Why Here

This was the second part of my mother-daughter trip, after our Safari in Kenya

Money Exchange

You can exchange to TZS at the airport

Visa and Vaccines

Upon arrival, you deplane to the tarmac and walk into the small airport. However, before being allowed entry, you are met by an official who takes your temple temperature and then checks your yellow card for proof of yellow fever vaccination. I had my card ready, my mother did not (though she had it with proof of exemption) and so I had to tell the officer that she could not get the vaccination because of her age. He asked her age and believed our response without further inquiry and granted us entry. We filled out our custom papers and purchased our E-Visa on Arrival.

After finally passing through customs, we came to an empty conveyor belt. Not again (see Kenya luggage debacle)!! We quickly learned that our bags would not be arriving. Not just our bags, the entire plane's bags! They boarded a full flight but didn't send any of our bags. So the entire plane stood in line to fill out baggage claim information with one single agent assisting all 80+ passengers. 

My mom and I finally completed our forms after about 90 minutes in line and grabbed a lone taxi from the lot at around 1am to our hotel. Luckily there was no traffic, so we arrived at our hotel in about 10 minutes

Hotel in Zanzibar

Park Hyatt Zanzibar

Despite my disgust from the repeated luggage debacle and exhaustion from the extremely long day, I was still in awe of this gorgeous hotel.

What to do

The following morning we had our luggage delivered (thank God) to our hotel, and we arranged a private guided tour of the city with our concierge.

After our tour, we checked out and meet with our driver at the hotel to take us to Matemwe Beach about 1 hour away.

Hotel in Matemwe

Air BnB 

This was an entire 3-bedroom home located directly on the beach. The ground also houses a small guest house and a full-time security guard and gardener. The Airbnb host also arranged the driver, as mentioned above. Along our drive, we stopped at a grocery store to buy some groceries as there are no stores once you get to the Beach.