That's the name - Africa House! Right on the water with great views for sunsets. When we passed on our way back to E&G (where we were staying) the deck was already full of visitors with their sundowners. Can't comment about the food, but this is a great alternative to meet, chat and enjoy the sunset.

Congratulations to your marriage, and a great honeymoon-trip.

I just wanted to comment on Mave Ninga and say that I feel the same about it as you do.

It is a lovely place with great staff, but it feels as you have to drive a bit to long before you see any animals. The food was ok but not more for us, even if I did have some problems one evening when they had peanut soup for starters, steak with peanut sauce as main course and topped it up with some kind of peanut-bakery as dessert...

no i didnt complain to management, as we were on honeymoon and didnt really want to ruin our happy moods with complaints and stuff, we are planning on telling ATR though once we are settled.

the drives between places and parks was fine, and the jeep wasnt brand new but was in good condition.

oh forgot to say

bat - we didnt stay in the asali suite in pongwe as it was booked already.
we had one of the new suites with a 2nd storey deck. I would highly recommend the new suites. there are 6 of them and most of them seem to have sea views from the 2nd storey decks. ah bliss, just thinking back about that suite :o)
I think if i had got to matemwe beach village and we were staying in one of the older normal huts, i wouldve been really disappointed (especially after coming from pongwe)

The asali suite did seem to be amazing though, and everyone who stayed there seemed to be very chilled and happy looking.

Matemwe bungalows is on a different beach altogether. its a few kms from matemwe beach village. We went by the bungalows one day on a boat and they look gorgeous. and the beach seems to be nice too.

hope that helps

I agree with others here!

My choice for a romantic dinner in Stone Town is the Tradewinds Restaurant in the Africa House Hotel.

www.theafricahouse-zanzibar.com

There are other choices outside Stone Town that require a taxi ride.

Now I know why the genets were so fat at Oldupai camp! They are the dishwashers! Yikes!

I happen to know Alex too and certainly agree with amfs!

Bat, if you can get Edward or Alex you will be in good hands!

Thanks amfs:
OMG on the Olduvai story! Maybe I need to add paper plates to the list of items to pack. PLEASE let ATR know about this. If I tell my rep. I saw it on a travel forum, he can be more dismissive of it than if you report it directly to them.

Thanks for the guide's name, the restaurant in Stonetown, and the info on Matemwe. I found researching the beaches of Zbar to be rather difficult. I had imagined that the 2 properties (M. Beach Village and M. Bungalows were on separate locations on the same beach. I think that I will try walking between the 2 when we are there to get a better fix on it.
Thanks again climbhigh for Edward's name --increases our chances of getting a particularly good guide.

amfs:
I've been googling--I think that the name of the restaurant the owner of Pongwe recommended to you is Mtoni Marine--gets good reviews, described as "fusion."
BTW, is a former English chef still the owner at Pongwe? I remember reading that which supposedly accounted for the good food.

yeah thats the name of the restaurant at stonetown. its supposed to be very nice.

the owner at pongwe is english, but i dont know if he was a chef, sorry!

Congrats on your marriage and fantastic honeymoon, and thank you for this trip report!
We are doing a shortened version of this in January, with the Kili climb. These details are so helpful, I will have to email this to myself so I can come back and read again just before the trip - especially the restaurant comments!

Thanks again!

Thanks for the detailed info about the food--we will be staying at Mawe Ninga and Olduvai as well. I can handle "not that good," but I really, really, REALLY don't want anyone in our party to get sick. When we went on our budget camping safari, we had lots of cold chicken in our lunches and ate it with no problems whatsoever. I guess our cook was doing a good job. :)

Also, thanks for your guide's name. I would love to get Alex.

Once again, congratulations.

i just want to say....it might not have been the chicken that made my hubbie and alex sick, but it was the only thing i didnt eat. so either i have a VERY strong stomach or it was the chicken.

we found out when we got home from honeymoon that we are expecting a baby :o) so i am really glad i wasnt sick!!! the baby was conceived in moivaro lodge but i dont think we'll be calling him/her 'moivaro' :o)

do you think if i wrote to them and told them that they'd give us a free nights stay??? ;o)

Fantastic news amfs - congratulations to you both. I don't think we will repeat your efforts at Moivaro.

Congrats--perhaps a swahili name.

Congratulations!!! That is wonderful news.

Congratulations amfs on the news of your pregnancy! How exciting!

It's so funny that you also mentioned the boxed lunches - you and I definitely had a lot of the same thoughts while away... I actually really enjoyed our breakfasts and dinners at the camps while on safari (it sounds like the menus were similar to yours, but the food was extremely fresh!), but I considered the boxed lunches my enemy :-))

The first couple days of safari, I would eat the boxed lunches. I would often get slightly sick after lunch, and some days I'd eat more of the lunch than others. It wasn't until we were doing our highland trekking that I really thought about the whole thing - the fact that the box contained meat which presumably had been cooked over the fire the night before, sat in a cooler overnight, and then sat in one of our backpacks all morning long (in over 100 degree heat!), getting beat down on by the sun... and then we'd eat it?!?!? This came to me after I got very sick to my stomach after eating one of the boxed lunches, felt faint - I never ate one again. I would often take the drinking box, the bun and the chocolate bar for me to eat, and get rid of the rest. My husband ate the lunches though and didn't seem to have too much of a problem - guess it depends on the person and their stomach (and I'm sure that it didn't help that we'd be eating the lunches after hiking km upon km in the sweltering heat)!

If I'm not mistaken, it was Africa House that I was referring to where we enjoyed a wonderful dinner in Stonetown! We sat on their "rooftop" patio restaurant (it had a somewhat set menu) for some drinks while watching sunset and then enjoyed lobster and steak dinners, all for around the same price as the E&G would have been. We sat there all night - comfortable, in our own seats, and the food was really good.

dlo - I'm so glad to hear that you'll be doing a similar itinerary to ours - because I really loved our itinerary! It was a physically challenging itinerary at some points (are you climbing Lengai and Meru too??!), but we loved every minute. I'm so jealous - 3 months away from Canadian winter!!! And in Tanzania no less!!! Have we seen your trip report? I don't remember... please let me know where I can find it - I'd love to take a look!

Jenn

Now that I think about it, I'm amazed that we didn't get sick from our box lunch too. We only had one box lunch meal our entire trip but it was in Tsavo where temps reached nearly 100 degrees during the day and I have no idea how our lunches were stored in the vehicle. I never looked and didn't even think to ask.

Also considering the high quality of the meals we had at this camp, I was pretty disappointed to find that our boxed lunch consisted of cheese sandwiches and a piece of roast chicken (do all box lunches have chicken in them? ;) ). They did however provide us with crystal glasses for our wine. Perhaps the alcohol killed the bacteria :D

I completely forgot to say congrats, amfs! :)

We often had hard-boiled eggs, in addition to the roast chicken, the cheese sandwich, the sliced veggies, apple, cookies, chocolate and juice/water (wow, those boxed lunches were BIG). I usually ate just that and the Cadbury, plus a bit of the fruit and a few bites of chicken.

I've since become a fan of hard-boiled eggs. They fill you up but don't really mess with your stomach at all. And of course, neither does chocolate. ;)

Whoops, of course I meant to say that what I *mainly* ate out of the boxed lunch was the egg.

And the candy...

You're right Leely - the boxed lunches were big... and they usually did have a hard-boiled egg in there too (although the thought of it sitting out didn't sit well with me either...). In fact, the whole discussion of the lunch boxes is making me feel sick right now :-)))