We stayed at the Coral Rock for three nights, and we experienced a mixture of both fantastic and unpleasant things.
What's great about this place is the location in the south of Jambiani, on a rock in a beautiful setting and with a magnificent seaview. The small pool is great. The food is good. Staff is friendly. Snorkeling with Captain Chicken was nice.
But:
- Everyday we had cockroaches in our room, the last night they were even running over my lips, and my girlfriends face. The staff was informed and shocked and used repellent to avoid this in the future. But i doubt if it would never happen again.
- Unforgivable: there was a party announced on Saturday. We were very tired, and living with the rhythm of the African sun, sleeping around 10PM. Which hotelmanager can forbid us that ?? The party in the bar felt like an earthquake in our room and lasted to 1:30am. I'm a musician myself, playing a lot of festivals. I have no problem with loud music. But this was like a too noisy crappy backstage on a big festival, when you're not interested in what's going on frontstage. We were on an adventurous African holiday, we're on safari & climbed mount Kilimanjaro, and booked Coral Rock as a final resting place, and this was the most expensive price/night we payed in our three weeks Tanzania-trip. But our last night was, with the cockroaches and extremely loud nightly music, the most horrible night we had in peaceful Africa.
- We rented bicycles of a small boy, because he was selling his service everyday near the swimming pool when we were taking a nice swim. We payed twice (!) the price of the renting service of a nearby hotel (Blue Oyster), and we had to repair them with some friendly locals in the village, because the bikes were crappy as hell.
- I have the feeling that the cool "surferboy"-owners built this really nice place for themselves and their friends, where client-service is less important then their own amusement.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
24 January 2012
Hi, thanks for your feedback. I've been the MD of Coral Rock for 7 years and I can honestly tell you that this is the first time I've heard of or seen a review mentioning cockroaches in the room. We fumigate 4 times a year and we have spray in each room for guests to use. That being said, if you say there are then we'll move forward our next fumigation to as soon we can possibly can. I welcome anyone to check online on the hundreds of reviews of Coral Rock on this and any other site for mention of cockroaches and you will see this is the first time it is mentioned. We've had no subsequent complaints about this either, so if you could inbox me the room number you stayed in I would appreciate it so we can get that looked at immediately.
Now, about the party, you must understand that we DO NOT throw regular parties - not even on New Year’s, because we do not wish to keep any guest up. When we do, we inform guests in advance. This party was planned on a date when there were only 5 rooms occupied at the hotel, all guests were placed as far as possible from the bar area except for two rooms. We went to both those rooms and offered them a free move and upgrade away from the bar. Both rooms refused and mentioned they were most keen to join the party. The information was put up on the board and no one came to us with concerns or complaints either before the party, during the party or after the party. We could have, at any stage, assisted you with a room further away (I'm still not sure what room you stayed in). We go out of our way to put our guests first and accommodate any feasible request. We throw events of that size maybe three or four times year at most and only when we're very quiet and have consulted all rooms close to the bar. Generally events like this are thrown at the request of guests themselves.
Another thing you should know is that the hotel does not rent out bicycles. We used to give out bikes to guests to use for free but they got so badly damaged we stopped. If you entered an agreement with a village child and compared the rate you paid this child to another hotel I don’t think it’s fair to list it as a negative aspect of Coral Rock itself. We also do not employ children, it’s illegal and unethical, this should have made you realise you were not dealing with Coral Rock when you rented a bicycle. I will however have a look into which children are offering guests bicycles for rent and ask them not to do so in the future. So I thank you for bringing this to our attention.
In all it’s a pity your stay and review thereof consisted of a first time issue, a very rare occurrence of a pre-planned party (which all the other guests were highly in favour of) and an interaction with someone not associated with the hotel. If you could take these three issues out, as they would be for the vast majority of people staying at Coral Rock, you’d find a different perspective all-together.
What the booking system also shows is that there were no early check-out during this period, which means that there was nothing regarding rooms or events that could have constituted a substantial enough an issue for someone to elect to leave Coral Rock, everyone was happy enough to stay on for the full duration of their bookings.
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This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of TripAdvisor LLC
