Hôtel Les Boucaniers

The location is nice, but the rooms aren’t sealed properly, leaving big gaps between the walls and roof where hundreds of mosquitoes get in every day. There was also extremely loud work right around the room, hammering and angle grinders and all sorts of noise. The air conditioning wasn’t functioning properly either. Making coffee in the room costs the same as ordering it at the restaurant. Breakfast was the smallest and most expensive in Nosy Be. A catastrophe. Take care.

The staff were amazing and the food was delicious, and we enjoyed everything else about the hotel. I stayed at Les Boucaniers for two weeks, but the internet was frustrating enough to bring my rating down to three stars. Wi-Fi didn’t work in our room, and even 4G wasn’t usable, despite a cellular tower on the hill behind the hotel. Late at night, the only place I could get a steady connection was outside reception, so I took work calls standing there. I’ve worked remotely for over a year, and Nosy Be is the only place where internet has been a problem.

My room was lovely, with a ceiling fan, its own balcony, and hot water in the shower. It’s a nice hotel at the top end of Ampanalaoka.

The hotel is fairly close to the centre, but getting around after dark meant walking through very dark streets that felt unsafe. Inside, the place seemed poorly maintained: large holes in the worn floor, stained sheets that still looked clean, and a mosquito net so dirty it seemed not to have been washed for ages. Some windows had no screens, so we spent a lot of time killing mosquitoes, and we woke up with ants under the pillows. Some friends had water leaking into their bathroom from the upstairs neighbours. They were moved to another room, but it had no air conditioning. These problems didn’t seem isolated. I wouldn’t recommend the run-down hotel. I don’t know what the other hotels are like, and the city itself didn’t interest me much. At night, the atmosphere felt heavy and unpleasant.