It was an expected bonus to spend time in this delightful, spacious accommodation. As it turned out, we spent two nights there because the promised move the next day did not materialise due to a double booking mix up.

Although the manager tried hard to persuade us to take another garden facing room, I managed after extensive negotiation, to secure a nice beach facing room close to the pool.

The only hassle was that it only had a double bed - not ideal for my friend and myself. However, faced with the choice of another mouldy garden room with no sea view and twin beds or the seaview room and having to share a bed, we decided to take the sea facing room option!

The rooms are small and the bathroom facilities really should be upgraded as they are grotty, to put it mildly. Are you listening guys?!
The staff are very warm, helpful and friendly and their attitude went a long way in making the holiday enjoyable. We loved the fresh flowers on our beds every day and the mosquito net came in very handy!

FOOD
If you go to Mnarani expecting the food to be as fabulous as the views, you will be disappointed! I'd rate it mediocre to average and this aspect really needs to be radically improved as it was obvious that many discerning overseas visitors who were staying there were not impressed at all.

The suppers were ok, but the breakfasts were boring and bland with overcooked food and far too little variety.

THIS IS A SPECIAL REQUEST TO JAMIE OLIVIER!!
Please, won't you come to Mnarani beach cottages for a few weeks and show the local chefs how to cook properly and help them discover what magic meals they could create with their marvellous abundance of local seafood, fruit and vegs??!!
I am sure your film crew would love the place and the Zanzibar government would enjoy the media exposure!

I am convinced that while owner Nasoor's vision of employing local inhabitants to work at his beautiful resort is very noble, they DESPERATELY need some professional hospitality and service training to upgrade their service levels.

The resort offers massages - again another area that could be upgraded using very simple ideas and African beauty treatments.
Check out what African-themed beauty spas such as [--] are offering and then you'll understand why Mnarani could offer wonderful hand and foot treatments as well as massages on their stunning wooden deck overlooking the ocean, to just give one example.

Zanzibar is very hot and humid in Dec/Jan, so the fan in our room was on permanently.
The pool was a delight to cool off and the open air bar and dining room were very pleasant.
We walked for many km's along the beach and enjoyed a cultural visit to the nearby Nungwi village to learn more about the fascinating culture.

Like other visitors, we also had problems in booking a scuba trip through the hotel, but were quite happy with one of the excursions to the Spice farms (an absolute must, as is visiting Stone Town!)
We used Zantours to book some excursions directly and were very impressed with the service we received.

The live band on new years was a joke(sorry guys, but we were expecting better!) Sure there must be other good local bands that could have been booked for the evening? If you really enjoy alcohol you are going to fork out a lot of money as the drinks don't come cheap.

In Summary, I enjoyed my stay at Mnarani and would recommend it to anyone looking for an affordable holiday in Zanzibar at a beautifully situated resort that is neither pretentious nor overcommercialised.

But when I next return to this beautiful island I really hope that there will have been some changes at Mnarani.
This resort has so much going for it, but in my view it HAS to improve so it can still compete with the growing number of other resorts on Zanzibar.