Ocean Beach Hotel & Spa

We stayed for 14 days in room 301, a beachfront room with its own infinity pool and a beach shared with around 15 other rooms. It was very clean, and the cleaning staff were polite. The bathroom was spacious, with a regular shower as well as a large bathtub in a separate outdoor bathroom at the back. Breakfast was plentiful: fruit, juice, coffee, tea, milk, cereal, English breakfast, omelets, pancakes, waffles, bread, cakes, cheese, and ham. The reception and restaurant staff were both helpful and polite. The restaurant and pool areas looked beautiful, though the outdoor spaces around the terraces could have been better maintained.

Dinner was the one part of the food that stood out, with a different cuisine each evening. Breakfast, though, felt repetitive, with little variety day to day. The service overall needs a lot of improvement. The Wi-Fi was painfully slow and only worked at reception, so guests had to bring their phones or laptops there to get online. There was no help with luggage at check-in or checkout. Reception also closed at 8:30 PM and stayed closed until sometime in the morning, which felt like a serious gap. The receptionist didn’t know the hotel’s own email address either, making it hard to communicate. My room had poorly fitted bedroom and bathroom windows that stayed partly open, letting insects and lizards in. Their faulty mechanisms made them difficult to close. From the first day, the receptionist repeatedly reminded me to pay the city tax during my three-day stay. A bill was left in my room the day before checkout, even though I’d clearly said I would pay when leaving. I hope management addresses these recurring problems so guests can have a more comfortable, professional stay.

The restaurant attached to the hotel was overpriced, and the food wasn’t good. The rooms felt like an old, outdated hospital, and the whole place seemed rundown. At reception, the staff didn’t seem to care about making guests feel welcome.

Beach Kitchen was the best part of our stay. The food and service there were superb, and we enjoyed eating there once or twice a day. The rooms were nice, with huge, comfortable bathrooms, and the chefs were friendly. We’d also come across the hotel while looking for a place to stay, and the reception itself looked nice. We booked three rooms for five nights, starting that same night, but Sangita said the rooms couldn’t be viewed without an appointment. We insisted, and the rooms turned out to be nice, though quite a long walk away. At check-in, the receptionist was eating lunch and told us to wait until she finished before checking us in. Breakfast was the same each day, with little variety and very weak service. The waiters looked tired. I asked Sangita twice for a birthday cake for my mother’s 70th, but it never arrived, whether through reception or the breakfast restaurant. I’d even given the staff a personal cake to share. The manager still wanted to charge me for a takeaway box. The hotel advertises five free water sports. We asked about them every day, but reception said the trainer had hurt his foot and offered no alternative, even though we were there for five nights and celebrating my mum’s birthday with friends. One night there were roaches in a room, and two of our bathrooms had lots of ants. We called the Burundi receptionist, who told us to come pick up spray. That was poor service. The shampoo, shower gel, and conditioner bottles were only a quarter full. When I asked for refills, the housekeeper said to finish what was left first and then she’d refill them. I insisted, and it was sorted the next day. When I asked Sangita what she’d do about the missing cake and water sports, she said not to worry and that she’d sort something out. Nothing happened before we left. On Sunday, I called reception to have someone collect our suitcases, but was told nobody was working to help. About 30 minutes later, someone I think was a manager came for them. Since the rooms were far from reception, our taxi drove closer to pick up the luggage. We saw the owner at Beach Kitchen on his laptop several times, though I’m not sure why we didn’t speak to him about our stay. We left unhappy. Beach Kitchen was the only reason we stayed, and we wouldn’t return.